Download or read book Dixie Dharma written by Jeff Wilson and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhism in the United States is often viewed in connection with practitioners in the Northeast and on the West Coast, but in fact, it has been spreading and evolving throughout the United States since the mid-nineteenth century. In Dixie Dharma, J

Download or read book Navigating Souths written by Michele Grigsby Coffey and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The work of considering, imagining, and theorizing the U.S. South in regional, national, and global contexts is an intellectual project that has been going on for some time. Scholars in history, literature, and other disciplines have developed an advanced understanding of the historical, social, and cultural forces that have helped to shape the U.S. South. However, most of the debates on these subjects have taken place within specific academic disciplines, with few attempts to cross-engage. Navigating Souths broadens these exchanges by facilitating transdisciplinary conversations about southern studies scholarship. The fourteen original essays in Navigating Souths articulate questions about the significances of the South as a theoretical and literal “home” base for social science and humanities researchers. They also examine challenges faced by researchers who identify as southern studies scholars, as well as by those who live and work in the regional South, and show how researchers have responded to these challenges. In doing so, this book project seeks to reframe the field of southern studies as it is currently being practiced by social science and humanities scholars and thus reshape historical and cultural conceptualizations of the region.

Download or read book Mindful America written by Jeff Wilson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jeff Wilson explores the diverse ways in which the Buddhist-derived practice of mindfulness meditation has been applied in American culture.

Download or read book Teaching Buddhism written by Todd Lewis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhist studies is a rapidly changing field of research, constantly transforming and adapting to new scholarship. This creates a problem for instructors, both in a university setting and in monastic schools, as they try to develop a curriculum based on a body of scholarship that continually shifts in focus and expands to new areas. Teaching Buddhism establishes a dialogue between the community of instructors of Buddhism and leading scholars in the field who are updating, revising, and correcting earlier understandings of Buddhist traditions. Each chapter presents new ideas within a particular theme of Buddhist studies and explores how courses can be enhanced with these insights. Contributors in the first section focus on the typical approaches, figures, and traditions in undergraduate courses, such as the role of philosophy in Buddhism, Nagarjuna, Yogacara Buddhism, tantric traditions, and Zen Buddhism. They describe the impact of recent developments-like new studies in the cognitive sciences-on scholarship in those areas. Part Two examines how political engagement and ritual practice have shaped the tradition throughout its history. Focus then shifts to the issues facing instructors of Buddhism-dilemmas for the scholar-practitioner in the academic and monastic classroom, the tradition's possible roles in teaching feminism and diversity, and how to present the tradition in the context of a world religions course. In the final section, contributors offer stories of their own experiences teaching, paying particular attention to the ways in which American culture has impacted them. They discuss the development of courses on American Buddhism; using course material on the family and children; the history and trajectory of a Buddhist-Christian dialog; and Buddhist bioethics, environmentalism, economic development, and social justice. In synthesizing this vast and varied body of research, the contributors in this volume have provided an invaluable service to the field

Download or read book Pure Lands in Asian Texts and Contexts written by Georgios T. Halkias and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2019-03-31 with total page 808 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This diverse anthology of original Buddhist texts in translation provides a historical and conceptual framework that will transform contemporary scholarship on Pure Land Buddhism and instigate its recognition as an essential field of Buddhist studies. Traditional and contemporary primary sources carefully selected from Buddhist cultures across historical, geopolitical, and literary boundaries are organized by genre rather than chronologically, geographically, or by religious lineage—a novel juxtaposition that reveals their wider importance in fresh contexts. Together these fundamental texts from different Asian traditions, expertly translated by eminent and up-and-coming scholars, illustrate that the Buddhism of pure lands is not just an East Asian cult or a marginal type of Buddhism, but a pan-Asian and deeply entrenched religious phenomenon. The volume is organized into six parts: Ritual Practices, Contemplative Visualizations, Doctrinal Expositions, Life Writing and Poetry, Ethical and Aesthetic Explications, and Worlds beyond Sukhāvatī. Each part is introduced and summarized, and each translated piece is prefaced by its translator to supply historical and sectarian context as well as insight into the significance of the work. Common and less-common issues of practice, doctrine, and intra-religious transfer are explored, and deeper understandings of the meaning of “pure lands” are gained through the study of the celestial, cosmological, internal, and earthly pure lands associated with various buddhas, bodhisattvas, and devotional figures. The introduction by the volume editors ties the diverse themes of the book together and provides a historical background to Pure Land Buddhist studies. Scholars of Buddhism and Asian religion, including graduate and post-graduate students, as well as Buddhist practitioners, will appreciate the range of translated materials and accompanied discussions made accessible in one essential collection, the first of its kind to center on the formerly-neglected topic of Buddhist pure lands.

