Review of Steven Collins’s Wisdom as a Way of Life: Theravāda Buddhism Reimagined

Abstract

About a month before Steven Collins’s untimely death in February 2018, he sent a message to many of his friends and colleagues inviting them to comment upon a manuscript that he had just finished. It was titled “Civilization, Wisdom, Practices of Self: Theravad̄a Buddhism Seen Anew.” I met with him for lunch just a few days later, and he explained that he intended the book to be his last; with his impending retirement he was looking forward to leaving academics and devoting his time to his grandchildren—for, as he put it, the relation of grandparent to grandchild was the sole unproblematic human relation he had found—and to reading more poetry. For the moment, he welcomedquestions and criticismon themanuscript, which, he imagined, would “shake a lot of people up, for good or for ill.” Although he had indeed completed a preliminary text, the work was as yet unannotated and beganwith the caveat, “this is a draft version.” With Steve’s passing, although he hadmade it clear to all that he intended the manuscript for publication, it was equally clear that he would not have wished to see it in print “as is.” Besides the unfinished business of the notes and whatever other apparatus he may have planned, his circulation of it in advance explicitly signaled a perceived need for critical feedback before it could be readied for press. It therefore required considerable courage, perhaps even some temerity, for Justin McDaniel, who knew Steve well, to undertake the difficult task of editing Wisdom as a Way of Life for publication. He was aided in this by the access to Steve’s books and papers accorded to him by Steve’s wife, Claude Grangier. Those familiar with Steve’s earlier work will be profoundly grateful to them both for realizing the appearance in print of this, his final contribution to Buddhist Studies.