Buddhism and Postmodern Imaginings in Thailand
This book presents a rethink on the significance of Thai Buddhism in an increasingly complex and changing post-modern urban context, especially following the financial crisis of 1997. Defining the cultural nature of Thai 'urbanity'; the implications for local/global flows, interactions and emergent social formations, James Taylor opens up new possi
Zen Antics
Throughout Zen history, stories and anecdotes of Zen masters and their students have been used as teaching devices to exemplify the enlightened spirit. Unlike many of the baffling dialogues between Zen masters preserved in the koan literature, the stories retold here are penetratingly simple but with a richness and subtlety that make them worth reading again and again. This collection includes more than one hundred such stories--many appearing here in English for the first time--drawn from a wide variety of sources and involving some of the best-known Zen masters, such as Hakuin, Bankei, and Shosan. Also presented are stories and anecdotes involving famous Zen artists and poets, such as Sengai and Basho.
Following in Your Footsteps, Volume II
Following in Your Footsteps: The Lotus-Born Guru in India presents the incredible feats of Guru Padmasambhava in the Indian subcontinent. This tantric embodiment of awakening spent hundreds of years training with the greatest masters of India, practicing in charnel grounds, protecting the Dharma, and spreading these marvelous teachings far and wide. The Lotus-Born Guru in India explores the sacred sites where Guru Padmasambhava's activities unfolded. Closely following Orgyen Lingpa's Pema Kathang: The Chronicles of Padma-one of the single most important treasure biographies of Guru Padmasambhava-these narratives are interwoven with rare accounts and visions from realized Tibetan masters such as Jamyang Khyents矇 Wangpo, Chokgyur Dechen Lingpa and Jamyang Khyents矇 Ch繹kyi Lodr繹. The Lotus-Born Guru in India offers a translation of Jamyang Khyents矇 Wangpo's summary prayer of the Pema Kathang, along with teachings by the contemporary Tibetan masters Neten Chokling Rinpoch矇 and Phakchok Rinpoch矇. You will also find a collection of essential supplications and prayers-in both English and Tibetan-and beautifully rendered paintings to guide and inspire your journey into this miraculous world. The Lotus-Born Guru in India is the second of a three-part series tracing the arc of Guru Padmasambhava's journey across the ages and landscapes of India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet. Lhasey Lotsawa has collected some of the most treasured stories from these sacred places, and presents it here as an authentic source of wisdom and inspiration. These books are essential companions for anyone who wishes to truly follow in the footsteps of the Lotus-Born Guru.
Mysticism and Intellect in Medieval Christianity and Buddhism
This book examines two religious leaders--Bonaventure, a medieval Franciscan theologian, and Chinul, a medieval Korean Zen master--and their efforts to integrate the intellectual and spiritual life. It also explores associated tensions between positive and negative modes of discourse on the divine and between immanence and transcendence.
Pilgrims Until We Die
The Shikoku pilgrimage, a 1400 kilometre, eighty-eight temple circuit around Japan's fourth largest island, takes around forty days by foot, or one week by car. Historically, Buddhist ascetics walked it without ceasing, creating a tradition of unending pilgrimage that continues in the present era, both by pilgrims on foot and by others in cars. Some spend decades walking the pilgrimage, while others drive it repeatedly, completing hundreds of pilgrimage circuits. Most are retired and make the pilgrimage the centre of their post-work lives. Others who work full-time spend their holidays and weekends as pilgrims. Some have only done the pilgrimage a few times but already imagine themselves as unending pilgrims and intend to do it "until we die". They talk happily of being addicted and having Shikokuby?, 'Shikoku illness', portraying this 'illness' and addiction as blessings. Featuring extensive fieldwork and interviews, this study of Japan's most famous Buddhist pilgrimage presents new theoretical perspectives on pilgrimage in general, along with rich ethnographic examples of pilgrimage practices in contemporary Japan. Pilgrims Until We Die counteracts normative portrayals of pilgrimage as a transient activity, defined by a temporary leave of absence from home to visit sacred places outside the parameters of everyday life, showing that many participants view pilgrimage as a way of creating a sense of home and permanence on the road. Examining how obsession, devotion, and a sense of addiction aided by modern developments and economic factors have created a culture of recurrent pilgrimage, Pilgrims Until We Die challenges standard understandings of pilgrimage.
The Nine Ways of Bon
To practising bonpos, Bon simply means the true religion of Tibet, while to Tibetan Buddhists, Bon refers to the false teachings and practices that were prevalent before Buddhism finally succeeded in gaining a firm hold on the country. The present study resulted from a period during which the author, a renowned scholar of Asian languages and cultures, was engaged in intense contact with practicing bonpos. It consists of the translation of fundamental texts of Bon, based on a manuscript of some 400 years of age, in which the entire Bon tantric practice is summarized. In many ways remarkably parallel to the early Buddhist teachings, much of the Bon tradition was subsequently incorporated back into Buddhism when that religion was formally adopted into Tibetan culture. This important study, first published in the 1960s and long out of print, will be welcomed by all with interest in the religions of the Himalayas.
Human Beings or Human Becomings?
Argues that Confucianism and other East Asian philosophical traditions can be resources for understanding and addressing current global challenges such as climate change and hunger.Great transformations are reshaping human life, social institutions, and the world around us, raising profound questions about our fundamental values. We now have the knowledge and the technical expertise, for instance, to realize a world in which no child needs to go to bed hungry-and yet, hunger persists. And although the causes of planetary climate disruption are well known, action of the scale and resolution needed to address it remain elusive.In order to deepen our understanding of these transformations and the ethical responses they demand, considering how they are seen from different civilizational perspectives is imperative.Acknowledging the rise of China both geopolitically and culturally, the essays in this volume enter into critical and yet appreciative conversations with East Asian philosophical traditions-primarily Confucianism, but also Buddhism and Daoism-drawing on their conceptual resources to understand what it means to be human as irreducibly relational. The opening chapters establish a framework for seeing the resolution of global predicaments, such as persistent hunger and climate disruption, as relational challenges that cannot be addressed from within the horizons of any ethics committed to taking the individual as the basic unit of moral analysis. Subsequent chapters turn to Confucian traditions as resources for addressing these challenges, reimagining personhood as a process of responsive, humane becoming and envisioning ethics as a necessarily historical and yet open-ended process of relational refinement and evolving values.
