Joshua Braillier (MDiv, 2016) took quite a leap when he left a premier law school for Naropa’s Buddhist divinity program. “I’ve come to think of the student loan burden from law school and Naropa as my life’s equivalent of Milarepa building Marpa’s towers: a burden that purifies the karma of my past misdeeds in order to grant me access to the teachings and practices that will guide me to liberation, so that I may benefit others.”
In addition to bringing him “the most sacred and profound gift of my life, the Buddhadharma,” Naropa equipped Braillier with the academic tools and the linguistic skills in Tibetan and Sanskrit he needed to continue pursuing his scholarly career. He earned a second master’s degree in Buddhist studies from CU Boulder and is pursuing a PhD in Buddhist Studies and Gender Studies at Northwestern University, where he serves as graduate coordinator for The Khyentse Foundation Buddhist Studies Lecture Series at Northwestern. During his master’s and doctoral degrees, Braillier has spent two and a half years living in Buddhist communities across the Himalayas in India and Nepal, “improving [his] Tibetan by living with Tibetans in exile.”
Braillier is currently conducting dissertation research in India on a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship. “I specialize in the study of masculinity and Vajrayana Buddhism, and I’m particularly interested in the ways that religion conditions and shapes gendered subjectivity,” he explains. “In my dissertation, I focus on the life, writings, and legacy of the tantric master Do Khyentsé Yeshé Dorjé, a wild yogi from the eastern Tibetan region of Golok who was famed for his mercurial life and unconventional conduct…I hope to uncover how Vajrayana Buddhists understand the relationship between masculinity and violence. My work stems from an enduring commitment to intersectional liberation (feminist, queer, BIPOC), and the conviction that healing the deep wounds of white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy requires men to step up to the plate and undertake the painful and vigorous work of genuine transformation.”
