(By Tsem Rinpoche and Pastor Shin Tan) Dr. Edward Conze is known as the foremost Western scholar of Prajnaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) literature, and the best way to introduce this great intellectual and his work is his insight into Wisdom (below), which is one of the Five Spiritual Faculties or indriya (Pali/Sanskrit). This set of five faculties is one of the seven sets of qualities conducive to Enlightenment, as praised by Lord Buddha. Dr. Conze’s mother once described him as ‘a bundle of contradictions’. While he was known as an erudite scholar, he was unfortunately also infamous for his caustic, often outrageous temperament, which earned him an intriguing and contradictory reputation. Yet, Dr. Conze almost single-handedly made the Prajnaparamita Sutras, the fundamental scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism, available to the English-speaking world. In the 1940s and 50s, objective scholars were not supposed to become involved with the subjects they were studying. Thus, Dr. Edward Conze was an eccentric figure as he was a practising Buddhist who would end up inspiring a new group of practising Buddhist scholars in the West. As mentioned in ‘Wind Bell’ in 1972, it would have been practically impossible to study Zen or Mahayana Buddhism in the West […]