An Introduction to Zen Buddhism
No one has contributed more to the amazing interest in Zen Buddhism in the Western world than the author of this volume. Dr. Suzuki has dedicated his life to the subject of Zen, and to interpreting its philosophy and concepts for the Western reader. Of his more than a dozen works currently available in English, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism is most suitable as the basic text for the general reader interested in understanding Zen.After situating Zen both in Buddhism and in Oriental culture, Suzuki then answers the fundamental question "What is Zen?" in an incisive, lucid chapter that also refutes several misconceptions common in the West. Continually drawing on his extraordinary knowledge of both Eastern and Western cultures, philosophies, and religions, he illustrates each concept of Zen with concrete examples abounding in wit and wisdom. Zen is not only a philosophy-a way to self竅understanding-it is also "primarily and ultimately a discipline," and Dr. Suzuki gives due attention to the practical aspects of this discipline. More than any other volume on the subject, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism is an indispensable guide to an understanding of this rich, provocative subject.
The Analects: A Guide
The Analects (Lunyu) is the earliest and most influential record of the teachings of Kongzi (551-479 B.C.E.), known to most Westerners as "Confucius." If we measure influence according to the number of people who have lived their lives according to the teachings of a particular text, there isa good argument to be made that the Analects has been the most influential text in the world. This book argues that we have good reasons to study the Analects as a sacred text, and that doing so sheds light not only on the text and the Confucian tradition, but on what the sacred is, more broadly. It begins by examining what it means for a text to be regarded as sacred in relation to the unique history of this remarkably influential book, and goes on to offer a close study of the Analects, including its structure, its composition and compilation, and the purpose it has served in the Confuciantradition as the earliest and most authoritative record of Kongzi's teachings and conduct. The book further considers the history of the Analects as the most authoritative collection of Confucian teachings which virtually all major Confucians--as well as Chinese thinkers throughout history from theMohist, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions--responded. This book explores the text, situating its teachings in relation to the religious practices of its time (including Zhou rituals and customs known as li and the veneration of ancestor and nature spirits), and discusses the Analects use and receptionboth in the periods following its composition and compilation and throughout China's imperial history up through the modern era, including the recent revival of activity in Confucian temples.
The Hevajra Tantra
In this groundbreaking work, the author presents a full translation of, and commentary on, the Hevajra tantra, providing not only deep insight into arguably the most important surviving tantric Buddhist text but also placing the entire corpus of such works into a more accurate context. Snellgrove presents the Hevajra tantra, and tantric texts of this class, not as degenerate products of a faith at the time in terminal decline in India-as has often been claimed by puritanical scholars-but rather as a wholly legitimate expression of esoteric ritual and meditative practice developed as a natural evolution within the madhyamika tradition. While based primarily on Nepalese manuscript editions of the text, Snellgrove makes extensive reference to the Tibetan translation as well as to extant Indian commentaries. The first half of the work comprises an introduction and the actual translation with detailed annotations, while the second consists of the Romanized original Sanskrit and Tibetan texts and an extensive glossary.
This Precious Life
The tragic triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that occurred in northern Japan on March 11, 2011 hit a nation already in crisis; both economically and spiritually. This Precious Life takes us through the unfolding events of 2011 documenting efforts by Japanese Buddhist priests, temples, and organizations to respond to both the sudden disaster of the tsunami and the ongoing disaster of the nuclear power plants. While Japanese Buddhism has been struggling to recover its meaning for people in this highly modernized nation, the past year has shown its great ability to serve people in times of crisis and trauma. Meanwhile, Japanese Buddhism is slowly starting to take on the nuclear issue and deeper structural problems that face the nation. This Precious Life is filled with many moving stories from this epoch making year; provides a variety of critiques of both Japanese society and Japanese Buddhism; and a presents the work of a small group of Buddhist visionaries already working to create the new Japan of post 3/11.
The Age of Waiting
The Age of Waiting by Douglas J. Penick is a personal memoir enriched by the history of Buddhism and a re-telling of foundational Buddhist tales. Penick confronts not only his own mortality, but also that of the planet. This eloquent, impassioned investigation links our contemporary reality - with its medical, economic, and ecological emergencies - to an inner landscape which may prove more constant, durable, and transformative than we realize. "In this illuminating work, Penick explores contemporary crises using the frame of a classic story from Buddhism... By reflecting on personal as well as global issues, Penick models an unflinching but also compassionate orientation toward life." - Publisher's Weekly A brilliant, compassionate, heart-breakingly written, woven, acknowledgement of the unimaginable Anthropocene rolling toward us. Douglas Penick Writes with insight and wisdom, with Buddhist stories, with the life of the Buddha, with turning points in his life with his Teacher, Trungpa Rinpoche, and with touching, telling alightings from his own life from childhood until his aging (slightly) now. Well worth anything you can give to its reading, musing, in this vast humming, in this "Ocean of Buddhas." - Zentatsu Richard Baker
Monks, Money, and Morality
Vibrantly engaging contemporary Buddhist lives, this book focuses on the material and financial relations of contemporary monks, temples, and laypeople. It shows that rather than being peripheral, economic exchanges are key to religious debate in Buddhist societies. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in countries ranging from India to Japan, including all three major Buddhist traditions, the book addresses the flows of goods and services between clergy and laity, the management of resources, the treatment of money, and the role of the state in temple economies. Along with documenting ritual and economic practices, these accounts deal with the moral challenges that Buddhist adherents are facing today, thereby bringing lived experience to the study of an often-romanticized religion.
