Download or read book Neither Monk nor Layman written by Richard M. Jaffe and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhism comes in many forms, but in Japan it stands apart from all the rest in one most striking way--the monks get married. In Neither Monk nor Layman, the most comprehensive study of this topic in any language, Richard Jaffe addresses the emergence of an openly married clergy as a momentous change in the history of modern Japanese Buddhism. He demonstrates, in clear and engaging prose, that this shift was not an easy one for Japanese Buddhists. Yet the transformation that began in the early Meiji period (1868-1912)--when monks were ordered by government authorities to adopt common surnames and allowed to marry, to have children, and to eat meat--today extends to all the country's Buddhist denominations. Jaffe traces the gradual acceptance of clerical marriage by Japanese Buddhists from the premodern emergence of the "clerical marriage problem" in the Edo period to its widespread practice by the start of the Second World War. In doing so he considers related issues such as the dissolution of clerical status and the growing domestication of Japanese temple life. This book reveals the deep contradictions between sectarian teachings that continue to idealize renunciation and a clergy whose lives closely resemble those of their parishioners in modern Japanese society. It will attract not only scholars of religion and of Japanese history, but all those interested in the encounter-conflict between regimes of modernization and religious institutions and the fate of celibate religious practices in the twentieth century.
Download or read book Neither Monk Nor Layman written by Richard M. Jaffe and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhism comes in many forms, but in Japan it stands apart from all the rest in one striking way - the monks get married. This study addresses the emergence of an openly married clergy as a momentous change in the history of modern Japanese Buddhism.
Download or read book Seeking Sakyamuni written by Richard M. Jaffe and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-05-20 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though fascinated with the land of their tradition’s birth, virtually no Japanese Buddhists visited the Indian subcontinent before the nineteenth century. In the richly illustrated Seeking Śākyamuni, Richard M. Jaffe reveals the experiences of the first Japanese Buddhists who traveled to South Asia in search of Buddhist knowledge beginning in 1873. Analyzing the impact of these voyages on Japanese conceptions of Buddhism, he argues that South Asia developed into a pivotal nexus for the development of twentieth-century Japanese Buddhism. Jaffe shows that Japan’s growing economic ties to the subcontinent following World War I fostered even more Japanese pilgrimage and study at Buddhism’s foundational sites. Tracking the Japanese travelers who returned home, as well as South Asians who visited Japan, Jaffe describes how the resulting flows of knowledge, personal connections, linguistic expertise, and material artifacts of South and Southeast Asian Buddhism instantiated the growing popular consciousness of Buddhism as a pan-Asian tradition—in the heart of Japan.
Download or read book The Social Dimension of Shin Buddhism written by Ugo Dessì and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-08-23 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes social aspects of Shin Buddhism (J?do Shinsh?), a mainstream Japanese religious tradition. The contributions collected here especially focus on the intersection between Shin Buddhism, politics, education, social movements, economy, culture and the media, gender, and globalization.
Download or read book How God Becomes Real written by T.M. Luhrmann and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hard work required to make God real, how it changes the people who do it, and why it helps explain the enduring power of faith How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people—as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn’t easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion T. M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real and that this effort—by changing the people who do it and giving them the benefits they seek from invisible others—helps to explain the enduring power of faith. Drawing on ethnographic studies of evangelical Christians, pagans, magicians, Zoroastrians, Black Catholics, Santeria initiates, and newly orthodox Jews, Luhrmann notes that none of these people behave as if gods and spirits are simply there. Rather, these worshippers make strenuous efforts to create a world in which invisible others matter and can become intensely present and real. The faithful accomplish this through detailed stories, absorption, the cultivation of inner senses, belief in a porous mind, strong sensory experiences, prayer, and other practices. Along the way, Luhrmann shows why faith is harder than belief, why prayer is a metacognitive activity like therapy, why becoming religious is like getting engrossed in a book, and much more. A fascinating account of why religious practices are more powerful than religious beliefs, How God Becomes Real suggests that faith is resilient not because it provides intuitions about gods and spirits—but because it changes the faithful in profound ways.
