Download or read book Buddhism Beyond the Monastery written by International Association for Tibetan Studies. Seminar and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monasteries have been the locus classicus of the academic investigation of Tibetan religions. This volume seeks to balance this emphasis with an exploration of the diverse religious specialists who operate outside of the monastery in Tibet and along the Himalayan belt. The articles collected here depict Tantric professionals, visionaries, village lamas, spirit mediums, and female religious leaders whose loyalties reside in the noncelibate sphere but whose activities have had a significant impact on Tibetan religion. Using methodologies drawn from anthropological and textual scholarship, these seven essays bolster our understanding of religious practices and their performers beyond the monasteries of Central and Eastern Tibet, Bhutan, and India from historical times to the present day.

Download or read book Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the IATS 2003 Volume 12 Buddhism Beyond the Monastery written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009-09-30 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monasteries have been the locus classicus of the academic investigation of Tibetan religions. This volume seeks to balance this emphasis with an exploration of the diverse religious specialists who operate outside of the monastery in Tibet and along the Himalayan belt. The articles collected here depict Tantric professionals, visionaries, village lamas, spirit mediums, and female religious leaders whose loyalties reside in the noncelibate sphere but whose activities have had a significant impact on Tibetan religion. Using methodologies drawn from anthropological and textual scholarship, these seven essays bolster our understanding of religious practices and their performers beyond the monasteries of Central and Eastern Tibet, Bhutan, and India from historical times to the present day.

Download or read book A Monastery in Time written by Caroline Humphrey and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-07-05 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Monastery in Time is the first book to describe the life of a Mongolian Buddhist monastery—the Mergen Monastery in Inner Mongolia—from inside its walls. From the Qing occupation of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through the Cultural Revolution, Caroline Humphrey and Hürelbaatar Ujeed tell a story of religious formation, suppression, and survival over a history that spans three centuries. Often overlooked in Buddhist studies, Mongolian Buddhism is an impressively self-sustaining tradition whose founding lama, the Third Mergen Gegen, transformed Tibetan Buddhism into an authentic counterpart using the Mongolian language. Drawing on fifteen years of fieldwork, Humphrey and Ujeed show how lamas have struggled to keep Mergen Gegen’s vision alive through tremendous political upheaval, and how such upheaval has inextricably fastened politics to religion for many of today’s practicing monks. Exploring the various ways Mongolian Buddhists have attempted to link the past, present, and future, Humphrey and Ujeed offer a compelling study of the interplay between the individual and the state, tradition and history.

Download or read book Beyond the Robe written by Bobby Sager and published by powerHouse Books. This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twelve years ago, the Sager Family Foundation, the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, and the Dalai Lama's private office began a groundbreaking program called Science for Monks to teach Western science to Tibetan monks and nuns. Recently, Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama announced a decision by the leaders of the monasteries to make the study of Western science part of the core curriculum required of all monastic scholars in the Gelug tradition. Beyond the Robe tells the story of the decade long development of the Science for Monks program and what it reveals about the larger role Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns can play in their monasteries, in their communities, and in the world at large. Beyond the Robe is a collection of essays from the monks and scientists containing the first insights that have come out of this historic effort. Beyond the Robe follows the monks' study of science, but it is not a science book. The real story here is what the study of science has revealed about who these remarkable men and woman really are and the much bigger role that they seem so suited to fill. "I hope that Beyond the Robe helps you to feel closer to the monks and nuns and to better understand their immense potential to provide leadership in their world and further insight into ours. Instead of simply admiring them from afar, let's all get close enough to really listen." —Bobby Sager "Bobby Sager has been not only a most generous and dedicated benefactor of the Science for Monks program since it was launched 12 years ago, but also he is a direct witness to its flourishing. His testimony and insight are key to an in-depth understanding of this unique encounter between two major traditions of knowledge, Buddhist contemplative science and modern Western science. His account provides a welcome encouragement to this wonderful meeting of minds and hearts at the service of humanity." —Matthieu Ricard "Beyond the Robe has many fascinating dimensions and makes a critical contribution to Tibet, to Buddhism, and to our world today. The space it opens is the world of the Tibetan Buddhist monastic universities, still thriving in Indian exile. Within that world, we encounter, in beautiful and thought provoking ways, the living tradition of Buddhist monastics, their realms of study, debate, prayer, and meditation, and their living intellectual and experiential encounter with the modern worldview, with its discoveries, technologies, and anxieties." —Robert Thurman

