Download or read book Collection of Passages on the Nembutsu Chosen written by and published by BDK America. This book was released on 1997-02 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collection of Passages on the Nembutsu is the principle work by Honen. It ranks along with Dogen Zenji's The Treasured Eye of the True Dharma and with Honen's disciple Shinran's major writings as one of the three most influential bodies of Buddhist teachings of the Kamakura period. Together, the doctrinally revolutionary ideas contained in these works radically and permanently changed the face of Japanese Buddhism. And among them Honen's Senchakushu was, in terms of its originative and transformative effects on Japanese Buddhism, the most powerful of them all. This work brought Buddhism within the grasp of even the most unlettered peasant. In a word, Honen simply declares that Sakyamuni Buddha left and "easy way" for the powerless people of the Age of the Dharma's Degeneration into which the world has already entered. One need only cast aside all other worries and practices and recite the Nembutsu. All other Buddhist traditions were expounded for stronger people of an earlier age. But now, says Honen, literally no one is able to use the Holy Path to attain Enlightenment. And so only the Gateway of the Pure Land - the simple recitation of the Numbutsu in full faith - can lead one to Rebirth in the Pure Land and assure one of eventual complete Enlightenment.
Download or read book The Promise of a Sacred World written by Nagapriya and published by Windhorse Publications. This book was released on 2022-08-25 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this pioneering book, in turns poetic and philosophical, Nagapriya shows how the insights into the existential condition offered by Shinran can transform our understanding of what Buddhist practice consists in, and what it means to awaken to our ultimate concern. Shinran (1173 – 1263) is one of the most important thinkers of Japanese Buddhist history, and founder of the Jōdo Shinshū Pure Land school. Nagapriya explores Shinran’s spirituality and teachings through close readings, confessional narrative, and thoughtful interpretation. This book is an invitation to reimagine Shinran’s religious universe, not for the sake of historical curiosity, but as an exercise that has the potential to remake us in the light of our ultimate concerns.
Download or read book The Promise of Amida Buddha written by and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Promise of Amida Buddha is the first complete English translation of a seminal collection of writings by the Japanese Pure Land school's founder, Honen-shonin (1133-1212). The so-called Japanese Anthology (Wago Toroku) collects his surviving short writings composed in Japanese, including letters of exhortation and public pronouncements. The vital writings provide a window into Honen's life and the turbulent era in which he lived and taught. Honen-shonin, who lived in Japan in the twelfth century, saw that the complexity of traditional Buddhist practices made them inaccessible to people outside the monastic elite. Drawing on the Chinese Pure Land tradition, he re-imagined Pure Land practice for Japan and ushered in a new and dynamic practice that continues in the present day. In our degenerate age, says Honen, we cannot hope to reach enlightenment via the practices employed by the Buddhist masters of old. For us there is only one avenue to liberation--rebirth in the Pure Land of Amida, from whence our progress is irreversible and our ultimate release assured. The Pure Land is a heavenly destination made manifest through the pure vow of Amida to save all beings, and we secure passage to this land in our next life through pure faith in Amida at the very moment of death. The practice of faith in Amida is performed through nembutsu, the continual recitation of the mantra Namu Amida Butsu, which bonds us to Amida and brings us into his care.
Download or read book The Promise of Amida Buddha written by Hōnen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joji Atone was born in Fukuoka, Japan, in 1951 and holds a Ph.D. from the University of WisconsinûMadison. Since 1992, he has been the director of Bukkyo UniversityûLos Angeles Extension. --
Download or read book Shinran s Kyogyoshinsho written by Shinran and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-25 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This annotated translation by Daisetz Suzuki (1870-1966) comprises the first four of six chapters of the Kyogyoshinsho, the definitive doctrinal work of Shinran (1173-1262). Shinran founded the Jodo Shin sect of Pure Land Buddhism, now the largest religious organization in Japan. Writing in Classical Chinese, Shinran began this, his magnum opus, while in exile and spent the better part of thirty years after his return to Kyoto revising the text. Although unfinished, Suzuki's translation conveys the text's core religious message, showing how Shinran offered a new understanding of faith through studying teachings before engaging in praxis, rather than the more common and far more limited view of faith in Buddhism as relevant to one just beginning their pursuit of Buddhist truth. Although Suzuki is best known for his scholarship on Zen Buddhism, he took a lifelong interest in Pure Land Buddhism. Suzuki's own religious perspective is evident in his translation of gyo as ''True Living'' rather than the expected ''Practice,'' and of sho as ''True Realizing of the Pure Land'' rather than the expected ''Enlightenment'' or ''Confirmation.'' This book contains the second edition of Suzuki's translation. It includes a number of corrections to the original 1973 edition, long out of print, as well as Suzuki's unfinished preface in its original form for the first time.
