Download or read book The Body Incantatory written by Paul Copp and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether chanted as devotional prayers, intoned against the dangers of the wilds, or invoked to heal the sick and bring ease to the dead, incantations were pervasive features of Buddhist practice in late medieval China (600–1000 C.E.). Material incantations, in forms such as spell-inscribed amulets and stone pillars, were also central to the spiritual lives of both monks and laypeople. In centering its analysis on the Chinese material culture of these deeply embodied forms of Buddhist ritual, The Body Incantatory reveals histories of practice—and logics of practice—that have until now remained hidden. Paul Copp examines inscribed stones, urns, and other objects unearthed from anonymous tombs; spells carved into pillars near mountain temples; and manuscripts and prints from both tombs and the Dunhuang cache. Focusing on two major Buddhist spells, or dhāraṇī, and their embodiment of the incantatory logics of adornment and unction, he makes breakthrough claims about the significance of Buddhist incantation practice not only in medieval China but also in Central Asia and India. Copp's work vividly captures the diversity of Buddhist practice among medieval monks, ritual healers, and other individuals lost to history, offering a corrective to accounts that have overemphasized elite, canonical materials.
Download or read book The World Could Be Otherwise written by Norman Fischer and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An imaginative approach to spiritual practice in difficult times, through the Buddhist teaching of the six paramitas or "perfections"—qualities that lead to kindness, wisdom, and an awakened life. In frightening times, we wish the world could be otherwise. With a touch of imagination, it can be. Imagination helps us see what’s hidden, and it shape-shifts reality’s roiling twisting waves. In this inspiring reframe of a classic Buddhist teaching, Zen teacher Norman Fischer writes that the paramitas, or “six perfections”—generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and understanding—can help us reconfigure the world we live in. Ranging from our everyday concerns about relationships, ethics, and consumption to our artistic inspirations and broadest human yearnings, Fischer depicts imaginative spiritual practice as a necessary resource for our troubled times.
Download or read book Religious Bodies Politic written by Anya Bernstein and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-11-27 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious Bodies Politic examines the complex relationship between transnational religion and politics through the lens of one cosmopolitan community in Siberia: Buryats, who live in a semiautonomous republic within Russia with a large Buddhist population. Looking at religious transformation among Buryats across changing political economies, Anya Bernstein argues that under conditions of rapid social change—such as those that accompanied the Russian Revolution, the Cold War, and the fall of the Soviet Union—Buryats have used Buddhist “body politics” to articulate their relationship not only with the Russian state, but also with the larger Buddhist world. During these periods, Bernstein shows, certain people and their bodies became key sites through which Buryats conformed to and challenged Russian political rule. She presents particular cases of these emblematic bodies—dead bodies of famous monks, temporary bodies of reincarnated lamas, ascetic and celibate bodies of Buddhist monastics, and dismembered bodies of lay disciples given as imaginary gifts to spirits—to investigate the specific ways in which religion and politics have intersected. Contributing to the growing literature on postsocialism and studies of sovereignty that focus on the body, Religious Bodies Politic is a fascinating illustration of how this community employed Buddhism to adapt to key moments of political change.
Download or read book Being Human in a Buddhist World written by Janet Gyatso and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-20 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critically exploring medical thought in a cultural milieu with no discernible influence from the European Enlightenment, Being Human in a Buddhist World reveals an otherwise unnoticed intersection of early modern sensibilities and religious values in traditional Tibetan medicine. It further studies the adaptation of Buddhist concepts and values to medical concerns and suggests important dimensions of Buddhism's role in the development of Asian and global civilization. Through its unique focus and sophisticated reading of source materials, Being Human adds a crucial chapter in the larger historiography of science and religion. The book opens with the bold achievements in Tibetan medical illustration, commentary, and institution building during the period of the Fifth Dalai Lama and his regent, Desi Sangye Gyatso, then looks back to the work of earlier thinkers, tracing a strategically astute dialectic between scriptural and empirical authority on questions of history and the nature of human anatomy. It follows key differences between medicine and Buddhism in attitudes toward gender and sex and the moral character of the physician, who had to serve both the patient's and the practitioner's well-being. Being Human in a Buddhist World ultimately finds that Tibetan medical scholars absorbed ethical and epistemological categories from Buddhism yet shied away from ideal systems and absolutes, instead embracing the imperfectability of the human condition.
