Download or read book Poetics of Emptiness written by Jonathan Stalling and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2011-10-03 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Poetics of Emptiness uncovers an important untold history by tracing the historically specific, intertextual pathways of a single, if polyvalent, philosophical term, emptiness, as it is transformed within twentieth-century American poetry and poetics. This conceptual migration is detailed in two sections. The first focuses on "transpacific Buddhist poetics," while the second maps the less well-known terrain of "transpacific Daoist poetics." In Chapters 1 and 2, the author explores Ernest Fenollosa's "The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry" as an expression of Fenollosa's distinctly Buddhist poetics informed by a two-decade-long encounter with a culturally hybrid form of Buddhism known as Shin Bukkyo ("New Buddhism"). Chapter 2 explores the classical Chinese poetics that undergirds the lost half of Fenellosa's essay. Chapter 3 concludes the first half of the book with an exploration of the didactic and soteriological function of "emptiness" in Gary Snyder's influential poetry and poetics. The second half begins with a critical exploration of the three-decades-long career of the poet/translator/critic Wai-lim Yip, whose "transpacific Daoist poetics" has been an important fixture in American poetic late modernism and has begun to gain wider notoriety in China. The last chapter engages the intertextual weave of poststructural thought and Daoist and shamanistic discourses in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's important body of heterocultural productions. By formulating interpretive frames as hybrid as the texts being read, this book makes available one of the most important yet still largely unknown stories of American poetry and poetics.

Download or read book Religions of the East written by Stephen Hunt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 597 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the rubric of 'Religions of the East', which includes Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Janiism and a myriad of Chinese religio-philosophies, are a vast range of views concerning human sexuality. These contrasting attitudes are mapped through this volume on Religions of the East in The Library of Essays on Sexuality and Religion series. Part 1 presents previously-published articles that explore several Eastern Religions in the way they construct sexuality through expressions of their pertinent holy writings and belief systems, as applied in differing historical and cultural contexts. Part 2 takes sexual renunciation and asceticism as its focus through the traditions of Hinduism, Jainism and the Chinese religious systems. Part 3 explores the connection between sexuality, gender and sexuality in Hindu and Buddhist customs in varied social settings. The final part of the volume includes articles examining Eastern religions in their attitudes towards sexual 'variants' including bi-sexuality, trans-sexuality and contested sexual categories.

Download or read book Confrontations Philosophical reflections and aphorisms written by and published by Daniel Fidel Ferrer. This book was released on 2011-04-06 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1. Ontology. 2. Metaphysics. 3. Philosophy, German. 4.Thought and thinking. 5. Philosophy, Asian. 6. Philosophy, Indic. 7. Philosophy, Modern -- 20th century.8. Philosophy, Modern -- 19th century. 9. Practice (Philosophy). 10. Philosophy and civilization. 11. Postmodernism. 12. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. 13. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. 14. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976 -- Homes and haunts -- Germany -- Todtnauberg.15. Nagarjuna, 2nd cent. I. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel, 1952-. Written between 2005 and 2011.

Download or read book Scripture Logic Language written by Tom J. F. Tillemans and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dharmakirti, an Indian Buddhist philosopher of the seventh century, explored the nature, limits, and justifications of rationality within the context of Buddhist religious and metaphysical concerns. While Dharmakirti is widely recognized for his crucial innovations in Indian logic and semantic theory, his notoriously difficult thought nonetheless remains poorly understood. In this volume, one of the world's leading scholars of Buddhist philosophy sheds light on the interrelated topics of scripture, logic, and language in the works of Dharmakirti and his philosophical heirs, both Indian and Tibetan. Professor Tillemans' knowledgeable explanations of such technical subjects as the apoha theory of reference and the problem of entailment (vyapti) are coupled throughout with insightful reflections on how best to evaluate Dharmakirti's theories in light of contemporary philosophical thought. Scripture, Logic, Language is an informative and thought-provoking study for students of Buddhism as well as for those in the wider field of philosophy.

