Download or read book Buddhism for Non Buddhists written by Janet Taylor and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2012-12-26 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhism is a buzzword that has many people wondering, "What is all the fuss about?" Meditation and Mindfulness are also getting plenty of press, and scientific validation, for their ability to lower stress levels and create a sense of peace and well-being without changing your religious beliefs. There are hundreds if not thousands of Buddhist books that have been written! Why pick this one? Because this one cuts through all the dogma and doctrine, goes beyond any cultural overlays, and gets to the heart of what really works and can be practically implemented in your daily life. Buddhism for Non-Buddhists enables you to learn meditation, mindfulness and visualization, the three key components of the Buddhist practice without wading through the history or histrionics of the various Buddhist traditions. Here's a book that is straightforward and easy to understand, without all the foreign words and frustrating interpretations. Buddhism for Non-Buddhists gives you a step-by-step approach to radically change the way you experience yourself and the world around you. These practices enable you to experience a sense of happiness and well-being regardless of your external circumstances. These practices have proven effective in helping with pain management, addiction recovery and stress relief. These practices have proven effective in making you a more loving, compassionate, joyful and wise person! Who wouldn't want some of that?
Download or read book Why I Am Not a Buddhist written by Evan Thompson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-28 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A provocative essay challenging the idea of Buddhist exceptionalism, from one of the world's most widely respected philosophers and writers on Buddhism and science. Buddhism has become a uniquely favored religion in our modern age. A burgeoning number of books extol the scientifically proven benefits of meditation and mindfulness for everything ranging from business to romance. There are conferences, courses, and celebrities promoting the notion that Buddhism is spirituality for the rational; compatible with cutting-edge science; indeed, "a science of the mind." In this provocative book, Evan Thompson argues that this representation of Buddhism is false. In lucid and entertaining prose, Thompson dives deep into both Western and Buddhist philosophy to explain how the goals of science and religion are fundamentally different. Efforts to seek their unification are wrongheaded and promote mistaken ideas of both. He suggests cosmopolitanism instead, a worldview with deep roots in both Eastern and Western traditions. Smart, sympathetic, and intellectually ambitious, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in Buddhism's place in our world today."--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book What Makes You Not a Buddhist written by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2008-08-12 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. In What Makes You Not a Buddhist, Khyentse reviews the four core truths of the tradition, using them as a lens through which readers can examine their everyday lives. With wit and irony, he 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. Khyentse’s provocative, non-traditional approach to Buddhism will resonate with students of all stripes and anyone eager to bring this ancient religious tradition into their twenty-first-century lives.
Download or read book Buddhism without Beliefs written by Stephen Batchelor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1998-03-01 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A national bestseller and acclaimed guide to Buddhism for beginners and practitioners alike In this simple but important volume, Stephen Batchelor reminds us that the Buddha was not a mystic who claimed privileged, esoteric knowledge of the universe, but a man who challenged us to understand the nature of anguish, let go of its origins, and bring into being a way of life that is available to us all. The concepts and practices of Buddhism, says Batchelor, are not something to believe in but something to do—and as he explains clearly and compellingly, it is a practice that we can engage in, regardless of our background or beliefs, as we live every day on the path to spiritual enlightenment.
Download or read book Why I Am a Buddhist written by Stephen T. Asma and published by Hampton Roads Publishing. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Profound and amusing, this book provides a viable approach to answering the perennial questions: Who am I? Why am I here? How can I live a meaningful life? For Asma, the answers are to be found in Buddhism. There have been a lot of books that have made the case for Buddhism. What makes this book fresh and exciting is Asma’s iconoclasm, irreverence, and hardheaded approach to the subject. He is distressed that much of what passes for Buddhism is really little more than “New Age mush.” He asserts that it is time to “take the California out of Buddhism.” He presents a spiritual practice that does not require a belief in creeds or dogma. It is a practice that is psychologically sound, intellectually credible, and esthetically appealing. It is a practice that does not require a diet of brown rice, burning incense, and putting both your mind and your culture in deep storage. In seven chapters, Asma builds the case for a spiritual practice that is authentic, and inclusive. This is Buddhism for everyone, especially for people who are uncomfortable with religion but yearn for a spiritual practice.
Download or read book Land of No Buddha written by Richard P. Hayes and published by Windhorse Publications. This book was released on 1998 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing with a perspective that comes from more than twenty years of study and practice, Richard Hayes casts a critical eye over modern society and the teachings of Buddhism as they flow into the West.