Download or read book Breathing through the Whole Body written by Will Johnson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-01-25 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the Buddha’s own words on breathing meditation for healing, wholeness, and a deeper understanding of his teachings • Explains the complete series of steps in the Buddha’s Satipatthana Sutta for refining awareness of the breath, from posture and center of gravity to extending breath awareness beyond the nostrils, lungs, and abdomen to the entire body • Shows that stillness in meditation refers only to the mind, not to the body • Reveals breath to be a direct agent of healing for chronic tensions and an agitated mind Explaining how stillness in meditation refers not to a rigid and frozen body but to a quality of mind, Will Johnson examines the Buddha’s own words at the core of the Satipatthana Sutta: “As you breathe in, breathe in through the whole body; as you breathe out, breathe out through the whole body”--an instruction often overlooked in the majority of Buddhist schools. Exploring the Buddha’s complete series of steps for deepening awareness of the breath, he shows how to invite natural, responsive movement back into the posture of meditation by extending breath awareness beyond the nostrils, lungs, and abdomen to the entire body--a practice that unifies the breath, body, and mind into a single shared phenomenon. Showing how the flow of breath is directly affected by chronic tensions in the body and in the mind, Johnson explains that when breath starts flowing through more and more of the body, it becomes a direct agent of healing, massaging and melting any areas of tension it touches and moves through, whether physical or emotional. By breathing through the whole body in accordance with the Buddha’s instructions on breath, the body becomes much more comfortable, the mind starts resolving its addiction to thinking, and meditative practice deepens much more rapidly, allowing the teachings of the Buddha to be directly glimpsed and revealed.
Download or read book Death and Reincarnation in Tibetan Buddhism written by Tanya Zivkovic and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contextualising the seemingly esoteric and exotic aspects of Tibetan Buddhist culture within the everyday, embodied and sensual sphere of religious praxis, this book centres on the social and religious lives of deceased Tibetan Buddhist lamas. It explores how posterior forms – corpses, relics, reincarnations and hagiographical representations – extend a lama’s trajectory of lives and manipulate biological imperatives of birth and death. The book looks closely at previously unexamined figures whose history is relevant to a better understanding of how Tibetan culture navigates its own understanding of reincarnation, the veneration of relics and different social roles of different types of practitioners. It analyses both the minutiae of everyday interrelations between lamas and their devotees, specifically noted in ritual performances and the enactment of lived tradition, and the sacred hagiographical conventions that underpin local knowledge. A phenomenology of Tibetan Buddhist life, the book provides an ethnography of the everyday embodiment of Tibetan Buddhism. This unusual approach offers a valuable and a genuine new perspective on Tibetan Buddhist culture and is of interest to researchers in the fields of social/cultural anthropology and religious, Buddhist and Tibetan studies.
Download or read book Buddha s Nature written by Wes Nisker and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2000 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Buddha said that "everything we need to know about life can be found inside this fathom-long body." Then why is most people's spirituality--whether Buddhist, Christian, or Jewish--completely cut off from their body? In this provocative and groundbreaking book, you'll discover that enlightenment comes not from "out there," but from a deep understanding of our own personal biology. Using the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, a traditional Buddhist meditation, Nisker shows how cutting-edge science is proving the tenets first offered by the Buddha. And he provides a practical program, complete with meditations and exercises, that enables readers to become mindful of the origins of emotions, desires, and thoughts. One of the great synthesizers of East and West, Nisker shows how to incorporate the traditional understanding of the Buddha with the latest scientific discoveries while on our spiritual journey. He shows that we are not separate from nature and the evolving universe. The way to enlightenment lies within our very biology. Most important, Nisker offers a practical program--complete with meditations and exercises--so readers can take their own evolutionary journey into their bodies to find the origins of emotions, desires, and thoughts. Nisker provides a liberating way for each of us to incorporate into our lives the understanding, proven by the latest scientific evidence and foretold in the great traditional teachings of the Buddha, that we are not separate from nature and the evolving universe. Our biology is not our destiny, but our way to enlightenment. -->
Download or read book Virtuous Bodies written by Susanne Mrozik and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-07-20 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virtuous Bodies breaks new ground in the field of Buddhist ethics by investigating the diverse roles bodies play in ethical development. Traditionally, Buddhists assumed a close connection between body and morality. Thus Buddhist literature contains descriptions of living beings that stink with sin, are disfigured by vices, or are perfumed and adorned with virtues. Taking an influential early medieval Indian Mah=ay=ana Buddhist text-'S=antideva's Compendium of Training ('Sik,s=asamuccaya)-as a case study, Susanne Mrozik demonstrates that Buddhists regarded ethical development as a process of physical and moral transformation. Mrozik chooses The Compendium of Training because it quotes from over one hundred Buddhist scriptures, allowing her to reveal a broader Buddhist interest in the ethical significance of bodies. The text is a training manual for bodhisattvas, especially monastic bodhisattvas. In it, bodies function as markers of, and conditions for, one's own ethical development. Most strikingly, bodies also function as instruments for the ethical development of others. When living beings come into contact with the virtuous bodies of bodhisattvas, they are transformed physically and morally for the better. Virtuous Bodies explores both the centrality of bodies to the bodhisattva ideal and the corporeal specificity of that ideal. Arguing that the bodhisattva ideal is an embodied ethical ideal, Mrozik poses an array of fascinating questions: What does virtue look like? What kinds of physical features constitute virtuous bodies? What kinds of bodies have virtuous effects on others? Drawing on a range of contemporary theorists, this book engages in a feminist hermeneutics of recovery and suspicion in order to explore the ethical resources Buddhism offers to scholars and religious practitioners interested in the embodied nature of ethical ideals.