Download or read book Freedom from Extremes written by Jose Ignacio Cabezon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-02-08 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is emptiness? This question at the heart of Buddhist philosophy has preoccupied the greatest minds of India and Tibet for two millennia, producing hundreds of volumes. Distinguishing the Views, by the fifteenth-century Sakya scholar Gorampa Sonam Senge, is one of the most important of those works, esteemed for its conciseness, lucidity, and profundity. Freedom from Extremes presents Gorampa's elegant philosophical case on the matter of emptiness here in a masterful translation by Geshe Lobsang Dargyay. Gorampa's text is polemical, and his targets are two of Tibet's greatest thinkers: Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelug school, and Dolpopa, a founding figure of the Jonang school. Distinguishing the Views argues that Dolpopa has fallen into an eternalistic extreme, whereas Tsongkhapa has fallen into nihilism, and that only the mainstream Sakya view - what Gorampa calls "freedom from extremes" - represents the true middle way, the correct view of emptiness. Suppressed for years in Tibet, this seminal work today is widely regarded and is studied in some of Tibet's greatest academic institutions. Gorampa's treatise has been translated and annotated here by two leading scholars of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, and a critical edition of the Tibetan text on facing pages gives students and scholars direct access to Gorampa's own words. Jose Cabezon's extended introduction provides a thorough overview of Tibetan polemical literature and contextualizes the life and work of Gorampa both historically and intellectually. Freedom from Extremes will be indispensable for serious students of Madhyamaka thought.

Download or read book Buddhist Ethics written by Hammalawa Saddhatissa and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For more than a quarter of a century, those in search of an introduction to Buddhist moral thought have turned and returned to this little volume..." Thus notes Charles Hallisey of Harvard University in his introduction. Starting with an examination of classical Greek notions of ethics, Venerable Saddhatissa goes on to explain the development of Buddhist moral codes and their practical application. In this work, Venerable Saddhatissa starts with an examination of Western notions of ethics, beginning with the early Greek philosophers and moving on to show us how the study of morality is crucial to a clear understanding of the Buddhist tradition. Drawing on a vast array of Buddhist scriptures, Venerable Saddhatissa explains the development and position of Buddhist precepts from a traditional perspective, while simultaneously offering clear and practical advice on how best to live the moral life of a lay Buddhist practitioner. Throughout Buddhist Ethics, Venerable Saddhatissa always keeps us in touch with the pragmatic uses of Buddhist moral practices, not only as a way to live in harmony with the world, but as an indispensable aspect of the path to the Buddhist's highest spiritual goal.

Download or read book Buddhists Brahmins and Belief written by Dan Arnold and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2008-02-18 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Buddhists, Brahmins, and Belief, Dan Arnold examines how the Brahmanical tradition of Purva Mimamsa and the writings of the seventh-century Buddhist Madhyamika philosopher Candrakirti challenged dominant Indian Buddhist views of epistemology. Arnold retrieves these two very different but equally important voices of philosophical dissent, showing them to have developed highly sophisticated and cogent critiques of influential Buddhist epistemologists such as Dignaga and Dharmakirti. His analysis—developed in conversation with modern Western philosophers like William Alston and J. L. Austin—offers an innovative reinterpretation of the Indian philosophical tradition, while suggesting that pre-modern Indian thinkers have much to contribute to contemporary philosophical debates. In logically distinct ways, Purva Mimamsa and Candrakirti's Madhyamaka opposed the influential Buddhist school of thought that emphasized the foundational character of perception. Arnold argues that Mimamsaka arguments concerning the "intrinsic validity" of the earliest Vedic scriptures are best understood as a critique of the tradition of Buddhist philosophy stemming from Dignaga. Though often dismissed as antithetical to "real philosophy," Mimamsaka thought has affinities with the reformed epistemology that has recently influenced contemporary philosophy of religion. Candrakirti's arguments, in contrast, amount to a principled refusal of epistemology. Arnold contends that Candrakirti marshals against Buddhist foundationalism an approach that resembles twentieth-century ordinary language philosophy—and does so by employing what are finally best understood as transcendental arguments. The conclusion that Candrakirti's arguments thus support a metaphysical claim represents a bold new understanding of Madhyamaka.