Powers of Protection
This sourcebook explores the most extensive tradition of Buddhist dhāraṇī literature and provides access to the earliest available materials for the first time: a unique palm-leaf bundle from the 12th-13th centuries and a paper manuscript of 1719 CE. The Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha collections have been present in South Asia, and especially in Nepal, for more than eight hundred years and served to supply protection, merit and auspiciousness for those who commissioned their compilation. For modern scholarship, these diverse compendiums are valuable sources of incantations and related texts, many of which survive in Sanskrit only in such manuscripts.
The Yijing: A Guide
Despite its enduring popularity both in China and worldwide, the Yijing is often poorly understood. As a divinatory text, it has a devoted following in the western hemisphere, even as it represents a foundational text of both Confucianism and Daoism. A fascination with the Yijing has been evident among western scholars since the Enlightenment, as well as in notable modern literary and artistic figures. This book provides an introduction for the general reader to this classic sacred text. Joseph A. Adler explains its multi-layered structure, its origins, its history of interpretation from the early first millennium BCE up to the present day, its function of divination, its significance in the history of Chinese thought, and its modern transformations. He explores why the Yijing has been considered the most profound expression of traditional Chinese thought and what meaning it can have for contemporary readers.
Bodhicaryavatara With Commentary
The 8th century Indian master Śāntideva's classic guide to the Buddhist path, the Bodhicaryāvatāra or 'Entering the Bodhisattva Conduct', is to this day one of the most popular and important works of the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition. Presented here in a new English translation, it is supplemented with a detailed commentary composed by Sonam Tsemo (1142-1182), one of the most celebrated masters of the Sakya school in Tibet. The commentary shines a brilliant light on Śāntideva's great work, clarifying every detail and resolving every difficult point. Translated into English from Tibetan for the first time, the commentary is an invaluable aid for all who wish for a full and deep understanding of the Bodhicaryāvatāra.Translated by Adrian O'Sullivan, a student of Lama Jampa Thaye for over two decades and a director of Sakya Samten Ling in Santa Monica, California. His previous translations include Tsarchen Losal Gyamtso's 'Opening the Door to Precious Accomplishments' (2005), 'Telescope of Wisdom' (2009) and 'The Lamp that Dispels Darkness' (2013), the latter two being translations of commentaries composed by the great Sakya and Karma Kagyu master Karma Thinley Rinpoche.
Monks, Money, and Morality
Vibrantly engaging contemporary Buddhist lives, this book focuses on the material and financial relations of contemporary monks, temples, and laypeople. It shows that rather than being peripheral, economic exchanges are key to religious debate in Buddhist societies. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in countries ranging from India to Japan, including all three major Buddhist traditions, the book addresses the flows of goods and services between clergy and laity, the management of resources, the treatment of money, and the role of the state in temple economies. Along with documenting ritual and economic practices, these accounts deal with the moral challenges that Buddhist adherents are facing today, thereby bringing lived experience to the study of an often-romanticized religion.
Bone of Space
Zen Master Seung Sahn is the first Korean Zen Master to live and teach in the West. After becoming disenchanted with academics and then radical politics as ways to help people understand life, he turned to Buddhism. Given transmission at the age of 22 by the famous Zen Master Ko Bong, Seung Sahn became the youngest Zen Master in Korea. After three years of silence, he worked to revitalize Korean Buddhism and became the abbot of five temples in Seoul. He taught in Japan, founding temples in Tokyo and Hong Kong; in 1972, he came to the United States and found the community of students which became the international Kwan Um School of Zen. "Bone of Space is in the remarkable tradition of Zen poetry begun in China in the T'ang dynasty, and today -- on the evidence of these poems -- as much alive as ever. As with the ancient poems, the best of which revealed wisdoms too deep for prose, these startle with their boldness, freshness, sharp intuitions. The collection should be thrust at once into the face of American Zen, and well beyond." Lucien Stryk
Kill Buddha
The texts in the book are dedicated to all seekers. The seekers know that the identifying search should be broken off. The compulsion to search for the ego keeps coming back endlessly. The ideas of one's own person and the identification in liberating teachings usually arise endlessly and over and over again. We get caught up in new thoughts all the time. Meditation and contemplation help: to free yourself again and again, to dissolve the mental hardening and aberrations again and again. Exploring the mind openly and freely with these short narratives and aphorisms can perhaps be a little help on the path of life.
The Cave of the Ancients
Behind the great Himalayan range, there lies all-seeing, all-knowing power and enlightenment.It is a way of life that may now be destroyed for all time, a spiritual culture with roots in the ancient world, the remote lamaseries of Tibet.It is here that T. Lobsang Rampa journeyed on the road to self-awareness, to these age-old repositories of wisdom -- where the Lamas learn the meaning of life and death, where the mysterious relationship between the mind and the brain is uncovered, where the secrets of hypnotism, telepathy, clairvoyance, and reincarnation are a part of daily life.Here too Rampa learned power -- but not for abuse or misuse. For the power of supreme enlightenment and universal knowledge is only offered to a chosen few, to those introduced to the strange and exciting world of . . .THE CAVE OF THE ANCIENTS
Revamp
A living tradition, Buddhism began as a way of working with the difficulties we all face as mortal, vulnerable, conscious beings. Its founder imbued this practice with an ethic of care, and teachings we can use today to interpret our experience and as a guide to full human flourishing.Since the Buddha's death, the dharma has been expressed in many ways in different cultural settings, and often these border crossings enriched it. But when the dharma appeared in religious guise, it became burdened with cosmic beliefs, its practice regimented, and was used as an instrument of social control, stifling the freedom at its heart.Secularity encourages a search for the good life in today's circumstances, not as prescribed by timeless myths. As part of the process of the dharma putting down roots in the west, secular Buddhism offers the vitality of the early dharma, free of religious distortions.Winton Higgins tracks the emergence of secular Buddhism with a focus on today's climate emergency and intensifying social injustice that cry out for radical socioeconomic and political change. The ethic of care that underpins a creative dharma practice, he suggests, calls on us to bring our training to bear on these urgent tasks.