Download or read book Religion and the Subtle Body in Asia and the West written by Geoffrey Samuel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-12 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Subtle-body practices are found particularly in Indian, Indo-Tibetan and East Asian societies, but have become increasingly familiar in Western societies, especially through the various healing and yogic techniques and exercises associated with them. This book explores subtle-body practices from a variety of perspectives, and includes both studies of these practices in Asian and Western contexts. The book discusses how subtle-body practices assume a quasi-material level of human existence that is intermediate between conventional concepts of body and mind. Often, this level is conceived of in terms of an invisible structure of channels, associated with the human body, through which flows of quasi-material substance take place. Contributors look at how subtle-body concepts form the basic explanatory structure for a wide range of practices. These include forms of healing, modes of exercise and martial arts as well as religious practices aimed at the refinement and transformation of the human mindbody complex. By highlighting how subtle-body practices of many kinds have been introduced into Western societies in recent years, the book explores the possibilities for new models of understanding which these concepts open up. It is a useful contribution to studies on Asian Religion and Philosophy.
Download or read book Training the Wisdom Body written by Rose Taylor Goldfield and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sitting still in meditation may be the common image that comes to mind when one thinks of Buddhist practice—but just as important is cultivation of awareness through movement. The traditional Tibetan practice of yogic exercises known as lujong helps us connect with and explore the natural wisdom inherent in our living, breathing, feeling bodies. Lujong is an exercise that engages our whole being—body, mind, and subtle body—from the coarse aspects to the subtler and more profound. This book provides a thorough foundation for those new to the practice, and it helps people already engaged in any form of yogic exercise to deepen the potent fusion of meditation and physical movement. Included is an overview of the unique tradition of Buddhist yoga, along with instructions on how to work with the body and mind in seated meditation; tips for furthering our practice by working with adversities such as fear, procrastination, and anxiety; and guidance on bringing practice mind into daily life. The author also offers exercise instructions and a complete explanation of the movement practices, with photos to illustrate.
Download or read book Eat to Love written by Jenna Hollenstein and published by Lionheart Press, a division of the Open Heart Project. This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A joyful, non-diet approach to mindfulness, intuitive eating, and falling in love with the body you live in. In Eat to Love, nutritionist Jenna Hollenstein leads a spiritual revolution against pervasive attitudes towards food and dieting, and demonstrates how to free your mind from the fear, frustration, and shame often associated with eating. Through a series of revelatory exercises, along with simple instructions for time-proven mindfulness and meditation techniques, you’ll learn to identify prejudices around eating and reset your relationship with food. Eat to Love is not a diet book, not a “clean eating” manual, and not a guide to “being your best self.” Rather, it is a liberating path to sanity, and to loving the body you have right now. Since early childhood, many of us have heard that something is wrong with our bodies: with the way they look, the way they feel and the food we crave. This diet culture—surrounding us in the form of media, fashion, food trends, and even messages from friends and family—tells us that the only way to be happy is to be thin and to rigidly follow the latest eating dogma. Eat to Love challenges this insidious, pervasive messaging and resets your relationship with food from one that’s shameful to one that’s nourishing, liberating, and enriching.
Download or read book Freeing the Body Freeing the Mind written by Michael Stone and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2011-05-12 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of provocative essays by prominent teachers of Yoga and Buddhism, the common ground of these two ancient traditions becomes clear. Michael Stone has brought together a group of intriguing voices to show how Buddhism and Yoga share the same roots, the same values, and the same spiritual goals. The themes addressed here are rich and varied, yet the essays all weave together the common threads between the traditions that offer guidance toward spiritual freedom and genuine realization. Contributors include Ajahn Amaro Bhikkhu, Shosan Victoria Austin, Frank Jude Boccio, Christopher Key Chapple, Ari Goldfield and Rose Taylor, Chip Hartranft, Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara, Sarah Powers, Eido Shimano Roshi, Jill Satterfield, Mu Soeng, Michael Stone, Robert Thurman.