Download or read book Buddhism and Human Flourishing written by Seth Zuihō Segall and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-02-27 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Buddha and Aristotle offer competing visions of the best possible life to which human beings can aspire. In this volume, Seth Zuihō Segall compares Theravāda and Mahāyāna accounts of enlightenment with Aristotelian and neo-Aristotelian accounts of eudaimonia, and proposes a syncretic model of eudaimonic enlightenment that, given prevalent Western beliefs about well-being and human flourishing, provides a credible new end-goal for modern Western Buddhist practice. He then demonstrates how this proposed synthesis is already deeply reflected in contemporary Western Buddhist rhetoric. Segall re-evaluates traditional Buddhist teachings on desire, attachment, aversion, nirvāṇa, and selfhood from the eudaimonic enlightenment perspective, and explores the perspective’s ethical and metaphysical implications.
Download or read book The Buddha and Religious Diversity written by J. Abraham Vélez de Cea and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a rigorous analysis of Buddhist ways of understanding religious diversity, this book develops a new foundation for cross-cultural understanding of religious diversity in our time. Examining the complexity and uniqueness of Buddha’s approach to religious pluralism using four main categories – namely exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralistic-inclusivism and pluralism – the book proposes a cross-cultural and interreligious interpretation of each category, thus avoiding the accusation of intellectual colonialism. The key argument is that, unlike the Buddha, most Buddhist traditions today, including Theravda Buddhism and even the Dalai Lama, consider liberation and the highest stages of spiritual development exclusive to Buddhism. The book suggests that the Buddha rejects many doctrines and practices found in other traditions, and that, for him, there are nonnegotiable ethical and doctrinal standards that correspond to the Dharma. This argument is controversial and likely to ignite a debate among Buddhists from different traditions, especially between conservative and progressive Buddhists. The book fruitfully contributes to the literature on inter-religious dialogue, and is of use to students and scholars of Asian Studies, World Religion and Eastern Philosophy.
Download or read book After Buddhism written by Stephen Batchelor and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-28 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some twenty-five centuries after the Buddha started teaching, his message continues to inspire people across the globe, including those living in predominantly secular societies. What does it mean to adapt religious practices to secular contexts? Stephen Batchelor, an internationally known author and teacher, is committed to a secularized version of the Buddha’s teachings. The time has come, he feels, to articulate a coherent ethical, contemplative, and philosophical vision of Buddhism for our age. After Buddhism, the culmination of four decades of study and practice in the Tibetan, Zen, and Theravada traditions, is his attempt to set the record straight about who the Buddha was and what he was trying to teach. Combining critical readings of the earliest canonical texts with narrative accounts of five members of the Buddha’s inner circle, Batchelor depicts the Buddha as a pragmatic ethicist rather than a dogmatic metaphysician. He envisions Buddhism as a constantly evolving culture of awakening whose long survival is due to its capacity to reinvent itself and interact creatively with each society it encounters. This original and provocative book presents a new framework for understanding the remarkable spread of Buddhism in today’s globalized world. It also reminds us of what was so startling about the Buddha’s vision of human flourishing.
Download or read book Buddha Taught Nonviolence Not Pacifism written by Paul R. Fleischman and published by Pariyatti Publishing. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, this thought-provoking essay explores the Buddha's teaching to find one prescription: not war, not pacifism but nonviolence.
Download or read book Buddhism the Religion of No Religion written by Alan Watts and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 1999-10-15 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The widespread influence of Buddhism is due in part to the skill with which a way of liberation was refined by it's teachers and became accessible to people of diverse cultures. In this dynamic series of lectures, Alan Watts takes us on an exploration of Buddhism, from its roots in India to the explosion of interest in Zen and the Tibetan tradition in the West. Watts traces the Indian beginnings of Buddhism, delineates differences between Buddhism and other religions, looks at the radical methods of the Mahayan Buddhist, and reviews the Four Noble Truths and The Eightfold Path
Download or read book The Trouble with Buddhism written by Robert M. Ellis and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2011-03-13 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a critique of Buddhism by a philosopher with about 20 years' experience of practising Buddhism. It attempts to judge Buddhism by the standards of its own key insight of the Middle Way. This book argues that Buddhism has often abandoned the Middle Way and allowed dogmatic metaphysical assumptions to take its place. The Buddha criticised appeals to metaphysics, yet many of the trappings of traditional Buddhism are built on it - whether these are karma and rebirth, the revelations of the enlightened and their scriptures, dependent origination, the interpretation of the Four Noble Truths, alienated idealisations of love, or rituals that celebrate metaphysics rather than insight. This is not a purely negative book, but an attempt at a balanced appraisal of Buddhism with praise as well as criticism. In the West we have an opportunity to evaluate Buddhism anew and reform it so that it best applies its own insights.
