This course introduces key concepts of Indian Buddhist thought. Over five lectures, Bee explains the fundamental themes and problems of Buddhist philosophy, from the early Buddhist teachings on "suffering", "karma", and "No-Self" to the later scholasticism and the famous schools of thought around "emptiness" and "mind-only". Each chapter introduces another layer of Buddhist philosophical development and depth. The course forms a very clear and intriguing introduction to the wealth of Buddhist thought.

• Session One: Introduction - Buddhism as religion, philosophy, or psychology? Modernism and Buddhist thought; the Buddha and the Four Noble Truths
• Session Two: Understanding the Four Noble Truths - unsatisfactoriness, afflicting emotions, nirvana, and the eightfold path
• Session Three: Buddhist psychology of no-self - heaps of grasping, dependent arising, and cause and effect (karma)
• Session Four: Buddhist ontology. Scholasticism and reality (Abhidharma); perfection of wisdom and emptiness (Madhyamaka)
• Session Five: Buddhist metaphysics. Mind and Buddha-nature

Professor Bee Scherer, PhD, is a long-time practitioner of Buddhism and has been globally teaching as a Buddhist lay teacher. Bee currently serves as the vice-chair of the International Lay Buddhist Forum.

After the study of classics, Indic (Sanskrit, Pāli, Prakrits) and Tibetan philology in Germany and the United States, completed by a PhD (Groningen, The Netherlands 2002), Bee published among others on karma; Nāgārjuna and early mind-only; and, in recent years, on transnational Tibetan Buddhism; radical, reform, and socially engaged Buddhism in Asia; and on Buddhist perspectives on gender and sexuality.

Currently, Bee is chair (full professor) in religious studies and gender studies at Canterbury Christ Church University and directs the INCISE research institute (incise.center).

As a trans/non-binary scholar-cum-activist Bee has established the interdisciplinary, transnational Queering Paradigms Social justice academic network and conference series.

Prof. Scherer has authored more than a dozen monographs and edited volumes in German, Dutch, and English, among which features the substantial Introduction to Buddhism (2005, in German) with a foreword by HH. The Dalai Lama.