Download or read book The Mirror of Zen written by Boep Joeng and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2006-12-12 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sacred radiance of our original nature never darkens. It has shined forth since beginningless time. Do you wish to enter the gate that leads to this? Simply do not give rise to conceptual thinking. Zen Master So Sahn (1520–1604) is a towering figure in the history of Korean Zen. In this treasure-text, he presents in simple yet beautiful language the core principles and teachings of Zen. Each section opens with a quotation—drawn from classical scriptures, teachings, and anecdotes—followed by the author’s commentary and verse. Originally written in Chinese, the text was translated into Korean in the mid-twentieth century by the celebrated Korean monk Boep Joeng. An American Zen monk, Hyon Gak, has translated it into English.
Download or read book Selected Works of D T Suzuki Volume IV written by Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2020-12-22 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daisetsu Teitarо̄ Suzuki was a key figure in the introduction of Buddhism to the non-Asian world. Many outside Japan encountered Buddhism for the first time through his writings and teaching, and for nearly a century his work and legacy have contributed to the ongoing religious and cultural interchange between Japan and the rest of the world, particularly the United States and Europe. This fourth volume of Selected Works of D. T. Suzuki brings together a range of Suzuki’s writings in the area of Buddhist studies. Based on his text-critical work in the Chinese canon, these essays reflect his commitment to clarifying Mahāyāna Buddhist doctrines in Indian, Chinese, and Japanese historical contexts. Many of these innovative writings reflect Buddhological discourse in contemporary Japan and the West’s pre-war ignorance of Mahāyāna thought. Included is a translation into English for the first time of his "Mahāyāna Was Not Preached by Buddha." In addition to editing the essays and contributing the translation, Mark L. Blum presents an introduction that examines how Suzuki understood Mahāyāna discourse via Chinese sources and analyzes his problematic use of Sanskrit.
Download or read book Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhism written by Jørn Borup and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008-02-28 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zen Buddhist ideas and practices in many ways are unique within the study of religion, and artists, poets and Buddhists practitioners worldwide have found inspiration from this tradition. Until recent years, representations of Zen Buddhism have focussed almost entirely on philosophical, historical or “spiritual” aspects. This book investigates the contemporary living reality of the largest Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhist group, Myōshinji. Drawing on textual studies and ethnographic fieldwork, Jørn Borup analyses how its practitioners use and understand their religion, how they practice their religiosity and how different kinds of Zen Buddhists (monks, nuns, priest, lay people) interact and define themselves within the religious organization. Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhism portrays a living Zen Buddhism being both uniquely interesting and interestingly typical for common Buddhist and Japanese religiosity.
Download or read book The Imam of the Christians written by Philip Wood and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Christian leaders adapted the governmental practices and political thought of their Muslim rulers in the Abbasid caliphate The Imam of the Christians examines how Christian leaders adopted and adapted the political practices and ideas of their Muslim rulers between 750 and 850 in the Abbasid caliphate in the Jazira (modern eastern Turkey and northern Syria). Focusing on the writings of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, the patriarch of the Jacobite church, Philip Wood describes how this encounter produced an Islamicate Christianity that differed from the Christianities of Byzantium and western Europe in far more than just theology. In doing so, Wood opens a new window on the world of early Islam and Muslims’ interactions with other religious communities. Wood shows how Dionysius and other Christian clerics, by forging close ties with Muslim elites, were able to command greater power over their coreligionists, such as the right to issue canons regulating the lives of lay people, gather tithes, and use state troops to arrest opponents. In his writings, Dionysius advertises his ease in the courts of ʿAbd Allah ibn Tahir in Raqqa and the caliph al-Ma’mun in Baghdad, presenting himself as an effective advocate for the interests of his fellow Christians because of his knowledge of Arabic and his ability to redeploy Islamic ideas to his own advantage. Strikingly, Dionysius even claims that, like al-Ma’mun, he is an imam since he leads his people in prayer and rules them by popular consent. A wide-ranging examination of Middle Eastern Christian life during a critical period in the development of Islam, The Imam of the Christians is also a case study of the surprising workings of cultural and religious adaptation.