Download or read book The Essential Shinran written by Shinran and published by World Wisdom, Inc. This book was released on 2007 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shinran (1173-1262) is the founder of the Jodo Shinshu Pure Land Buddhist tradition in Japan during the Kamakura period. This movement, once set in motion, eventually became the largest Buddhist sect in Japan and spread to the West at the end of the nineteenth century. Renowned scholar of Shin Buddhism, Alfred Bloom, presents the life and spiritual legacy of Shinran Shonin, the influential religious reformer and founder of Pure Land Buddhism, the most popular school of Buddhism in Japan today. Bloom presents a wide selection of Shinran's essential writings on the key Shin Buddhist idea of true entrusting (shinjin) to the Other-Power of Amida Buddha through His Vow to save all sentient beings. The Essential Teachings of Shinran, also, includes a foreword by Shin Buddhist scholar, Rueben Habito, a detailed glossary of foreign terms, and a select bibliography for further reading.
Download or read book Engaging Japanese Philosophy written by Thomas P. Kasulis and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2017-12-31 with total page 785 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophy challenges our assumptions—especially when it comes to us from another culture. In exploring Japanese philosophy, a dependable guide is essential. The present volume, written by a renowned authority on the subject, offers readers a historical survey of Japanese thought that is both comprehensive and comprehensible. Adhering to the Japanese philosophical tradition of highlighting engagement over detachment, Thomas Kasulis invites us to think with, as well as about, the Japanese masters by offering ample examples, innovative analogies, thought experiments, and jargon-free explanations. He assumes little previous knowledge and addresses themes—aesthetics, ethics, the samurai code, politics, among others—not in a vacuum but within the conditions of Japan’s cultural and intellectual history. For readers new to Japanese studies, he provides a simplified guide to pronouncing Japanese and a separate discussion of the language and how its syntax, orthography, and linguistic layers can serve the philosophical purposes of a skilled writer and subtle thinker. For those familiar with the Japanese cultural tradition but less so with philosophy, Kasulis clarifies philosophical expressions and problems, Western as well as Japanese, as they arise. Half of the book’s chapters are devoted to seven major thinkers who collectively represent the full range of Japan’s historical epochs and philosophical traditions: Kūkai, Shinran, Dōgen, Ogyū Sorai, Motoori Norinaga, Nishida Kitarō, and Watsuji Tetsurō. Nuanced details and analyses enable an engaged understanding of Japanese Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintō, and modern academic philosophy. Other chapters supply social and cultural background, including brief discussions of nearly a hundred other philosophical writers. (For additional information, cross references to material in the companion volume Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook are included.) In his closing chapter Kasulis reflects on lessons from Japanese philosophy that enhance our understanding of philosophy itself. He reminds us that philosophy in its original sense means loving wisdom, not studying ideas. In that regard, a renewed appreciation of engaged knowing can play a critical role in the revitalization of philosophy in the West as well as the East.
Download or read book World Philosophies written by Ninian Smart and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World Philosophiesis a comprehensive survey of the world's philosophical and religious traditions by one of our foremost religious thinkers. Ninian Smart discusses notable figures such as Plato and Kierkegaard in the West, the Buddha and Mao Zedong in Asia, Tempels and Knibanga in Africa, and Rodo and Royce in America. Covering a wide range of topics including Indian ideas of testimony and evidence, Chinese notions of moral development, Buddhist concepts of cosmology and Latin American critiques of materialism, Smart sheds new light on the astonishing diversity of philosophies that have developed throughout history.