Download or read book History of Indian Buddhism written by Etienne Lamotte and published by Peeters. This book was released on 1988 with total page 958 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The History of Indian Buddhism is undoubtedly Msgr. E. Lamotte's most brilliant contribution to the field of Buddhist exegesis. The work contains a vivid, vigorous and fully-detailed description of early Buddhism and its teachings, the material organization of the Community, the formation and further developments of the writings, the conciliar traditions, the evolution of Buddhist sculpture and architecture, the origins of the sects, the Buddhist dialects and the constitution of the legends, and sets them in the historical background in which buddhist doctrines originated and expanded in India and in the neighbouring countries. Using the material evidence provided by Indian epigraphy and archaeological remains on the one hand, and taking into account the data supplied by Western (Latin and Greek) and Far Eastern (Tibetan and Chinese) sources on the other, Msgr. E. Lamotte has succeeded in producing a lucid and basic book that is unanimously considered as a classic of contemporary Buddhist studies. After thirty years, the work has retained all its value, but, in order to meet the requirements of recent Buddhist scholarship, the History of Indian Buddhism has been supplemented with an additional bibliography, an index of technical terms and revised geographical maps.

Download or read book Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism written by Robert H. Sharf and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2005-11-30 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The issue of sinification—the manner and extent to which Buddhism and Chinese culture were transformed through their mutual encounter and dialogue—has dominated the study of Chinese Buddhism for much of the past century. Robert Sharf opens this important and far-reaching book by raising a host of historical and hermeneutical problems with the encounter paradigm and the master narrative on which it is based. Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism is, among other things, an extended reflection on the theoretical foundations and conceptual categories that undergird the study of medieval Chinese Buddhism. Sharf draws his argument in part from a meticulous historical, philological, and philosophical analysis of the Treasure Store Treatise (Pao-tsang lun), an eighth-century Buddho-Taoist work apocryphally attributed to the fifth-century master Seng-chao (374–414). In the process of coming to terms with this recondite text, Sharf ventures into all manner of subjects bearing on our understanding of medieval Chinese Buddhism, from the evolution of T’ang "gentry Taoism" to the pivotal role of image veneration and the problematic status of Chinese Tantra. The volume includes a complete annotated translation of the Treasure Store Treatise, accompanied by the detailed exegesis of dozens of key terms and concepts.

Download or read book The Buddhist Doctrine of Momentariness written by Alexander von Rospatt and published by Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH. This book was released on 1995 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reason s Traces written by Matthew Kapstein and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-06-15 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reason's Traces addresses some of the key questions in the study of Indian and Buddhist thought: the analysis of personal identity and of ultimate reality, the interpretation of Tantric texts and traditions, and Tibetan approaches to the interpretation of Indian sources. Drawing on a wide range of scholarship, Reason's Traces reflects current work in philosophical analysis and hermeneutics, inviting readers to explore in a Buddhist context the relationship between philosophy and traditions of spiritual exercise.

Download or read book Indian Buddhism written by A. K. Warder and published by Motilal Banarsidass. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 623 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes the Buddhism of India on the basis of the comparison of all the available original sources in various languages. It falls into three approximately equal parts. The first is a reconstruction of the original Buddhism presupposed by the traditions of the different schools known to us. It uses primarily the established methods of textual criticism, drawing out of the oldest extant texts of the different schools their common kernel. This kernel of doctrine is presumably common Buddhism of the period before the great schisms of the fourth and third centuries BC. It may be substantially the Buddhism of the Buddha himself, though this cannot be proved: at any rate, it is a Buddhism presupposed by the schools as existing about a hundred years after the Parinirvana of the Buddha, and there is no evidence to suggest that it was formulated by anyone other than the Buddha and his immediate followers. The second part traces the development of the 'Eighteen Schools' of early Buddhism, showing how they elaborated their doctrines out of the common kernel. Here we can see to what extent the Sthaviravada, or 'Theravada' of the Pali tradition, among others, added to or modified the original doctrine. The third part describes the Mahayana movement and the Mantrayana, the way of the bodhisattva and the way of ritual. The relationship of the Mahayana to the early schools is traced in detail, with its probable affiliation to one of them, the Purva Saila, as suggested by the consensus of the evidence. Particular attention is paid in this book to the social teaching of Buddhism, the part which relates to the 'world' rather than to nirvana and which has been generally neglected in modern writings of Buddhism.