Essential Summaries of Buddhist Teachings
This book was compiled in an effort to introduce the most basic things to those who want to learn about Buddhism, especially those who really want to practice Buddhist teachings. With rich references, the author has mentioned the most essential issues that Buddhists need to know well.This is a practical book in the first step of studying Buddhism, with the author's success in systemize many topics so readers can easily use it as a reference for many subjects. Therefore, we have decided to publish this book to make it available to the public, with the permission of the author himself. We sincerely thank Thien Phuc, the author, for his kind decision.We've received the draft in both English and Vietnamese, but it's not in bilingual print format. Instead, it's printed sequentially. To make it easier for readers to use this book, we've redisigned the book to publish in 3 seperate books.The first book is in Vietnamese, and the second is this one, an English version titled "Essential Summaries of Buddhist Teachings". The third book is printed in bilingual format, with both English and Vietnamese languages.We also provide the contents of these books for free on the website www.rongmotamhon.net. Only those who want a printed book will have to pay the cost of printing. May these efforts contribute to bringing the Dhamma to everyone.
Placating the Demons
This book critically examines dominant ceremonial practices in Sri Lanka. It presents key ideas and symbolic systems that exist to this day, in similar shapes or in different guises.
Zen Koans, Paradoxical Awakening
What comes to mind when you hear the word "koan"? You probably know koans as paradoxes, and you may believe that they are therefore illogical or intellectually inscrutable-and therefore not useful to the average person. Zen Koans: Paradoxical Awakenings is the tool you need to correct your perceptions of koans and become aware of the benefits of koan practice. Embracing the paradox of the koan can give deeper meaning to life, as well as leading to the Buddhist awakening to your real, non-dual nature. With an experienced Zen teacher as your guide, you can enter more deeply into the three essentials of Zen: great faith, great doubt, and great determination.
This is it
Each section of the book leads into the next, showing how, by peeling away our habitual assumptions and projections, we can directly encounter the intrinsic purity of our own mind. "This is it", Dzogchen, the great completion.The first facet, One Thing Leads to Another, offers sutra texts on dependent origination. The second, Increased Transparency, includes the Heart Sutra and indicates that all phenomena, whether seemingly outer or inner, subject or object, are empty and devoid of inherent existence. This leads onto the third facet Encountering the Other, the story of how the Buddha Chakrasamvara manifested in order to deal with cruelty and malicious behaviour. The fourth Facet, Getting Lost Invites Trouble, offers two accounts of how pride and self-confidence can lead a person astray so that their provocations lead to a display the Buddhas' wrathful power, enforcing transformation and the abrupt end to the careers of heartless bullies.Next, in the fifth facet, we see how transformation can be elective rather than imposed. Cutting Free begins with the story of Machig Labdron, her struggle to free herself from social constraints so that she could pursue a life in dharma. There is a short guru yoga practice and her Ch繹d practice, The Dakinis' Laughter. Finally in facet six, Just This is The Cuckoo Cry, the foundational text of the dzogchen mind series. In just three couplets it sets out the view, meditation and activity which are the inseparability of primordial purity and instant presence.
Mapping the Buddhist Path to Liberation
Due to the diversity in Buddhism, its essence remains a puzzle. This book investigates the Buddhist path to liberation from a practical and critical perspective by searching for patterns found in the Pāli Nikāyas and the Chinese Āgamas. The early discourses depict the Buddhist path as a network of routes leading to the same goal: liberation from suffering. This book summarizes various teachings in three aspects, provides a template theory for systematically presenting the formulas of the sequential training of the path, and analyses the differences and similarities among diverse descriptions of the path in the early Buddhist texts. By offering a comprehensive map of the Buddhist path, this book will appeal to scholars and students of Buddhist studies as well as those practitioners with a serious interest in the Buddhist path.
An Arrow to the Heart
The Heart Sutra is the most widely known and widely recited scripture in Mahayana Buddhism. This exciting, trail-blazing, non-traditional commentary takes the reader right into the emptiness of all experience through a delightfully irreverent combination of wit, irony, prose and poetry. In the words of Stephen Batchelor, author of Buddhism Without Beliefs, "Written in a voice that is neither pious nor academic, hectoring nor detached, An Arrow to the Heart is a fine example of the new wave in contemporary Buddhist writing. In its quietly relentless way, this pithy and unorthodox commentary to the Heart Sutra leaves you with nowhere to stand but right here." This second edition contains a new introduction by Peter Clothier, an internationally-known writer who specializes in writing about art and artists, McLeod's precise yet lucid translation of the Heart Sutra, and a line-by-line commentary on this enigmatic scripture. Each commentary starts with a short poem that raises questions or presents a series of images. The poem is followed by a short prose section that questions the text more deeply. A few interspersed notes provide information about the images, allusions, and references in the poetry and prose sections. The result is a kind of dance-a dance with words, ideas, images, quotations, and stories. Not infrequently the reader falls into a complete and unexpected stillness to dwell on a revealing line or a quotation, before being swept off again into a new direction. In this way McLeod realizes his aim-to elicit the experience of the sutra in the reader, rather than explain its meaning.In the words of one reader of the first edition, "What I love most about it is that it's not even a book, really - more the literary equivalent of yellowcake uranium, meant to blow the mind open to ultimate reality. This is book as verb, not noun - book as instigator of awareness."