Download or read book A Monk s Guide to Happiness written by Gelong Thubten and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness for the Modern Day In our never-ending search for happiness we often find ourselves looking to external things for fulfillment, thinking that happiness can be unlocked by buying a bigger house, getting the next promotion, or building a perfect family. In this profound and inspiring book, Gelong Thubten shares a practical and sustainable approach to happiness. Thubten, a Buddhist monk and meditation expert who has worked with everyone from school kids to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and Benedict Cumberbatch, explains how meditation and mindfulness can create a direct path to happiness. A Monk’s Guide to Happiness explores the nature of happiness and helps bust the myth that our lives and minds are too busy for meditation. The book can show you how to: - Learn practical methods to help you choose happiness - Develop greater compassion for yourself and others - Learn to meditate in micro-moments during a busy day - Discover that you are naturally ‘hard-wired’ for happiness Reading A Monk’s Guide to Happiness could revolutionize your relationship with your thoughts and emotions, and help you create a life of true happiness and contentment.

Download or read book A Monastery in Time written by Caroline Humphrey and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-07-05 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Monastery in Time is the first book to describe the life of a Mongolian Buddhist monastery—the Mergen Monastery in Inner Mongolia—from inside its walls. From the Qing occupation of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through the Cultural Revolution, Caroline Humphrey and Hürelbaatar Ujeed tell a story of religious formation, suppression, and survival over a history that spans three centuries. Often overlooked in Buddhist studies, Mongolian Buddhism is an impressively self-sustaining tradition whose founding lama, the Third Mergen Gegen, transformed Tibetan Buddhism into an authentic counterpart using the Mongolian language. Drawing on fifteen years of fieldwork, Humphrey and Ujeed show how lamas have struggled to keep Mergen Gegen’s vision alive through tremendous political upheaval, and how such upheaval has inextricably fastened politics to religion for many of today’s practicing monks. Exploring the various ways Mongolian Buddhists have attempted to link the past, present, and future, Humphrey and Ujeed offer a compelling study of the interplay between the individual and the state, tradition and history.

Download or read book A Monastery on the Move written by Uranchimeg Tsultemin and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2020-12-31 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1639, while the Géluk School of the Fifth Dalai Lama and Qing emperors vied for supreme authority in Inner Asia, Zanabazar (1635–1723), a young descendent of Chinggis Khaan, was proclaimed the new Jebtsundampa ruler of the Khalkha Mongols. Over the next three centuries, the ger (yurt) erected to commemorate this event would become the mobile monastery Ikh Khüree, the political seat of the Jebtsundampas and a major center of Mongolian Buddhism. When the monastery and its surrounding structures were destroyed in the 1930s, they were rebuilt and renamed Ulaanbaatar, the modern-day capital of Mongolia. Based on little-known works of Mongolian Buddhist art and architecture, A Monastery on the Move presents the intricate and colorful history of Ikh Khüree and of Zanabazar, himself an eminent artist. Author Uranchimeg Tsultemin makes the case for a multifaceted understanding of Mongol agency during the Géluk’s political ascendancy and the Qing appropriation of the Mongol concept of dual rulership (shashin tör) as the nominal “Buddhist Government.” In rich conversation with heretofore unpublished textual, archeological, and archival sources (including ritualized oral histories), Uranchimeg argues that the Qing emperors’ “Buddhist Government” was distinctly different from the Mongol vision of sovereignty, which held Zanabazar and his succeeding Jebtsundampa reincarnates to be Mongolia’s rightful rulers. This vision culminated in their independence from the Qing and the establishment of the Jebtsundampa’s theocractic government in 1911. A groundbreaking work, A Monastery on the Move provides a fascinating, in-depth analysis and interpretation of Mongolian Buddhist art and its role in shaping borders and shifting powers in Inner Asia.

Download or read book Westward Dharma written by Charles S. Prebish and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2002-12-04 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Like seeds on the wind, Buddhist teachings continue to reach new lands. This outstanding book brings to light, in rich detail, the current flowering of Buddhism in the West. Long a world religion, Buddhism is now a global one."—Kenneth Kraft, author of The Wheel of Engaged Buddhism "Westward Dharma deserves a place on the growing bookshelf of contemporary Buddhist studies. Prebish and Baumann broaden our horizons from North America to the wider Western world, exploring key aspects of Buddhism's most recent geographical and cultural expansion."—Paul David Numrich, coauthor of Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs in America.

