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 146 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 Buddhism Without Beliefs written by Stephen Batchelor and published by Riverhead Books (Hardcover). This book was released on 1997 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This concise and beautiful book demystifies Buddhism by explaining, without jargon or obscure terminology, what awakening is and how to practice it. What Buddha taught, says Stephen Batchelor, is not something to believe in but something to do. . . something that can be practiced every day.
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 Confession of a Buddhist Atheist written by Stephen Batchelor and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-03-02 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does Buddhism require faith? Can an atheist or agnostic follow the Buddha’s teachings without believing in reincarnation or organized religion? This is one man’s confession. In his classic Buddhism Without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor offered a profound, secular approach to the teachings of the Buddha that struck an emotional chord with Western readers. Now, with the same brilliance and boldness of thought, he paints a groundbreaking portrait of the historical Buddha—told from the author’s unique perspective as a former Buddhist monk and modern seeker. Drawing from the original Pali Canon, the seminal collection of Buddhist discourses compiled after the Buddha’s death by his followers, Batchelor shows us the Buddha as a flesh-and-blood man who looked at life in a radically new way. Batchelor also reveals the everyday challenges and doubts of his own devotional journey—from meeting the Dalai Lama in India, to training as a Zen monk in Korea, to finding his path as a lay teacher of Buddhism living in France. Both controversial and deeply personal, Stephen Batchelor’s refreshingly doctrine-free, life-informed account is essential reading for anyone interested in Buddhism.
Download or read book Secular Buddhism written by Noah Rasheta and published by Blurb. This book was released on 2016-10-26 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this simple yet important book, Noah Rasheta takes profound Buddhist concepts and makes them easy to understand for anyone trying to become a better whatever-they-already-are.
Download or read book The Faith to Doubt written by Stephen Batchelor and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2015-04-01 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kierkegaard said that faith without doubt is simply credulity, the will to believe too readily, especially without adequate evidence, and that "in Doubt can Faith begin." All people involved in spiritual practice, of whatever persuasion, must confront doubt at one time or another, and find a way beyond it to belief, however temporary. But "faith is not equivalent to mere belief. Faith is the condition of ultimate confidence that we have the capacity to follow the path of doubt to its end. And courage." In this engaging spiritual memoir, Stephen Batchelor describes his own training, first as a Tibetan Buddhist and then as a Zen practitioner, and his own direct struggles along his path. "It is most uncanny that we are able to ask questions, for to question means to acknowledge that we do not know something. But it is more than an acknowledgement: it includes a yearning to confront an unknown and illuminate it through understanding. Questioning is a quest." Batchelor is a contemporary Buddhist teacher and writer, best known for his secular or agnostic approach to Buddhism. He considers Buddhism to be a constantly evolving culture of awakening rather than a religious system based on immutable dogmas and beliefs. Buddhism has survived for the past 2,500 years because of its capacity to reinvent itself in accord with the needs of the different Asian societies with which it has creatively interacted throughout its history. As Buddhism encounters modernity, it enters a vital new phase of its development. Through his writings, translations and teaching, Stephen engages in a critical exploration of Buddhism's role in the modern world, which has earned him both condemnation as a heretic and praise as a reformer.
Download or read book Living with the Devil written by Stephen Batchelor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-06-07 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stephen Batchelor's seminal work on humanity's struggle between good and evil In the national bestseller Living with the Devil, Batchelor traces the trajectory from the words of the Buddha and Christ, through the writings of Shantideva, Milton, and Pascal, to the poetry of Baudelaire, the fiction of Kafka, and the findings of modern physics and evolutionary biology to examine who we really are, and to rest in the uncertainty that we may never know. Like his previous bestseller, Buddhism without Beliefs, Living with the Devil is also an introduction to Buddhism that encourages readers to nourish their "buddha nature" and make peace with the devils that haunt human life. He tells a poetic and provocative tale about living with life's contradictions that will challenge you to live your life as an existence imbued with purpose, freedom, and compassion—rather than habitual self-interest and fear.
Download or read book The Awakening of the West written by Stephen Batchelor and published by Echo Point Books & Media, LLC. This book was released on 2021-10-15 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Awakening of the West is an insightful and elegantly written history chronicling the developing relationship between Buddhism and Western culture. As anyone familiar with the work of Stephen Batchelor (best-selling author of Buddhism Without Beliefs) would expect, The Awakening of the West is presented in a fresh and lively way and backed by thorough research. Using the innovative approach of starting with the present and working back in time, Batchelor makes it easy to connect familiar contemporary Buddhist teachers to their historical roots. He breathes life into history by capturing the personalities and times of famous and lesser-known but important Buddhist figures. After absorbing these stories and their context, readers will not only have a greater appreciation of Buddhism as a religion but can gain insights that can help them develop their own discerning wisdom. The Awakening of the West is a unique, engaging and important book for anyone seeking a greater understanding of Buddhism.
