Elon Goldstein

Elon Goldstein is a scholar and teacher in a number of interrelated academic fields: the comparative study of religion; South Asian religions (Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions); East Asian religions (Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian traditions); religion and literature, especially with regard to Asian literatures; and the emerging field of contemporary spirituality, psychology, and higher human developmental frameworks informed by the social sciences. Within the aforementioned areas, one of Goldstein's particular, long-standing interests is the comparative study of meditation, of contemplative or mystical practices, of spiritual disciplines, and of religious and cultural technologies meant for the transformation of individuals and communities, past and present. This interest includes the study of shamanic practices of indigenous peoples as well as Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Daoist approaches for positively constructing persons and societies. Similarly, Goldstein tracks contemporary intersections among psychology, the social sciences (e.g. cognitive science), the humanities (philosophy, critical theory), and spirituality in terms of how those interactions contribute to the creation of new frameworks for our understanding of higher human potentials in present-day life.

As a historian of religion, Goldstein studies the ways in which Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and other South Asian traditions both influenced each other and differed while together they shaped the larger culture of South Asia for three thousand years from 1500 BCE to 1500 CE. As a scholar of Buddhist Studies, he explores how Buddhists from across varied traditions of Asia have differently understood the nature of their religious exemplars, their final religious goals, and their paths. One aspect of his research addresses South Asian Sanskritic literature of all kinds--poetry, drama, prose--in terms of that literature's ethical, emotional, cognitive, and religious import. Another area of research deals with Buddhist scriptures, the development of Mahayana Buddhism in South Asia and in Tibet, and tantra across traditions in South Asian as well as in Tibet.

Alongside his teaching at Brandeis, Goldstein continues to be Lecturer in Buddhist Studies at Harvard Divinity School where from 2017 to the present he has taught (to graduate and undergraduate students) wide-ranging courses on Buddhism related to issues of contemporary relevance and past historical significance. Previously, Goldstein served as Assistant Professor of Buddhism, Asian Religions, and Psychology and Religion at the main campus of the University of South Carolina, Columbia from 2014 to 2017.

A former public school teacher with a degree in education, Goldstein assists the Sarnath International Nyingma Institute (www.sinibridge.org) with educational projects for a large consortium serving tens of thousands of Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns located in India, Nepal, Bhutan, and other parts of Asia. He has spent years at different periods over past decades living, studying, and practicing with Buddhist meditation masters and communities from Thai, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Outside of academia, he is on the faculty of Dharma College (dharma-college.com) where online he teaches on the transformative power of meditative inquiry and on newly envisioning Buddhist teachings for present-day life in America. As a guest faculty member at the Nyingma Institute (nyingmainstitute.com), he also occasionally teaches online courses on traditional Buddhist practices and understandings. He also serves as a guest teacher at the Vedanta Society, a worldwide Hindu organization.

Goldstein keeps informed about contemporary Buddhist and other related spiritual teachers, communities, and issues across the world. In his academic teaching, he advocates a questioning, historically grounded, open-minded approach to the study of religion. In order to think well beyond and outside of any given religious tradition, he firstly emphasizes to his university students the need to build an empathetic understanding--to whatever degree that may be possible--toward the spiritual ideals, transformations, traits, and experiences valued by the major figures within a given religious tradition throughout history.