Download or read book Yoga Body Buddha Mind written by Cyndi Lee and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2004-08-03 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete manual for physical and spiritual well-being from the founder of the OM yoga center. In Yoga Body, Buddha Mind, the first book to give readers the best of both inextricably linked practices, Cyndi Lee -- author of the bestselling series OM Yoga in a Box -- shares her twenty years of experience as a practicing Tibetan Buddhist and one of the country's most famous yoga instructors. This easy-to-use guide shows readers of all yoga levels how to combine the basic tenets of Buddhism and meditation with yoga practice. Her book offers simple meditation programs and exercise sequences that can be done just about anywhere, in addition to more advanced and rigorous regimens. Written in the same personal, comfortable, and charismatic style that Cyndi Lee has brought to her classes, Yoga Body, Buddha Mind is a comprehensive how-to guide for spiritual well-being and the ultimate enlightening experience.
Download or read book The Body written by Yasuo Yuasa and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1987-07-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores mind-body philosophy from an Asian perspective. It sheds new light on a problem central in modern Western thought. Yuasa shows that Eastern philosophy has generally formulated its view of mind-body unity as an achievement a state to be acquired—rather than as essential or innate. Depending on the individual's own developmental state, the mind-body connection can vary from near dissociation to almost perfect integration. Whereas Western mind-body theories have typically asked what the mind-body is, Yuasa asks how the mind-body relation varies on a spectrum from the psychotic to the yogi, from the debilitated to the athletic, from the awkward novice to the master musician. Yuasa first examines various Asian texts dealing with Buddhist meditation, kundalini yoga, acupuncture, ethics, and epistemology, developing a concept of the "dark consciousness" (not identical with the psychoanalytic unconscious) as a vehicle for explaining their basic view. He shows that the mind-body image found in those texts has a striking correlation to themes in contemporary French phenomenology, Jungian psychoanalysis, psychomatic medicine, and neurophysiology. The book clears the ground for a provocative meeting between East and West, establishing a philosophical region on which science and religion can be mutually illuminating.
Download or read book The Buddha Pill written by Miguel Farias and published by Watkins Media Limited. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Millions of people meditate daily but can meditative practices really make us ‘better’ people? In The Buddha Pill, pioneering psychologists Dr Miguel Farias and Catherine Wikholm put meditation and mindfulness under the microscope. Separating fact from fiction, they reveal what scientific research – including their groundbreaking study on yoga and meditation with prisoners – tells us about the benefits and limitations of these techniques for improving our lives. As well as illuminating the potential, the authors argue that these practices may have unexpected consequences, and that peace and happiness may not always be the end result. Offering a compelling examination of research on transcendental meditation to recent brain-imaging studies on the effects of mindfulness and yoga, and with fascinating contributions from spiritual teachers and therapists, Farias and Wikholm weave together a unique story about the science and the delusions of personal change.
Download or read book A Bull of a Man written by John Powers and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-19 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The androgynous, asexual Buddha of contemporary popular imagination stands in stark contrast to the muscular, virile, and sensual figure presented in Indian Buddhist texts. In early Buddhist literature and art, the Buddha’s perfect physique and sexual prowess are important components of his legend as the world’s “ultimate man.” He is both the scholarly, religiously inclined brahman and the warrior ruler who excels in martial arts, athletic pursuits, and sexual exploits. The Buddha effortlessly performs these dual roles, combining his society’s norms for ideal manhood and creating a powerful image taken up by later followers in promoting their tradition in a hotly contested religious marketplace. In this groundbreaking study of previously unexplored aspects of the early Buddhist tradition, John Powers skillfully adapts methodological approaches from European and North American historiography to the study of early Buddhist literature, art, and iconography, highlighting aspects of the tradition that have been surprisingly invisible in earlier scholarship. The book focuses on the figure of the Buddha and his monastic followers to show how they were constructed as paragons of masculinity, whose powerful bodies and compelling sexuality attracted women, elicited admiration from men, and convinced skeptics of their spiritual attainments.
Download or read book Visions of Compassion written by Richard J. Davidson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-12-06 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how Western behavioral science--which has generally focused on negative aspects of human nature--holds up to cross-cultural scrutiny, in particular the Tibetan Buddhist celebration of the human potential for altruism, empathy, and compassion. Resulting from a meeting between the Dalai Lama, leading Western scholars, and a group of Tibetan monks, this volume includes excerpts from these extraordinary dialogues as well as engaging essays exploring points of difference and overlap between the two perspectives.
