What Makes You Not a Buddhist
An innovative meditation master cuts through common misconceptions about Buddhism, revealing what it truly means to walk the path of the Buddha So you think you're a Buddhist? Think again. Tibetan Buddhist master Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, one of the most creative and innovative lamas teaching today, throws down the gauntlet to the Buddhist world, challenging common misconceptions, stereotypes, and fantasies. With humor and irony, Dzongsar Khyentse urges readers to move beyond the superficial trappings of Buddhism--beyond the romance with beads, incense, or exotic robes--straight to the heart of what the Buddha taught. Packed with new material, this second edition of Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse's classic now features an incisive critique of contemporary Western approaches to Buddhism that lead to some fundamental misunderstandings, paired with a heartfelt encouragement of the power of the teachings to transform us if we approach them with the right intention and view. This edition also includes an all-new discussion of what does make you a Buddhist as well as updated material throughout.
Waking Up and Growing Up
​​A fresh, nuanced view of Zen integrates relational and emotional skill-building with traditional practices in a spiritual "cross-training" approach suited for the unique demands of modern life.​ This compelling and innovative view of Zen practice gives people in their 20s and 30s a contemporary approach to spiritual development that is meaningful and actionable within the complexities of modern life. Grounded deeply in the tradition of Soto Zen, professional mediators and Zen practitioners Diane Hamilton and Gabriel Wilson extol the virtues of sitting meditation, dharma study, and the student-teacher relationship. At the same time, they offer insight into the importance of emotional development and the maturation of relationship skills. This approach draws on insights from Integral psychology as taught by philosopher Ken Wilber, neurophysiology, trauma work, adult development, and teachings of the Zen masters to: develop interpersonal communication skills; blend the spiritual path with the realities of contemporary life; learn how to navigate issues of inclusivity and diversity; explore issues of identity; train our power of attention rather than get caught up in social media, division, and crisis; mature our emotional and relational skills; and much more. Complete with practices, exercises, and reflections in each chapter, this book offers an accessible, insightful approach to becoming more personally effective, compassionate, and spiritually awake.
Atisa’s Stages of the Path to Awakening
This book contains a lost Stages of the Path (Lamrim) work composed by the originator of the genre, Atisa, one of the greatest Indian Buddhist masters to ever set foot in Tibet. Nearly a millennium ago, the great Indian Buddhist master Atisa Dipamkarasrij簽ana (ca. 982-1054) wrote a guidebook for realizing all the stages to awakening at the repeated request of his closest Tibetan disciple. Atisa is famously the author of the Lamp for the Path to Awakening (Bodhipathapradipa), a short work in verse, but this longer prose work has been virtually unknown, even in Tibet--until now. Atisa's Stages of the Path Awakening (Bodhipathakrama), translated here, synthesizes all aspects of Buddhist practice, from the very beginning of the path--reflecting on the fortunate opportunity of human rebirth--up through to attaining omniscient buddhahood by nondual meditation. The Indian master's faithful disciple Dromt繹npa kept these teachings secret, and they were only transmitted to select disciples in a closely guarded transmission, but the lineage died out centuries ago, after Dromt繹npa's Kadam school was eclipsed by history. Now this significant work of Buddhist path literature has become available owing to recently recovered manuscripts of the Kadampas. This book offers a study and complete translation from the Tibetan of this monument of guidance on the Buddhist path accompanied by the commentaries and ritual texts that were transmitted alongside Atisa's text. Apple's substantial introduction includes a structural comparison with Atisa's famous work, charts the transmission lineage for the present work before it died out, and explores various hypotheses for why their fates diverged. Recovered from the contingencies of history, this book brings to life one of the most holistic and integrated approaches to the highest realizations of the Indian Buddhist path ever transmitted in Tibet.
The Profound Reality of Interdependence
The Way of the Bodhisattva, composed by the monk and scholar Śāntideva in eighth-century India, is a Buddhist treatise in verse that beautifully and succinctly lays out the theory and practice of the Mahayana path of a bodhisattva. Over one thousand years after Śāntideva's composition, K羹nzang S繹nam (1823-1905) produced the most extensive commentary on the Way of the Bodhisattva ever written. This book is the first English translation of K羹nzang S繹nam's overview of Śāntideva's notoriously difficult chapter on wisdom. The ninth chapter of the Way of the Bodhisattva is philosophically very rich but forbiddingly technical, and can only be read well with a good commentary. K羹nzang S繹nam's commentary offers a unique and complete introduction to the view of Prāsaṅgika-Madhyamaka, the summit of Buddhist philosophy in Tibet, as articulated by Tsongkhapa. It brings Śāntideva's text, and Tsongkhapa's interpretation of Prāsaṅgika-Madhyamaka, into conversation with a vast Buddhist literature from India and Tibet. By articulating the integral relationship between emptiness and interdependence, this text formulates a sustained and powerful argument for emptiness as a metaphysical basis of bodhisattva ethics. This volume makes the ninth chapter accessible to English-speaking teachers and students of the Way of the Bodhisattva.
Voice of the Primordial Buddha
Voice of the Primordial Buddha is Anam Thubten's commentary on the well-known text, The Sharp Vajra of Awareness Tantra, by twentieth-century master Dudjom Lingpa (1835-1903). His text is revered by many people in Tibet as a sacred scripture. This book covers the entire Vajrayana path, especially Dzogchen, with language full of potency. Reading it can shake one's mind from its foundation and transform it to its highest potential.
THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD OR The After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, according to Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English Rendering
The bar do thos grol has become known in the English speaking world as The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a title popularized by Walter Evans-Wentz's edition, after the Egyptian Book of the Dead, though the English title bears no relationship with the Tibetan's, as outlined above. The Evans-Wentz edition was first published in 1927 by Oxford University Press.At age 24 Evans-Wentz went to Stanford University, where he studied religion, philosophy, and history and was deeply influenced by visitors William James and W. B. Yeats. He went on to receive B.A. and M.A degrees. He then studied Celtic mythology and folklore at Jesus College, Oxford (1907). He performed ethnographic fieldwork collecting fairy folklore in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany, and the Isle of Man. In 1911 Evans-Wentz published his degree thesis as a book, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries. While at Oxford, he added his mother's Welsh surname Evans to his name, being known henceforth as Evans-Wentz.Kazi Dawa Samdup's education began at the age of four learning the Tibetan script from his grandfather. In 1874 he joined the Bhutia Boarding School in Darjeeling where he impressed the headmaster Rai Bahadur Sarat Chandra Das. His Tibetan teacher was Ugyen Gyatso, a lama from the Pemayangtse monastery in West Sikkim.