Swampland Flowers
The writings of the twelfth-century Chinese Zen master Ta Hui are as immediately accessible as those of any contemporary teacher, and this book, which introduced them to the English-speaking world in the 1970s, has become a modern classic--a regular feature of recommended reading lists for Zen centers across America, even though the book has become difficult to find. We are happy to make the book available again after more than a decade of scarcity. J. C. Cleary's translation is as noteworthy for its elegant simplicity as for its accuracy. He has culled from the voluminous writings of Ta Hui Tsung Kao in the Chi Yeuh Lu this selection of letters, sermons, and lectures, some running no longer than a page, which cover a variety of subjects ranging from concern over the illness of a friend's son to the tending of an ox. Ta Hui addresses his remarks mainly to people in lay life and not to his fellow monks. Thus the emphasis throughout is on ways in which those immersed in worldly occupations can nevertheless learn Zen and achieve the liberation promised by the Buddha. These texts, available in English only in this translation, come as a revelation for their lucid thinking and startling wisdom. The translator's essay on Chan (Chinese Zen) Buddhism and his short biography of Ta Hui place the texts in their proper historical perspective.
The History and Teachings of Nichiren Buddhism
The History and Teachings of Nichiren Buddhism covers the history and teachings of Buddhism from the time of Sakyamuni Buddha in ancient India, the transmission and development of Buddhism in China focusing on the development of Tiantai Buddhism, its transmission to Japan as Tendai Buddhism, and the life and teachings of Nichiren Shonin. The basic and most important teachings of Nichiren Shonin and Nichiren Shu are explained in English for the first time.Chapter 1. Śākyamuni Buddha's Life and Teachings Written by Yosei Ikegami Chapter 2. The Development of Buddhist ThoughtWritten by Kaiei Mochizuki Chapter 3. The Teachings of the Lotus SūtraWritten by Keijin MamiyaChapter 4. Tiānt獺i Buddhism Written by Jinin FukushiChapter 5. The Life of Nichiren Shōnin Written by Eichi TeraoChapter 6. Nichiren Shōnin's Teachings Written by Zeho MiwaChapter 7. History of Nichiren Shū Written by Shincho Mochizuki
Chakras, Reiki Healing and Buddhism for Beginners
Awaken your true power to heal your mind and soul with the ancient wisdom of the East.Are you searching for a powerful path to healing your mind, body and soul? Do you want to become more in touch with the universe around you and discover ancient Eastern wisdom? Then this collection is for you.Combining three profound and enlightening books on Eastern wisdom and spiritual practices, this collection unveils a new path to reclaiming your mental health and physical wellbeing. Tapping into the wisdom of Buddhism, the healing powers of Reiki, and how you can align your chakras and channel your inner energy, this bundle reveals a proven and practical path for transforming every area of your life. If you've always wanted to discover Eastern wisdom, or if you're searching for a new and often-overlooked way of controlling anxiety and beating stress, then this collection is for you. With simple, straightforward advice and actionable methods which you can begin implementing the moment you finish reading, this book shows you how to begin reclaiming your mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing.Inside Chakra Healing for Beginners, you'll discover: An Incredible Breakdown of The 7 Chakras (and Why You Should Pay Attention To Them)Surprising Ways That Your Chakras Become Blocked and DamagedPowerful Methods For Dissolving Blockages and Unleashing Your Inner PowerA Practical Test For Figuring Out If You Have Blocked ChakrasAnd How You Can Tap Into The Amazing Therapeutic Benefits of Chakra HealingInside Reiki Healing for Beginners, you'll learn: Reiki 101 - Everything You Need To Know About This Powerful Healing Technique The Secret Behind Reiki (and Why It Can Help You Live a Happier Life)Must-Know Advice For Embarking on Your Journey With ReikiA Practical Daily Reiki Practice For Cultivating WellbeingAnd Essential Reiki Life Rules For Good HealthAnd inside Buddhism for Beginners, you'll uncover: How YOU Can Begin Applying Buddhist Teachings To Your LifeA Breakdown of Buddhism's Origins and Fundamental TeachingsSimple Beginner's Introductions To Key Buddhist TeachingsEasy Ways To Discover The Power of Meditation5 Steps For Beginning a Meditation PracticeAnd So Much More...No matter your age, background, or your level of experience, anybody can benefit from these incredible teachings. If you want to become the master of your mind, learn to defeat fear and anxiety, and cultivate a happier life, then this collection is for you.
Rituals of Initiation and Consecration in Premodern Japan
In premodern Japan, legitimization of power and knowledge in various contexts was sanctioned by consecration rituals (kanjō) of Buddhist origin. This is the first book to address in a comprehensive way the multiple forms and aspects of these rituals also in relation to other Asian contexts.The multidisciplinary chapters in the book address the origins of these rituals in ancient Persia and India and their developments in China and Tibet, before discussing in depth their transformations in medieval Japan. In particular, kanjō rituals are examined from various perspectives: imperial ceremonies, Buddhist monastic rituals, vernacular religious forms (Shugendō mountain cults, Shinto lineages), rituals of bodily transformation involving sexual practice, and the performing arts: a history of these developments, descriptions of actual rituals, and reference to religious and intellectual arguments based on under-examined primary sources. No other book presents so many cases of kanjō in such depth and breadth.This book is relevant to readers interested in Buddhist studies, Japanese religions, the history of Japanese culture, and in the intersections between religious doctrines, rituals, legitimization, and performance.