Download or read book The Monastery and the Microscope written by Wendy Hasenkamp and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illuminating record of dialogues between the Dalai Lama and some of today’s most prominent scientists, philosophers, and contemplatives In 2013, during a historic six-day meeting at a Tibetan monastery in southern India, the Dalai Lama gathered with leading scientists, philosophers, and monks for in-depth discussions on the nature of reality, consciousness, and the human mind. This eye-opening book presents a record of those spirited and wide-ranging dialogues, featuring contributions from prominent scholars like Richard Davidson, Matthieu Ricard, Tania Singer, and Arthur Zajonc as they address such questions as: Does nature have a nature? Do you need a brain to be conscious? Can we change our minds and brains through meditation? Throughout, the contributors explore the exciting and sometimes surprising commonalities between Western scientific and Tibetan Buddhist methods of perceiving, investigating, and knowing. Part history, part state-of-the-field, part inspiration for the future, this book rigorously and accessibly explores what these two investigative traditions can teach each other, and what that can tell us about ourselves and the world.

Download or read book Stepping into Freedom written by Thich Nhat Hanh and published by Parallax Press. This book was released on 1997-09-15 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides guidelines, encouraging words, reminders, and poems for novice monks and nuns in the Buddhist tradition

Download or read book What the Buddha Never Taught written by Tim Ward and published by Changemakers Books. This book was released on 2013-08-30 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is still a place in the jungles of Thailand, where you can leave it all behind... A cult classic and bestseller in the 1990s, What the Buddha Never Taught is a humorous “behind the robes” account of life inside one of the strictest jungle monasteries in Southeast Asia. In Pahnanachat, the monks keep the 227 rules laid down by the Buddha, including refraining from all killing. But how does a foreign monk cope with cobra in the outhouse, or the temptation of a Mars Bar in his begging bowl? Find out, in this newly reincarnated 20th anniversary edition, with a new introduction by the author and a new foreword by Wade Davis. ,

Download or read book The Monastery Rules written by Berthe Jansen and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At publication date, a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. The Monastery Rules discusses the position of the monasteries in pre-1950s Tibetan Buddhist societies and how that position was informed by the far-reaching relationship of monastic Buddhism with Tibetan society, economy, law, and culture. Jansen focuses her study on monastic guidelines, or bca’ yig. The first study of its kind to examine the genre in detail, the book contains an exploration of its parallels in other Buddhist cultures, its connection to the Vinaya, and its value as socio-historical source-material. The guidelines are witness to certain socio-economic changes, while also containing rules that aim to change the monastery in order to preserve it. Jansen argues that the monastic institutions’ influence on society was maintained not merely due to prevailing power-relations, but also because of certain deep-rooted Buddhist beliefs.

Download or read book Sera Monastery written by José Cabezón and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of Sera Monastery, one of the great monastic universities of Tibet, from its founding to the present. Founded in 1419, Sera Monastery was one of the three densas, the great seats of learning of the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism. With over 9,000 monks in residence in 1959, it was the second largest monastery in the world. Throughout its history, Sera has produced some of Tibet’s most important saints, scholars, and political leaders. The scholars José Cabezón and Penpa Dorjee begin Sera Monastery with the history of monasticism from the time of the Buddha through its early development in Tibet and then tell the 600-year story of Sera from its founding to the present. They recount how the monastery grew and evolved during the centuries, how it has fared under Chinese rule, and how it was transplanted in the Tibetan refugee camps of South India. We are introduced to some of Sera’s most important lamas and hermits, as well as its curriculum, yearly calendar, the daily life of scholar monks, and the role Sera monks played in the political history of Tibet. Former Sera monks themselves, Cabezón and Dorjee demonstrate their firsthand knowledge of the monastery, its traditions, and daily life on every page. Scrupulously researched over decades, Sera Monastery is the most comprehensive history of a Tibetan monastery ever written in a Western language.

Download or read book Discipline and Debate written by Michael Lempert and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2012-04-30 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Dalai Lama has represented Buddhism as a religion of non-violence, compassion, and world peace, but this does not reflect how monks learn their vocation. This book shows how monasteries use harsh methods to make monks of men, and how this tradition is changing as modernist reformers—like the Dalai Lama—adopt liberal and democratic ideals, such as natural rights and individual autonomy. In the first in-depth account of disciplinary practices at a Tibetan monastery in India, Michael Lempert looks closely at everyday education rites—from debate to reprimand and corporal punishment. His analysis explores how the idioms of violence inscribed in these socialization rites help produce educated, moral persons but in ways that trouble Tibetans who aspire to modernity. Bringing the study of language and social interaction to our understanding of Buddhism for the first time, Lempert shows and why liberal ideals are being acted out by monks in India, offering a provocative alternative view of liberalism as a globalizing discourse.