Download or read book Facing Mount Kanchenjunga written by Sangharakshita and published by Windhorse Publications. This book was released on 2014-04-29 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1950 Kalimpong was a lively trading town in the intrigue-ridden corner of India that borders Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and Tibet. Finding a welcome in this town, nestled high in the mountains, were a bewildering array of guests and settlers, including Sangharakshita, a young English monk. In this delightful volume of memoirs, Sangharakshita shares the incidents and insights of his early years in Kalimpong, including a meeting with Dr B.R. Ambedkar and his friendship with Lama Anagarika Govinda.
Download or read book The Princess Nun written by Gina Cogan and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-05-11 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Princess Nun tells the story of Bunchi (1619–1697), daughter of Emperor Go-Mizunoo and founder of Enshōji. Bunchi advocated strict adherence to monastic precepts while devoting herself to the posthumous welfare of her family. As the first full-length biographical study of a premodern Japanese nun, this book incorporates issues of gender and social status into its discussion of Bunchi’s ascetic practice and religious reforms to rewrite the history of Buddhist reform and Tokugawa religion. Gina Cogan’s approach moves beyond the dichotomy of oppression and liberation that dogs the study of non-Western and premodern women to show how Bunchi’s aristocratic status enabled her to carry out reforms despite her gender, while simultaneously acknowledging how that same status contributed to their conservative nature. Cogan’s analysis of how Bunchi used her prestigious position to further her goals places the book in conversation with other works on powerful religious women, like Hildegard of Bingen and Teresa of Avila. Through its illumination of the relationship between the court and the shogunate and its analysis of the practice of courtly Buddhism from a female perspective, this study brings historical depth and fresh theoretical insight into the role of gender and class in early Edo Buddhism.
Download or read book Words and Deeds written by Jörg Gengnagel and published by Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. This book was released on 2005 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Words and Deeds is a collection of articles on rituals in South Asia with a special focus on their texts and context. The volume presupposes that a comprehensive definition of "ritual" does not exist. Instead, the papers in it avoid essentialist definitions, allowing for a possible polythetic definition of the concept to emerge. Papers in this volume include those on Initiation, Pre-Natal Rites, Religious Processions, Royal Consecration, Rituals which mark the commencement of ritual, Rituals of devotion and Vedic sacrifice as well as contributions which address the broader theoretical issues of engaging in the study of ritual texts and ritual practice, both from the etic and the emic perspective. These studies show that any study of the relationship between the text and the context of rituals must also allow for the possibility that different categories of performers can and do subjectively constitute the relationship between their ritual knowledge and ritual practice, between text and context in differing and nuanced ways.
Download or read book Managing Monks written by Jonathan A. Silk and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-15 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The paradigmatic Buddhist is the monk. It is well known that ideally Buddhist monks are expected to meditate and study -- to engage in religious practice. The institutional structure which makes this concentration on spiritual cultivation possible is the monastery. But as a bureaucratic institution, the monastery requires administrators to organize and manage its functions, to prepare quiet spots for meditation, to arrange audiences for sermons, or simply to make sure food, rooms, and bedding are provided. The valuations placed on such organizational roles were, however, a subject of considerable controversy among Indian Buddhist writers, with some considering them significantly less praiseworthy than meditative concentration or teaching and study, while others more highly appreciated their importance. Managing Monks, as the first major study of the administrative offices of Indian Buddhist monasticism and of those who hold them, explores literary sources, inscriptions and other materials in Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, and Chinese in order to explore this tension and paint a picture of the internal workings of the Buddhist monastic institution in India, highlighting the ambivalent and sometimes contradictory attitudes toward administrators revealed in various sources.