Bringing Meditation to Life
Meditation is not just something we do on the cushion, it's a way of life.Zen teacher, monk, and peace activist Claude AnShin Thomas shares his experiences and insights into how Zen teachings and practice can move off the meditation cushion and into everything we do, transforming all aspects of our lives.Presented in 108 short, to-the-point, provocative chapters, this book offers essential instruction on sitting meditation practice and how it can inform our relationships, communication, conflicts, peace work, and more. Interspersed throughout the book are some of the author's favorite quotes from Zen literature. AnShin touches on such topics as: Living the Buddhist precepts Embracing not knowing Coping with uncomfortable emotions such as fear, guilt, and shame The simple yet powerful practice of bowing How to find peace with our unpeacefulnessDrawn from public talks and earlier writings, Bringing Meditation to Life distills the essence of Claude AnShin's approach to Zen practice
Multicultural Mindfulness
Explore the mindfulness practices of Hygge, Keyif, Frilufsliv, Gemutlichkeit and many more as you craft your own practice from the traditional customs of other countries. The non-judgmental acceptance of the feelings that emerge in our thoughts and emotions, in the present, manifests into a lifelong mindful practice. The similarities of the various modalities found around the world to practice mindfulness are more numerous than the differences in some cases than the activities of a culture. They are passed down from generation to generation with the name of the activity rather than the more trending term of mindfulness. Make no mistake, the names change from countries and cultures around the globe, but the intention is identical. Join me on a journey of how mindfulness exists in other cultures with the diversity and of the way things are done in other countries to formulate a lifestyle of staying in the present.
The Dzogchen Method of Preserving the Face of Rigpa, The Essence of Wisdom
Ju Mipham Namgyal is one of the best known authors of the Nyingma tradition. He was a prolific writer with an extraordinary knowledge of his own and others' dharma traditions. He wrote several texts on the topics of the most profound level of Great Completion (Dzogpa Chenpo). The text here is one of his texts on Thorough Cut (Tregcho). The wording of the title "Preserving the Face of Rigpa" is explained in the introduction by the author. Briefly, it is saying that this text focusses on one specific aspect of Thorough Cut practice called "preserving rigpa". The remainder of the title, "The Essence of Wisdom", refers to the fact that this technique of preserving rigpa really is the essential technique for developing wisdom.The text is short but has become one of the core texts used in Tibet to teach this specific aspect of Thorough Cut practice. Because it is so popular within the Tibetan tradition and because it is one of the few texts that deals specifically with this subject, we felt that it was a worthy addition to our selection of texts on the subject of Thorough Cut. Therefore, we have translated it and made a book out of it. Note that, although this text was written as part of Dzogchen instruction, it is equally applicable to the practice of essence Mahamudra. Thus the text is ideal for anyone who is practising either of the two. A short but clear introduction makes the content of the text accessible.
Chakras, Reiki Healing and Buddhism for Beginners
Awaken your true power to heal your mind and soul with the ancient wisdom of the East.Are you searching for a powerful path to healing your mind, body and soul? Do you want to become more in touch with the universe around you and discover ancient Eastern wisdom? Then this collection is for you.Combining three profound and enlightening books on Eastern wisdom and spiritual practices, this collection unveils a new path to reclaiming your mental health and physical wellbeing. Tapping into the wisdom of Buddhism, the healing powers of Reiki, and how you can align your chakras and channel your inner energy, this bundle reveals a proven and practical path for transforming every area of your life. If you've always wanted to discover Eastern wisdom, or if you're searching for a new and often-overlooked way of controlling anxiety and beating stress, then this collection is for you. With simple, straightforward advice and actionable methods which you can begin implementing the moment you finish reading, this book shows you how to begin reclaiming your mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing.Inside Chakra Healing for Beginners, you'll discover: An Incredible Breakdown of The 7 Chakras (and Why You Should Pay Attention To Them)Surprising Ways That Your Chakras Become Blocked and DamagedPowerful Methods For Dissolving Blockages and Unleashing Your Inner PowerA Practical Test For Figuring Out If You Have Blocked ChakrasAnd How You Can Tap Into The Amazing Therapeutic Benefits of Chakra HealingInside Reiki Healing for Beginners, you'll learn: Reiki 101 - Everything You Need To Know About This Powerful Healing Technique The Secret Behind Reiki (and Why It Can Help You Live a Happier Life)Must-Know Advice For Embarking on Your Journey With ReikiA Practical Daily Reiki Practice For Cultivating WellbeingAnd Essential Reiki Life Rules For Good HealthAnd inside Buddhism for Beginners, you'll uncover: How YOU Can Begin Applying Buddhist Teachings To Your LifeA Breakdown of Buddhism's Origins and Fundamental TeachingsSimple Beginner's Introductions To Key Buddhist TeachingsEasy Ways To Discover The Power of Meditation5 Steps For Beginning a Meditation PracticeAnd So Much More...
Translating Buddhism
Explores key questions about translations and translators of South Asian Buddhist texts, past and present.Although many Buddhist studies scholars spend a great deal of their time involved in acts of translation, to date not much has been published that examines the key questions, problems, and difficulties faced by translators of South Asian Buddhist texts and epigraphs. Translating Buddhism seeks to address this omission. The essays collected here represent a burgeoning attempt to begin to shape the subfield of translation studies within Buddhist studies, whereby scholars actively challenge primary routine decisions and basic assumptions. Exploring questions including how interpretive translators can be and how cultural and social norms affect translations, the book draws on the broad experiences of its contributors-all of whom are translators themselves-who bring different themes to the table. Each chapter can be used either independently or as part of the whole to engender reflections on the process of translation.