Download or read book The Literature of the Madhyamaka School of Philosophy in India written by David Seyfort Ruegg and published by Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. This book was released on 1981 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Introduction to the Middle Way written by Chandrakirti and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2005-02-08 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction to the Middle Way presents an adventure into the heart of Buddhist wisdom through the Madhyamika, or "middle way," teachings, which are designed to take the ordinary intellect to the limit of its powers and then show that there is more. This book includes a verse translation of the Madhyamakavatara by the renowned seventh-century Indian master Chandrakirti, an extremely influential text of Mahayana Buddhism, followed by an exhaustive logical explanation of its meaning by the modern Tibetan master Jamgön Mipham, composed approximately twelve centuries later. Chandrakirti's work is an introduction to the Madhyamika teachings of Nagarjuna, which are themselves a systematization of the Prajnaparamita, or "Perfection of Wisdom" literature, the sutras on the crucial but elusive concept of emptiness. Chandrakirti's work has been accepted throughout Tibetan Buddhism as the highest expression of the Buddhist view on the sutra level. With Jamgön Mipham's commentary, it is a definitive presentation of the wisdom of emptiness, a central theme of Buddhist teachings. This book is a core study text for both academic students and practitioners of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism.

Download or read book Buddhism in the Sung written by Daniel A. Getz and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2002-10-31 with total page 660 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New paperback edition The Sung Dynasty (960–1279) has long been recognized as a major watershed in Chinese history. Although there are recent major monographs on Sung society, government, literature, Confucian thought, and popular religion, the contribution of Buddhism to Sung social and cultural life has been all but ignored. Indeed, the study of Buddhism during the Sung has lagged behind that of other periods of Chinese history. One reason for the neglect of this important aspect of Sung society is undoubtedly the tenacity of the view that the Sung marked the beginning of an inexorable decline of Buddhism in China that extended down through the remainder of the imperial era. As this book attests, however, new research suggests that, far from signaling a decline, the Sung was a period of great efflorescence in Buddhism. This volume is the first extended scholarly treatment of Buddhism in the Sung to be published in a Western language. It focuses largely on elite figures, elite traditions, and interactions among Buddhists and literati, although some of the book’s essays touch on ways in which elite traditions both responded to and helped shape more popular forms of lay practice and piety. All of the chapters in one way or another deal with the two most important elite traditions within Sung Buddhism: Ch’an and T’ien-t’ai. Whereas most previous discussions of Buddhism in the Sung have tended to concentrate on Ch’an, the present volume is notable for giving T’ien-t’ai its due. By presenting a broader and more contextualized picture of these two traditions as they developed in the Sung, this work amply reveals the vitality of Buddhism in the Sung as well as its embeddedness in the social and intellectual life of the time.

Download or read book Pain and Its Ending written by Carol Anderson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrates how the four noble truths are used thorughout the Pali canon as a symbol of Buddha's enlightenment and as a doctrine within a larger network of Buddha's teachings. Their unique nature rests in their function as a proposition and as a symbol in the Theravada canon.

Download or read book Self Reality and Reason in Tibetan Philosophy written by Thupten Jinpa and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-22 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The work explores the historical and intellectual context of Tsongkhapa's philosophy and addresses the critical issues related to questions of development and originality in Tsongkhapa's thought. It also deals extensively with one of Tsongkhapa's primary concerns, namely his attempts to demonstrate that the Middle Way philosophy's deconstructive analysis does not negate the reality of the everyday world. The study's central focus, however, is the question of the existence and the nature of self. This is explored both in terms of Tsongkhapa's deconstruction of the self and his reconstruction of person. Finally, the work explores the concept of reality that emerges in Tsongkhapa's philosophy, and deals with his understanding of the relationship between critical reasoning, no-self, and religious experience.