Paul Williams (British professor)
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Professor Paul Williams, BA, DPhil (b. 1950) is Professor in Indian Religions at the University of Bristol, England. He is also director for the university's Centre for Buddhist Studies.
Williams studied at the University of Sussex's School of African & Asian Studies where he graduated with a first class BA in 1972. He then went on to study Buddhist Philosophy at Wadham College, University of Oxford, where he was awarded his DPhil in 1978.
His main research interests are Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy, Prasangika Madhyamaka and Virtue Ethics. Williams was a Buddhist himself for many years but has since converted to Roman Catholicism.
[edit] Quotation
"One reason why I think my Buddhism was always deep down a sham is that I never really had much of a story to tell about why I became a Buddhist. If asked, I responded with some embarrassment that I had spent so many years studying Buddhism that I had come to see the world as a Buddhist does. It just happened. (I wonder if people who spend many years studying slugs come to see the world as a slug?) Actually, there was no process of conversion at all, and even though in 1978 I finally went through the ceremony of ‘Taking Refuge’ in a Tibetan Buddhist context, I now think no real conversion took place. So I wasn’t always a Buddhist." (The Unexpected Way, Introduction).
[edit] Select bibliography
Buddhism: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies, Edited and with a new introduction by Paul Williams (London: Routledge, 2005). Eight volumes.
Songs of Love, Poems of Sadness: The Erotic Verse of the 6th Dalai Lama (IB Taurus, 2004).
The Unexpected Way: On Converting from Buddhism to Catholicism (London: T & T Clark, 2002).
Buddhist Thought: A Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition (London: Routledge, 2000).
Altruism and Reality: Studies in the Philosophy of the Bodhicaryavatara (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1998).
The Reflexive Nature of Awareness: A Tibetan Madhyamaka Defence (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1998).
Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (London: Routledge,1989).