Lineages of the Literary
In the aftermath of the cataclysmic Maoist period, three Tibetan Buddhist scholars living and working in the People's Republic of China became intellectual heroes. Renowned as the "Three Polymaths," Ts矇ten Zhabdrung (1910-1985), Mug矇 Samten (1914-1993), and Dungkar Lozang Trinl矇 (1927-1997) earned this symbolic title for their efforts to keep the lamp of the Dharma lit even in the darkest hour of Tibetan history. Lineages of the Literary reveals how the Three Polymaths negotiated the political tides of the twentieth century, shedding new light on Sino-Tibetan relations and Buddhism during this turbulent era. Nicole Willock explores their contributions to reviving Tibetan Buddhism, expanding Tibetan literary arts, and pioneering Tibetan studies as an academic discipline. Her sophisticated reading of Tibetan-language sources vivifies the capacious literary world of the Three Polymaths, including autobiography, Buddhist philosophy, poetic theory, and historiography. Whereas prevailing state-centric accounts place Tibetan religious figures in China in one of two roles, collaborator or resistance fighter, Willock shows how the Three Polymaths offer an alternative model of agency. She illuminates how they by turns safeguarded, taught, and celebrated Tibetan Buddhist knowledge, practices, and institutions after their near destruction during the Cultural Revolution. An interdisciplinary work spanning religious studies, history, literary studies, and social theory, Lineages of the Literary offers new insight into the categories of religion and the secular, the role of Tibetan Buddhist leaders in modern China, and the contested ground of Tibet.
Lineages of the Literary
In the aftermath of the cataclysmic Maoist period, three Tibetan Buddhist scholars living and working in the People's Republic of China became intellectual heroes. Renowned as the "Three Polymaths," Ts矇ten Zhabdrung (1910-1985), Mug矇 Samten (1914-1993), and Dungkar Lozang Trinl矇 (1927-1997) earned this symbolic title for their efforts to keep the lamp of the Dharma lit even in the darkest hour of Tibetan history. Lineages of the Literary reveals how the Three Polymaths negotiated the political tides of the twentieth century, shedding new light on Sino-Tibetan relations and Buddhism during this turbulent era. Nicole Willock explores their contributions to reviving Tibetan Buddhism, expanding Tibetan literary arts, and pioneering Tibetan studies as an academic discipline. Her sophisticated reading of Tibetan-language sources vivifies the capacious literary world of the Three Polymaths, including autobiography, Buddhist philosophy, poetic theory, and historiography. Whereas prevailing state-centric accounts place Tibetan religious figures in China in one of two roles, collaborator or resistance fighter, Willock shows how the Three Polymaths offer an alternative model of agency. She illuminates how they by turns safeguarded, taught, and celebrated Tibetan Buddhist knowledge, practices, and institutions after their near destruction during the Cultural Revolution. An interdisciplinary work spanning religious studies, history, literary studies, and social theory, Lineages of the Literary offers new insight into the categories of religion and the secular, the role of Tibetan Buddhist leaders in modern China, and the contested ground of Tibet.
MahamudraA Practical Guide
Essential instructions on Mahamudra from one of today's greatest Mahamudra masters. In his first major book, His Eminence the Twelfth Zurmang Gharwang Rinpoche, the head of the Zurmang Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, elucidates the essence of a fundamental Mahamudra teaching. At the heart of this book are Rinpoche's practical instructions on how to settle the mind and meditate in a way that directly works with the mind, with the aim of discovering and becoming familiar with the nature of the mind. These instructions are given as commentary to a short text written by Bokar Rinpoche, which is itself a concise commentary on the Ninth Gyalwa Karmapa Wangchuk Dorj矇's Ocean of Definitive Meaning, which is considered to be one of the most authoritative and exhaustive treatises on Mahamudra. The book covers topics such as the preliminary practices, the practice of samatha and vipasyana according to the Mahamudra tradition, and advice for overcoming obstacles and making progress along the path. His Eminence Zurmang Gharwang Rinpoche offers revealing commentary on Bokar Rinpoche's pithy teaching, illuminating and unlocking it for contemporary readers, showing us the way to understand the very nature of our own minds.
Walking with Buddha
Walking with Buddha is a moving-meditation set along Japan's stunning Shikoku 88-Temple Trail. The ancient 1,200-kilometer path around the island of Shikoku serves as a reflective backdrop for cultural immersion and introduction into the Buddha-Nature. Wearing her heart on her sleeve, Lockhart sets off on a walking pilgrimage to nourish her soul and contemplate her next fifty years. While learning to embrace her own Buddha Nature, she discovers the wisdom, courage, and grace to accept change and re-create a life she truly desires.
The Dalai Lama and the Nechung Oracle
Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama enjoy global popularity and relevance, yet the longstanding practice of oracles within the tradition is still little known and understood. The Nechung Oracle, for example, is believed to become possessed by an important god named Pehar, who speaks through the human medium to confer with the Dalai Lama on matters of state. The Dalai Lama and the Nechung Oracle is the first monograph to explore the mythologies and rituals of this god, the Buddhist monastery that houses him, and his close friendship with incarnations of the Dalai Lama over the centuries. In the seventeenth century, during the reign of the Fifth Dalai Lama, the protector deity Pehar and his oracle at Nechung Monastery were state-sanctioned by the nascent Tibetan government, becoming the head of an expansive pantheon of worldly deities assigned to protect the newly unified country. The governments of later Dalai Lamas expanded the deity's influence, as well as their own, by establishing Pehar at monasteries and temples around Lhasa and across Tibet. Pehar's cult at Nechung Monastery came to embody the Dalai Lama's administrative control in a mutual relationship of protection and prestige, the effects of which continue to reverberate within Tibet and among the Tibetan exile community today. The friendship between these two immortals has spanned nearly five hundred years across the Tibetan plateau and beyond.
Ethnic and Religious Diversity in Myanmar
One of the most comprehensive volumes on Myanmar's identity politics to date, this book discusses the entanglement of ethnic and religious identities in Myanmar and the challenges presented by its extensive ethnic-religious diversity. Religious and ethnic conjunctions are treated from historical, political, religious and ethnic minority perspectives through both case studies and overview chapters. The book addresses the thorny issue of Buddhist supremacy, Burmese nationalism and ethnic-religious hierarchy, along with reflections on Buddhist, Christian and Muslim communities. Bringing together international scholars and Burmese scholars, this book combines the perspectives of academic observers with those of political activists and religious leaders from different faiths. Through the breadth of its disciplinary approach, its focus on identity issues and its inclusion of insider and outsider perspectives, this book provides new insights into the complex religious situation of Myanmar.