Download or read book Religions in Focus written by Graham Harvey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Religions in Focus" engages with the religious lives of members of some of the most significant religions today. It presents religions as contemporary ways of life that motivate and inspire people. Because religious people refer to sacred texts, honour the founders of their religions, learn from elders, or mould their lives according to authoritative teachings, "Religions in Focus" explains the relationship between tradition and contemporary practice. It offers an introduction to religions that is rooted in the best scholarship of the Study of Religions and provides a secure foundation for further study.A team of Religious Studies scholars from many countries, all skilled communicators about the contemporary religions with which they are thoroughly familiar, introduce what it means to live as a religious person today. They insist that however old or young these religions may be, what is most interesting is the ways in which people express them today. This is not a history of religions but an insightful introduction to living religions. A guide to further study and a companion website will point to ways of building on knowledge gained in studying this book, and applying skills developed in studying people's religious lives.
Download or read book Pure Land written by Charles B. Jones and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introductory guide to the beliefs and key concepts of Pure Land Buddhism, the most widely practiced form of Buddhism in East Asia. Pure Land is a brief introduction to the history and practices of Pure Land Buddhism, a popular and growing global tradition. Pure Land practices center on Amitābha Buddha, rebirth in his pure buddha-land, and the guaranteed attainment of buddhahood. It constitutes the dominant tradition of most Buddhists in East Asia and is the most common form of practice within immigrant Buddhist communities in America, yet it remains elusive to many general readers of Buddhism. This brief introduction summarizes the core teachings of this tradition and charts its growth throughout the world. Part of the Buddhist Foundations series, Pure Land covers the spiritual tenets behind the tradition before describing how prayer and devotion to Amitābha allow for rebirth in a realm free from suffering and ideal for progress on the path to enlightenment. It then outlines specific Pure Land practices, all the while providing historical context to account for its widespread popularity throughout East Asia. The author also covers contemporary Pure Land traditions, providing a useful touch point for modern readers. Pure Land practitioners and readers interested in Asian-American Buddhist communities now have a concise guide to the ideas, practices, and origins of this widely popular spiritual tradition.
Download or read book Sylvester Syropoulos on Politics and Culture in the Fifteenth Century Mediterranean written by Fotini Kondyli and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-17 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Memoirs of Sylvester Syropoulos is a text written by a Βyzantine ecclesiastical official in the 15th century. Syropoulos participated in the Council for the union of the Greek and Latin Churches held in Ferrara and Florence, Italy, in 1438-1439. As a high-ranking official and an eye-witness of the union, he offers a unique perspective on this important political and religious event that would so decisively contribute to the political, military and religious development of Europe at the end of the Middle Ages. Experts in different fields - historians, philologists, art historians and archaeologists - have come together in this volume to explore the actions and motives of the various political and religious groups that participated in the council. With Syropoulos as their starting point, the contributors of this volume reconstruct the living conditions, cross-cultural interaction, artistic and commercial exchange in the 15th-century Mediterranean. At the same time, they discuss the text as an invaluable source for political and diplomatic affairs at that time, as a travel account, an eye-witness narrative and as a literary work. Emphasis is placed on Syropoulos’s Section IV where he describes the journey of the Byzantine delegation from Constantinople to Italy, their stay in Venice and in Ferrara, the diplomatic contacts with the doge and the pope, and finally the beginning of the council’s proceedings. An annotated English translation of the text is included as an appendix to the book. The papers bring out the richness of the information in Syropoulos’s writings about the people involved in the Council of Ferrara-Florence and especially the interaction among different social, religious and political groups throughout that event. His work is unique because it is a rare eye-witness account, deriving from personal experience, rather than an objective historical narrative.
Download or read book Buddhist Ethics A Very Short Introduction written by Damien Keown and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-06-23 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed a growing interest in Buddhism, and it continues to capture the imagination of many in the West who see it as either an alternative or a supplement to their own religious beliefs. Numerous introductory books have appeared in recent years to cater for this growing interest, but almost none devotes attention to the specifically ethical dimension of the tradition. For complex cultural and historical reasons, ethics has not received as much attention in traditional Buddhist thought as it has in the West, and publications on the subject are few and far between. Here, Damien Keown, author of Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction , illustrates how Buddhism might approach a range of fascinating moral issues ranging from abortion and suicide to cloning. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