Download or read book Pure Land in the Making written by Allison J. Truitt and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2021-02-15 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1970s, tens of thousands of Vietnamese immigrants have settled in Louisiana, Florida, and other Gulf Coast states, rebuilding lives that were upended by the wars in Indochina. For many, their faith has been an essential source of community and hope. But how have their experiences as migrants influenced their religious practices and interpretations of Buddhist tenets? And how has organized religion shaped their understanding of what it means to be Vietnamese in the United States? This ethnographic study follows the monks and lay members of temples in the Gulf Coast region who practice Pure Land Buddhism, which is prevalent in East Asia but in the United States is less familiar than forms such as Zen. By treating the temple as a site to be made and remade, Vietnamese Americans have developed approaches that sometimes contradict fundamental Buddhist principles of nonattachment. This book considers the adaptation of Buddhist practices to fit American cultural contexts, from temple fundraising drives to the rebranding of the Vu Lan festival as Vietnamese Mother’s Day. It also reveals the vital role these faith communities have played in helping Vietnamese Americans navigate challenges from racial discrimination to Hurricane Katrina.

Download or read book Cyber Zen written by Gregory Price Grieve and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cyber Zen ethnographically explores Buddhist practices in the online virtual world of Second Life. Does typing at a keyboard and moving avatars around the screen, however, count as real Buddhism? If authentic practices must mimic the actual world, then Second Life Buddhism does not. In fact, a critical investigation reveals that online Buddhist practices have at best only a family resemblance to canonical Asian traditions and owe much of their methods to the late twentieth-century field of cybernetics. If, however, they are judged existentially, by how they enable users to respond to the suffering generated by living in a highly mediated consumer society, then Second Life Buddhism consists of authentic spiritual practices. Cyber Zen explores how Second Life Buddhist enthusiasts form communities, identities, locations, and practices that are both products of and authentic responses to contemporary Network Consumer Society. Gregory Price Grieve illustrates that to some extent all religion has always been virtual and gives a glimpse of possible future alternative forms of religion.

Download or read book Meditation Buddhism and Science written by David McMahan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-20 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The scientific study of Buddhist forms of meditation has surged in recent years, capturing the popular imagination and reshaping conceptions of what meditation is and what it can do. For perhaps the first time in history, meditation has shifted from Buddhist monasteries and practice centers to some of the most prominent and powerful modern institutions in the world, as well as non-institutional settings. As their contexts change, so do the practices-sometimes drastically. New ways of thinking about meditation are emerging as it moves toward more secular settings, ways that profoundly affect millions of lives all over the world. To understand these changes and their effects, the essays in this volume explore the unaddressed complexities in the interrelations between Buddhist history and thought and the scientific study of meditation. The contributors bring philosophical, cultural, historical, and ethnographic perspectives to bear, considering such issues as the philosophical presuppositions behind practice, the secularization of meditation, the values and goods assumed in clinical approaches, and the sorts of subjects that take shape under the influence of these transformed and transformative practices-all the more powerful for being so often formulated with the authority of scientific discourse.

Download or read book Buddhism and Waste written by Trine Brox and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-01-13 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In what ways do Buddhists recognize, define, and sort waste from non-waste? What happens to Buddhist-related waste? How do new practices of Buddhist consumption result in new forms of waste and consequently new ways of dealing with waste? This book explores these questions in a close examination of a religion that is often portrayed as anti-materialist and non-economic. It provides insight into the complexity of Buddhist consumption, conceptions of waste, and waste care. Examples include scripture that has been torn and cannot be read, or an amulet that has disintegrated, as well as garbage left behind on a pilgrimage, or the offerings of food and prayer scarves that create ecological contamination. Chapters cover mass-production and over-consumption, the wastefulness of consumerism, the by-products of Buddhist practices like rituals and festivals, and the impact of increased Buddhist consumption on religious practices and social relations. The book also looks at waste in terms of what is discarded, exploring issues of when and why particular objects and practices are sorted and handled as sacred and disposable. Contributors address how sacred materiality is destined to wear and decay, as well as ideas about redistribution, regeneration or recycling, and the idea of waste as afterlife.

Download or read book Eastspirit Transnational Spirituality and Religious Circulation in East and West written by Jørn Borup and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-08-28 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mindfulness, yoga, Tantra, Zen, martial arts, karma, feng shui, Ayurveda. Eastern ideas and practices associated with Asian religions and spirituality have been accommodated to a global setting as both a spiritual/religious and a broader cultural phenomenon. ‘Eastern spirituality’ is present in organized religions, the spiritual New Age market, arts, literature, media, therapy, and health care but also in public institutions such as schools and prisons. Eastspirit: Transnational Spirituality and Religious Circulation in East and West describes and analyses such concepts, practices and traditions in their new ‘Western’ and global contexts as well as in their transformed expressions and reappropriations in religious traditions and individualized spiritualities ‘back in the East’ within the framework of mutual interaction and circulation, regionally and globally.