A Rose for Your Pocket
Thich Nhat Hanh leads us to a new and deeper appreciation of motherhood. Using Buddhist teachings, recollections of his own mother, and rituals from around the world, Nhat Hanh reveals our deep interconnectedness with our mothers. Full of personal stories of love, struggle, and reconciliation, this book is a gift to treasure.
Becoming Buddha
The Buddha's teachings, the dharma, have gone through three paradigmatic shifts over the millennia, known as the 'turnings' of the dharmic wheel and are reviewed in this book. These paradigm shifts are a result of a deepening understanding into the nature of suffering and the methods of healing. At this time the process of cultural interaction between East and West, and its inevitable synthesis, is well underway as many of the fundamental insights of Buddhist contemplative psychology are becoming integrated into western psychotherapy. There is currently a need for integral dharma teachings that are grounded in the theory and practice of Buddhist contemplative psychology that is synthesized with Western psychological healing and adult development. This book opens a door to this amazing integral synthesis for our times.
Spirituality for Badasses
Fulfillment, healing, peace & happiness should never come at the cost of losing our smarts, uniqueness, strength, integrity, sense of humor, or cool...Finally! Someone had the cojones to write it: A seriously funny & irreverent spiritual self-help book for adults, that bypasses all the conventional & cliched niceties & offers you - the reader & star of the show- dead-on, practical ways to change your life for good, forever.Spirituality for Badasses contains numerous astonishingly simple and spectacularly effective principles, techniques and methods to help you find your true, happy, confident, aware self. No preparation required. Anyone can do it. Start right now. You'll experience deep inner changes simply by reading the book. You'll replace who you think you are with who you truly are. Yep- Spirituality for Badasses is some powerful mojo. It's also funny as sh#! You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll learn and grow.Fair warning- Rated R- Contains cursing language, tequila drinking, loud rock-n-roll, bar fights, irreverent humor, emotional button pushing and ego shattering wisdom. This isn't your parent's self-help book. If you're looking for a bulleted list of coddling, woo-woo, positive-think, rainbows & unicorns spiritual advice & exercises- This is not the spiritual self-help book you are looking for... Move along.Spirituality for Badasses takes you the reader on a high-stakes, cross country, road trip adventure where you'll encounter a cornucopia of beautiful places, strange experiences and wild people. In the midst of this adventure you will be challenged, pushed to the edge and invited to experience life and yourself in radically transformative ways: Your guide and traveling companion, J. Stewart Dixon shows you the gritty no-holds bar ropes of what it takes - attention, awareness, mindfulness, recognizing the limited ego-mind, meeting deep seated fears and knowing your most intimate inner self- to become a true spiritual badass.The Midwest Book Review sums it up: "Spirituality for Badasses goes where no other books in these genres dare travel...in a way no other book matches." Chuck Hillig, best-selling author of Seeds for the Soul says: "Spirituality for Badasses is an irreverent, exuberant, free-wheeling, stream of consciousness saga that chronicles the spiritual journey in ways that are unique, humorous, challenging and a hell of a lot of fun ..."Okay Badass- It's time to decide: Purchase the book and experience the first self-help book you've ever read- that will actually make a huge, fundamental difference in your life.
Allow Joy into Our Hearts
When faced with an event that disrupts every aspect of our lives, how do we avoid succumbing to hopelessness, bitterness, and other destructive habits of the mind, and instead find ways to allow joy, kindness, and generosity to fill our hearts in the midst of suffering? Rebecca Li explains how we can, through the cultivation of clear awareness, transform challenging circumstances into fertile soil for wisdom and compassion to grow by facing each moment with tenderness, clarity, and courage.
The Buddha’s Tooth
John S. Strong unravels the storm of influences shaping the received narratives of two iconic sacred objects. Bodily relics such as hairs, teeth, fingernails, pieces of bone-supposedly from the Buddha himself-have long served as objects of veneration for many Buddhists. Unsurprisingly, when Western colonial powers subjugated populations in South Asia, they used, manipulated, redefined, and even destroyed these objects to exert control. In The Buddha's Tooth, John S. Strong examines Western stories, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, surrounding two significant Sri Lankan sacred objects to illuminate and concretize colonial attitudes toward Asian religions. First, he analyzes a tale about the Portuguese capture and public destruction, in the mid-sixteenth century, of a tooth later identified as a relic of the Buddha. Second, he switches gears to look at the nineteenth-century saga of British dealings with another tooth relic of the Buddha-the famous Daḷadā enshrined in a temple in Kandy-from 1815, when it was taken over by English forces, to 1954, when it was visited by Queen Elizabeth II. As Strong reveals, the stories of both the Portuguese tooth and the Kandyan tooth reflect nascent and developing Western understandings of Buddhism, realizations of the cosmopolitan nature of the tooth, and tensions between secular and religious interests.
The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects
This is an account of the Madhyamika (Middle Way) school of Buddhism, a method of mediation and enlightenment that was developed by the great Indian teacher Nagarjuna. In a collaboration between the Frenchwoman Alexandra David-Neel and her friend, the Tibetan lama Aphur Yongden, these teaching are presented clearly and elegantly, intended for the layman who seeks a way to practice and experience the realization of oneness with all existence."...this is the most direct, no-nonsense, and down-to-earth explanation of Mahayana Buddhism that has been written. Specifically, it is a wonderfully lucid account of the Middle Way method of enlightenment worked out by the great Indian sage Nagarjuna." -Alan Watts, The Book