Download or read book Secular Buddhism written by Stephen Batchelor and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-21 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential collection of Stephen Batchelor’s most probing and important work on secular Buddhism As the practice of mindfulness permeates mainstream Western culture, more and more people are engaging in a traditional form of Buddhist meditation. However, many of these people have little interest in the religious aspects of Buddhism, and the practice occurs within secular contexts such as hospitals, schools, and the workplace. Is it possible to recover from the Buddhist teachings a vision of human flourishing that is secular rather than religious without compromising the integrity of the tradition? Is there an ethical framework that can underpin and contextualize these practices in a rapidly changing world? In this collected volume of Stephen Batchelor’s writings on these themes, he explores the complex implications of Buddhism’s secularization. Ranging widely—from reincarnation, religious belief, and agnosticism to the role of the arts in Buddhist practice—he offers a detailed picture of contemporary Buddhism and its attempt to find a voice in the modern world.
Download or read book Alone with Others written by Stephen Batchelor and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 1994-02 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This uniquely contemporary guide to understanding the timeless message of Buddhism, and in particular its relevance in actual human relations, was inspired by Shantideva's 'Guide To The Bodhisattva's Way Of Life', which the author translated into English, the oral instructions of living Buddhist masters, Heidegger's classic 'Being and Time', and the writings of the Christian theologians Paul Tillich and John MacQuarrie.
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 The Art of Solitude written by Stephen Batchelor and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a time of social distancing and isolation, a meditation on the beauty of solitude from renowned Buddhist writer Stephen Batchelor “Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it. A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.”—Kirkus Reviews “Elegant and formally ingenious.”—Geoff Wisner, Wall Street Journal When world renowned Buddhist writer Stephen Batchelor turned sixty, he took a sabbatical from his teaching and turned his attention to solitude, a practice integral to the meditative traditions he has long studied and taught. He aimed to venture more deeply into solitude, discovering its full extent and depth. This beautiful literary collage documents his multifaceted explorations. Spending time in remote places, appreciating and making art, practicing meditation and participating in retreats, drinking peyote and ayahuasca, and training himself to keep an open, questioning mind have all contributed to Batchelor’s ability to be simultaneously alone and at ease. Mixed in with his personal narrative are inspiring stories from solitude’s devoted practitioners, from the Buddha to Montaigne, from Vermeer to Agnes Martin. In a hyperconnected world that is at the same time plagued by social isolation, this book shows how to enjoy the inescapable solitude that is at the heart of human life.
Download or read book Without Buddha I Could Not be a Christian written by Paul F. Knitter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An honest, unflinching tale of re-finding one's faith, from one of the world's most famous theologians Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian narrates how esteemed theologian, Paul F. Knitter overcame a crisis of faith by looking to Buddhism for inspiration. From prayer to how Christianity views life after death, Knitter argues that a Buddhist standpoint can encourage a more person-centred conception of Christianity, where individual religious experience comes first, and liturgy and tradition second. Moving and revolutionary, this book will inspire Christians everywhere.
Download or read book Thoughts Without A Thinker written by Mark Epstein and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2013-07-30 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blending the lessons of psychotherapy with Buddhist teachings, Mark Epstein offers a revolutionary understanding of what constitutes a healthy emotional life The line between psychology and spirituality has blurred, as clinicians, their patients, and religious seekers explore new perspectives on the self. A landmark contribution to the field of psychoanalysis, Thoughts Without a Thinker describes the unique psychological contributions offered by the teachings of Buddhism. Drawing upon his own experiences as a psychotherapist and meditator, New York-based psychiatrist Mark Epstein lays out the path to meditation-inspired healing, and offers a revolutionary new understanding of what constitutes a healthy emotional life.
Download or read book Wildmind written by Bodhipaksa and published by Windhorse Publications. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meditation helps us to cut through the agonizing clutter of superficial mental turmoil and allows us to experience more spacious and joyful states of mind. It is this pure and luminous state that I call your Wildmind. From how to build your own stool to how a raisin can help you meditate, this illustrated guide explains everything you need to know to start or strengthen your meditation practice.
Download or read book Great Doubt written by Yuanlai and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-07-26 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intro -- Title -- Table of Contents -- Foreword by Brad Warner -- Introduction -- TRANSLATION -- Exhortations for Those Who Don't Rouse Doubt -- Exhortations for Those Who Rouse Doubt -- COMMENTARY -- A Commentary on Exhortations for Those Who Don't Rouse Doubt -- A Commentary on Exhortations for Those Who Rouse Doubt -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author -- Also Available from Wisdom Publications -- About Wisdom Publications -- Copyright
Download or read book Verses from the Center written by Stephen Batchelor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2001-07-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The understanding of the nature of reality is the insight upon which the Buddha was able to achieve his own enlightenment. This vision of the sublime is the source of all that is enigmatic and paradoxical about Buddhism. In Verses from the Center, Stephen Batchelor explores the history of this concept and provides readers with translations of the most important poems ever written on the subject, the poems of 2nd century philosopher Nagarjuna.