Download or read book Buddhism beyond Borders written by Scott A. Mitchell and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the 2015 ForeWord INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award in the Religion Category Buddhism beyond Borders provides a fresh consideration of Buddhism in the American context. It includes both theoretical discussions and case studies to highlight the tension between studies that locate Buddhist communities in regionally specific areas and those that highlight the translocal nature of an increasingly interconnected world. Whereas previous examinations of Buddhism in North America have assumed a more or less essentialized and homogeneous "American" culture, the essays in this volume offer a corrective, situating American Buddhist groups within the framework of globalized cultural flows, while exploring the effects of local forces. Contributors examine regionalism within American Buddhisms, Buddhist identity and ethnicity as academic typologies, Buddhist modernities, the secularization and hybridization of Buddhism, Buddhist fiction, and Buddhist controversies involving the Internet, among other issues.

Download or read book The Making of American Buddhism written by Scott A. Mitchell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As of 2010, there were approximately 3-4 million Buddhists in the United States, and that figure is expected to grow significantly. Beyond the numbers, the influence of Buddhism can be felt throughout the culture, with many more people practicing meditation, for example, than claiming Buddhist identity. A century ago, this would have been unthinkable. So how did Buddhism come to claim such a significant place in the American cultural landscape? The Making of American Buddhism offers an answer, showing how in the years on either side of World War II second-generation Japanese American Buddhists laid claim to an American identity inclusive of their religious identity. In the process they-and their allies-created a place for Buddhism in America. These sons and daughters of Japanese immigrants-known as "Nisei," Japanese for "second-generation"-clustered around the Berkeley Bussei, a magazine published from 1939 to 1960. In the pages of the Bussei and elsewhere, these Nisei Buddhists argued that Buddhism was both what made them good Americans and what they had to contribute to America-a rational and scientific religion of peace. The Making of American Buddhism also details the behind-the-scenes labor that made Buddhist modernism possible. The Bussei was one among many projects that were embedded within Japanese American Buddhist communities and connected to national and transnational networks that shaped and allowed for the spread of modernist Buddhist ideas. In creating communities, publishing magazines, and hosting scholarly conventions and translation projects, Nisei Buddhists built the religious infrastructure that allowed the later Buddhist modernists, Beat poets, and white converts who are often credited with popularizing Buddhism to flourish. Nisei activists didn't invent American Buddhism, but they made it possible.

Download or read book The Secular Spectacle written by Chad E. Seales and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using ethnographic and archival sources, Chad E. Seales argues in The Secular Spectacle that white Protestants in Siler ritually engaged material cultures of racial segregation and southern industrialization that had been forged in the early twentieth century in order to reclaim public space following the arrival of Latino Catholics.

Download or read book Drawn to the Gods written by David Feltmate and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sacred centers -- The difference race makes: Native American Religions, Hinduism, and Judaism -- American Christianity, part 1: backwards neighbors -- American Christianity, part 2: American Christianities as dangerous threats -- Stigma, stupidity, and exclusion: "cults" and Muslims -- List of episodes referenced

Download or read book Understanding Young Buddhists written by Andrew Yip and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-02-06 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is currently an acute lack of scholarly engagement with Buddhism and youth. Based on ground-breaking empirical research, Understanding Young Buddhists: Living out Ethical Journeys explores the stories of young Buddhists, through a rich analysis of their lived experiences. Page and Yip explore their journeying into Buddhism, their Buddhist belief and practice, their management of sexuality, and their social positioning in relation to family and kin, friendship networks, youth culture, and occupational aspirations. Using lived religion as a theoretical lens, and bringing into dialogue research on Buddhism and youth, Understanding Young Buddhists convincingly demonstrates the resourcefulness and creativity of young Buddhists in developing ethics for life, as they negotiate the diverse challenges and opportunities in their journeys of life.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of American Buddhism written by Ann Gleig and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of American Buddhism offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date scholarship available on Buddhism in America. It charts the history and diversity of Buddhist communities, including traditions and communities that have been previously neglected, and looks at the ways in which Buddhist practices such as mindfulness meditation have been adopted in non-Buddhist settings.

Download or read book Handbook of Mindfulness written by Ronald E. Purser and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook explores mindfulness philosophy and practice as it functions in today’s socioeconomic, cultural, and political landscape. Chapters discuss the many ways in which classic concepts and practices of mindfulness clash, converge, and influence modern theories and methods, and vice versa. Experts across many disciplines address the secularization and commercialization of Buddhist concepts, the medicalizing of mindfulness in therapies, and progressive uses of mindfulness in education. The book addresses the rise of the, “mindfulness movement”, and the core concerns behind the critiques of the growing popularity of mindfulness. It covers a range of dichotomies, such as traditional versus modern, religious versus secular, and commodification versus critical thought and probes beyond the East/West binary to larger questions of economics, philosophy, ethics, and, ultimately, meaning. Featured topics include: A compilation of Buddhist meditative practices. Selling mindfulness and the marketing of mindful products. A meta-critique of mindfulness critiques - from McMindfulness to critical mindfulness Mindfulness-based interventions in clinical psychology and neuroscience. Corporate mindfulness and usage in the workplace. Community-engaged mindfulness and its role in social justice. The Handbook of Mindfulness is a must-have resource for clinical psychologists, complementary and alternative medicine professionals/practitioners, neuroscientists, and educational and business/management leaders and policymakers as well as related mental health, medical, and educational professionals/practitioners.