Download or read book The Collected Works of Shinran Introductions glossaries and reading aids written by Shinran and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Three Pure Land Sutras written by and published by BDK America. This book was released on 2003 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The larger sutra on Amitāyus (Taishō volume 12, number 360) -- The sutra on contemplation of Amitāyus (Taishō volume 12, number 365) -- The smaller sutra on Amitāyus (Taishō volume 12, number 366).
Download or read book Honen the Buddhist Saint written by Joseph A. Fitzgerald and published by World Wisdom, Inc. This book was released on 2006 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Priest, saint, and founder of the independent school of Pure Land (Jōdo) Buddhism in 12th century Japan, Hōnen Shōnin's importance has been largely unrecognized in the West, even though his legacy includes over twenty million living practitioners of in Japan. Honen the Buddhist Saint: His Life and Teachings is the first and only English translation of a biography of this remarkable man. Edited by Joseph A. Fitzgerald, this edition combines illustrations from Japanese religious sites as well as Hōnen's own words which allow him to speak "from across the ages," to any human being, Buddhist or non-Buddhist, who desires to have faith and gain knowledge.
Download or read book Sources of Japanese Tradition written by Ryūsaku Tsunoda and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1964 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 1 addresses the development, through the eighteenth century, of Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism.
Download or read book No Abode written by Ippen and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1997-08-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ippen (1239-1289) was a wandering hijiri (holy man) and religious leader whose movement developed into one of the major schools of medieval Japanese Buddhism. In his life and thought we find elements of folk practices and mountain austerities, the critical spirit of Zen, and the cosmic vision of esoteric traditions. This volume presents a translation of all of Ippen's extant writings, including letters and verse, together with records of his spoken words.
Download or read book Writings of Nichiren Shonin written by ?? and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume constitutes all eighteen writings of Buddhist reformer Nichiren Shonin (1222-1282) included in the Nichiren Shonin Zenshu (Complete Writings of Nichiren Shonin). Volume 1: Theology 1, published in Tokyo in 1992. The Nichiren Shonin Zenshu is a modern Japanese version of Nichiren's original writings, translated and edited with annotations by modern scholars of Nichiren Buddhism.
Download or read book The Buddhist Tradition written by William Theodore de Bary and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-03-16 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, compiled from basic Buddhist writings, presents a survey of Buddhist thought in India, China, and Japan, covering the central doctrines and practices that has profoundly influenced human life in Asia. Developments in practical ethics, social attitudes, philosophical speculation, and religious and aesthetic contemplation are represented by selected excerpts from basic writings with succinct introductions and commentary. From these one may observe not only the remarkable vitality of Buddhism in its spread through Asia, but also the essential links between widely diverse forms, showing how the spiritual message of the Buddha found expression in different historical and cultural circumstances. Thus both its continuity in time and its wide range of influence mark Buddhism as a major spiritual force in the world. Buddha, as the Awakened One, has exemplified to millions of followers throughout the ages a living Truth, a dynamic wisdom and an active compassion. It is these qualities that have inspired hop and courage in men who were asked to face to the stark reality of man's condition: the inevitable involvement in suffering which arises from his persistent egoism and refusal to recognize his finitude.
Download or read book Kyogyoshinsyo On Teaching Practice Faith and Enlightenment written by Shinran and published by BDK America. This book was released on 2003 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the magnum opus of Shinran Shonin, founder of the Jòdo Shinshu school of Pure Land Buddhism. This work is a collection of 376 passages from 62 sutras, discourses, and commentaries, with Shinran's own notes and commentary, organized into a coherent and comprehensive explication of the Pure Land teaching.
Download or read book The Opening of the Eyes written by Daisaku Ikeda and published by Middleway Press. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addressing questions such as What constitutes a meaningful life? and What is true happiness?, this guide to Nichiren Buddhism presents the spiritual practice as a teaching of hope that can answer these and other important questions of modern life. Buddhist teacher Daisaku Ikeda offers insights into The Opening of the Eyes, a longer treatise written by Nichiren that calls for individuals to base themselves on a spirit of compassion and to fight for the happiness of others, regardless of the circumstances. Ikeda’s simple and straightforward commentary brings this integral writing to life for a contemporary readership. Through the text and the accompanying commentary, readers will not will discover a philosophy of inner transformation that will help them find deep and lasting happiness for themselves and for others.
