on technology and human relationships at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley. “He’s always interested in finding ways that ideas can be meaningful in life and can impact the world.” Of all the ideas that Wright exemplifies in his approach to teaching, perhaps none is more important than the Buddhist concept of upaya, or the skillful means that a bodhisattva employs to guide beings toward enlightenment. For Wright, that entails getting to know Photos by David Gautreau (2003) and John Kruissink (1981) many of his students as individuals and tailoring his lessons and feedback to their different backgrounds and ways of learning. “For me, upaya is the crucial teaching concept,” says Wright, 69. “What it involves is recognizing that every person in every hisvery year on the last day of torical period has their own unique needs his popular Buddhist Thought and capacities and therefore has to be comcourse, Professor Dale S. Wright opens the municated with through different means. floor for questions from his students. after you have to be able to adjust your methods deftly clarifying some of the finer points of depending on who you’re talking to and in Buddhist philosophy, he hesitates before re- what context.” sponding to the personal question on every“What sets him apart is his ability to see one’s mind that one student will invariably the most important idea in what he’s reading ask: are you a Buddhist? or discussing and then get right to the heart It’s not a surprising question, since reli- of it,” says Malek Moazzam-Doulat ’92, an gious studies students tend to be curious assistant professor of religious studies at about the inner lives of others, and Wright Occidental, who has known Wright both as fosters an atmosphere in which stua mentor and colleague. In dents feel free to ask anything they recent years, the two have want. But there is an urgency behind co-taught a popular course it that reveals an important quality called What Is enlightenof Wright’s brilliance as a teacher and ment? mentor. as a scholar of religion— “We will be having a conhaving an academic interest in the versation in preparation for traditional way that people find teaching a class together, and meaning in their lives—there is a it will be as scholarly and erudeep resonance between his intellecdite as any I’ve had,” Moaztual pursuits and his way of being. zam-Doulat explains. “But after 38 years at Occidental, Living Wright: Photos then we’ll start the class and from 1981, soon after Wright is retiring from the class- his arrival at Oxy, and Dale will just produce this room this spring. His ability to from 2003, above left. lucid jewel of a thought—simground his scholarship with levity ple, profound—and find a and practicality has profoundly influenced way to explain it to first-year college students generations of students. “He has this way of that connects with them in their lives. That simple, direct communication that situates ability to hone something so complex and difyou clearly and comfortably within a dense ficult into its most essential form and then to web of ideas,” says ashby Kinch ’92, a pro- present it so that it communicates directly— fessor of english and associate dean at the that’s just inspiring.” University of Montana. How is Wright able to do this? Moazzam“Dale is a true intellectual and a very Doulat believes it comes down to one of his deep thinker, but he doesn’t get lost in ab- basic ethical principles: generosity. “He just straction for abstraction’s sake,” adds Steven insists on reading and interpreting texts and Barrie-anthony ’04, who directs a program people generously. He engages with their 34 OCCIDENTAL MAGAZINE
SPRING 2018
strongest case rather than just identifying their weak points,” he says. “a hermeneutics of generosity—that’s about as apt a name for Dale’s work and teaching as I can imagine.” A native of San Diego, Wright was introduced to Buddhism early in life and close to his home in vista. When he was 13, his family volunteered to host their town’s one foreign exchange student, a 17-year-old high school senior from Bangkok—a Buddhist. Wright was immediately smitten by this “older woman” in his life and, after seeing her meditating one day, asked her to teach him how. “although it seemed utterly pointless to me at the time, I wasn’t about to ruin the chance to be with her,” he says. “Some years after her departure, I realized that she had let me in on an incredible secret, and I have pursued or dabbled in meditation practices ever since.” Wright stayed close to home for college, attending San Diego State University with his older sister. after changing his major six times, he settled on religious studies after taking classes with an inspirational teacher named allan anderson. anderson was instrumental in creating a new kind of academic department focused on the secular study of religion. Wright’s secular parents were confused by their son’s decision. “They didn’t know what I was doing and neither did I,” he says. “But I had the sense that there was a spiritual dimension to human life, that I was unfamiliar with it, and that I wanted to learn more about it.” He began reading and studying more fervently after graduating from college, immersing himself in philosophy, literature, art, and music. “Chinese Buddhist texts just kept growing on me,” he says. “So I started looking around for graduate programs where I could study religion and learn the Chinese language.” In 1980, Wright completed his doctorate from the University of Iowa. “It occurred to me in graduate school that being a professor means you get to read and write for the rest of your life,” he says. “If you can get paid to do what you want to do, what could be better than that?” Following a stint as an instructor at Washington and Lee University during the 1979-80 academic year, Wright was hired at Occidental and, with the exception of two years as a visiting professor at Waseda University in Tokyo, he has taught at Oxy ever