Download or read book In Love with the World written by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rare, intimate account of a world-renowned Buddhist monk’s near-death experience and the life-changing wisdom he gained from it “One of the most inspiring books I have ever read.”—Pema Chödrön, author of When Things Fall Apart “This book has the potential to change the reader’s life forever.”—George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo At thirty-six years old, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche was a rising star within his generation of Tibetan masters and the respected abbot of three monasteries. Then one night, telling no one, he slipped out of his monastery in India with the intention of spending the next four years on a wandering retreat, following the ancient practice of holy mendicants. His goal was to throw off his titles and roles in order to explore the deepest aspects of his being. He immediately discovered that a lifetime of Buddhist education and practice had not prepared him to deal with dirty fellow travelers or the screeching of a railway car. He found he was too attached to his identity as a monk to remove his robes right away or to sleep on the Varanasi station floor, and instead paid for a bed in a cheap hostel. But when he ran out of money, he began his life as an itinerant beggar in earnest. Soon he became deathly ill from food poisoning—and his journey took a startling turn. His meditation practice had prepared him to face death, and now he had the opportunity to test the strength of his training. In this powerful and unusually candid account of the inner life of a Buddhist master, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche offers us the invaluable lessons he learned from his near-death experience. By sharing with readers the meditation practices that sustain him, he shows us how we can transform our fear of dying into joyful living. Praise for In Love with the World “Vivid, compelling . . . This book is a rarity in spiritual literature: Reading the intimate story of this wise and devoted Buddhist monk directly infuses our own transformational journey with fresh meaning, luminosity, and life.”—Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge “In Love with the World is a magnificent story—moving and inspiring, profound and utterly human. It will certainly be a dharma classic.”—Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart “This book makes me think enlightenment is possible.”—Russell Brand

Download or read book A Buddhist Sensibility written by Dominique Townsend and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Founded in 1676 during a cosmopolitan early modern period, Mindröling monastery became a key site for Buddhist education and a Tibetan civilizational center. Its founders sought to systematize and institutionalize a worldview rooted in Buddhist philosophy, engaging with contemporaries from across Tibetan Buddhist schools while crystallizing what it meant to be part of their own Nyingma school. At the monastery, ritual performance, meditation, renunciation, and training in the skills of a bureaucrat or member of the literati went hand in hand. Studying at Mindröling entailed training the senses and cultivating the objects of the senses through poetry, ritual music, monastic dance, visual arts, and incense production, as well as medicine and astrology. Dominique Townsend investigates the ritual, artistic, and cultural practices inculcated at Mindröling to demonstrate how early modern Tibetans integrated Buddhist and worldly activities through training in aesthetics. Considering laypeople as well as monastics and women as well as men, A Buddhist Sensibility sheds new light on the forms of knowledge valued in early modern Tibetan societies, especially among the ruling classes. Townsend traces how tastes, values, and sensibilities were cultivated and spread, showing what it meant for a person, lay or monastic, to be deemed well educated. Combining historical and literary analysis with fieldwork in Tibetan Buddhist communities, this book reveals how monastic institutions work as centers of cultural production beyond the boundaries of what is conventionally deemed Buddhist.

Download or read book An End to Suffering written by Pankaj Mishra and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2010-08-24 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An End to Suffering is a deeply original and provocative book about the Buddha's life and his influence throughout history, told in the form of the author's search to understand the Buddha's relevance in a world where class oppression and religious violence are rife, and where poverty and terrorism cast a long, constant shadow. Mishra describes his restless journeys into India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, among Islamists and the emerging Hindu middle class, looking for this most enigmatic of religious figures, exploring the myths and places of the Buddha's life, and discussing Western explorers' "discovery" of Buddhism in the nineteenth century. He also considers the impact of Buddhist ideas on such modern politicians as Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. As he reflects on his travels and on his own past, Mishra shows how the Buddha wrestled with problems of personal identity, alienation, and suffering in his own, no less bewildering, times. In the process Mishra discovers the living meaning of the Buddha's teaching, in the world and for himself. The result is the most three-dimensional, convincing book on the Buddha that we have.