Download or read book Buddhist Acts of Compassion written by Pamela Bloom and published by Conari Press. This book was released on 2000-11 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "My religion is compassion," the Dalai Lama has said. Indeed, the vow to be of benefit to others lies at the heart of Buddhist practice. This book collects dozens of profound and moving stories of true compassion. From the Buddhist monk who offered his body to starving animals, to modern Western practitioners who use Buddhist principles for healing and social reform, these stories inspire with their depth, tenderness, humor, and occasional outrageousness. Included are tales of the "crazy wisdom" kindness practiced by many masters in the Tibetan and Zen traditions, as well as selections from the best-loved Buddhist figures of today, including Sogyal Rinpoche, Sharon Salzberg, Thich Nhat Hanh, and the Dalai Lama.
Download or read book Buddhism in Central Asia III written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-04-11 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The BuddhistRoad project has been creating a new framework to understand the dynamics of cultural encounter and religious transfer across premodern Eastern Central Asia. This framework includes a new focus on the complex interactions between Buddhism and non-Buddhist traditions and a deepening of the traditional focus on Buddhist doctrines between the 6th and 14th centuries, as Buddhism continued to spread along an ancient, local political-economic-cultural system of exchange, often referred to as the Silk Roads. This volume brings together world renowned experts to discuss these issues including Buddhism and Christianity, Islam, Daoism, Manichaeism, local indigenous traditions, Tantra etc. Contributors include: Daniel Berounský, Michal Biran, Max Deeg, Lewis Doney, Mélodie Doumy, Meghan Howard Masang, Yukiyo Kasai, Diego Loukota†, Carmen Meinert, Sam van Schaik, Henrik H. Sørensen, and Jens Wilkens.
Download or read book Why Buddhism is True written by Robert Wright and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of America’s most brilliant writers, a New York Times bestselling journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness. At the heart of Buddhism is a simple claim: The reason we suffer—and the reason we make other people suffer—is that we don’t see the world clearly. At the heart of Buddhist meditative practice is a radical promise: We can learn to see the world, including ourselves, more clearly and so gain a deep and morally valid happiness. In this “sublime” (The New Yorker), pathbreaking book, Robert Wright shows how taking this promise seriously can change your life—how it can loosen the grip of anxiety, regret, and hatred, and how it can deepen your appreciation of beauty and of other people. He also shows why this transformation works, drawing on the latest in neuroscience and psychology, and armed with an acute understanding of human evolution. This book is the culmination of a personal journey that began with Wright’s landmark book on evolutionary psychology, The Moral Animal, and deepened as he immersed himself in meditative practice and conversed with some of the world’s most skilled meditators. The result is a story that is “provocative, informative and...deeply rewarding” (The New York Times Book Review), and as entertaining as it is illuminating. Written with the wit, clarity, and grace for which Wright is famous, Why Buddhism Is True lays the foundation for a spiritual life in a secular age and shows how, in a time of technological distraction and social division, we can save ourselves from ourselves, both as individuals and as a species.
Download or read book Secularizing Buddhism written by Sarah Shaw and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely essay collection on the development and influence of secular expressions of Buddhism in the West and beyond. How do secular values impact Buddhism in the modern world? What versions of Buddhism are being transmitted to the West? Is it possible to know whether an interpretation of the Buddha’s words is correct? In this new essay collection, opposing ideas that often define Buddhist communities—secular versus religious, modern versus traditional, Western versus Eastern—are unpacked and critically examined. These reflections by contemporary scholars and practitioners reveal the dynamic process of reinterpreting and reimagining Buddhism in secular contexts, from the mindfulness movement to Buddhist shrine displays in museums, to whether rebirth is an essential belief. This collection explores a wide range of modern understandings of Buddhism—whether it is considered a religion, philosophy, or lifestyle choice—and questions if secular Buddhism is purely a Western invention, offering a timely contribution to an ever-evolving discussion. Contributors include Bhikkhu Bodhi, Kate Crosby, Gil Fronsdal, Kathleen Gregory, Funie Hsu, Roger R. Jackson, Charles B. Jones, David L. McMahan, Richard K. Payne, Ron Purser, Sarah Shaw, Philippe Turenne, and Pamela D. Winfield.
Download or read book Approaching the Buddhist Path written by Dalai Lama XIV Bstan-ʼdzin-rgya-mtsho and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Buddha wanted his students to investigate, to see for themselves whether what he said were true. As a student of the Buddha, the Dalai Lama promotes the same spirit of investigation, and recognizes that new approaches are needed to allow seekers in the West to experience the relevance of the liberating message in their own lives. This volume stands as an introduction to Buddhism, and provides a foundation for the volumes to come.
