The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice

Paula Arai is Professor of Buddhist Studies at Louisiana State University, holding the Urmila Gopal Singhal Professorship in Religions of India. She is author of Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra--The Buddhist Art of Iwasaki Tsuneo, Women Living Zen: Japanese Buddhist Nuns, and Bringing Zen Home: The Healing Heart of Japanese Buddhist Women's Rituals. Her research has received a range of support, including from Fulbright and the American Council of Learned Societies. She has curated exhibits of Iwasaki's Heart Sutra paintings at the Museum of Art at Louisiana State University, the Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas, and the Morikami Museum in Delray Beach Florida. Kevin Trainor is Professor of Religion at the University of Vermont. His work has centered on Buddhist relic practices in South Asia, highlighting the centrality of material mediations of the Buddha's presence and the importance of embodied practices in the formation and dissemination of early Buddhist traditions in India and Sri Lanka. His publications, as author or editor, include Relics, Ritual and Representation in Buddhism: Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Theravada Tradition, Embodying the Dharma: Buddhist Relic Veneration in Asia, co-edited with David Germano, Buddhism: The Illustrated Guide, and Relics in Comparative Perspective