Download or read book Poetic Thought the Intelligent Universe and the Mystery of Self written by David Francis Germano and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Apparitions of the Self written by Janet Gyatso and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Apparitions of the Self is a groundbreaking investigation into what is known in Tibet as "secret autobiography," an exceptional, rarely studied literary genre that presents a personal exploration of intimate religious experiences. In this volume, Janet Gyatso translates and studies the outstanding pair of secret autobiographies by the famed Tibetan Buddhist visionary, Jigme Lingpa (1730-1798), whose poetic and self-conscious writings are as much about the nature of his own identity, memory, and the undecidabilities of autobiographical truth as they are narrations of the actual content of his experiences. Their translation in this book marks the first time that works of this sort have been translated in a Western language. Gyatso is among the first to consider Tibetan literature from a comparative perspective, examining the surprising fit--as well as the misfit--of Western literary theory with Tibetan autobiography. She examines the intriguing questions of why Tibetan Buddhists produced so many autobiographies (far more than other Asian Buddhists) and how autobiographical self-assertion is possible even while Buddhists believe that the self is ultimately an illusion. Also explored are Jigme Lingpa's historical milieu, his revelatory visions of the ancient Tibetan dynasty, and his meditative practices of personal cultivation. The book concludes with a study of the subversive female figure of the "Dakini" in Jigme Lingpa's writings, and the implications of her gender, her sexuality, and her unsettling discourse for the autobiographical subject in Tibet.
Download or read book Imagining the Fetus written by Vanessa R Sasson and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contemporary Western culture, the word "fetus" introduces either a political subject or a literal, medicalized entity. Neither of these frameworks does justice to the vast array of religious literature and oral traditions from cultures around the world in which the fetus emerges as a powerful symbol or metaphor. This volume presents essays that explore the depiction of the fetus in the world's major religious traditions, finding some striking commonalities as well as intriguing differences. Among the themes that emerge is the tendency to conceive of the fetus as somehow independent of the mother's body — as in the case of the Buddha, who is described as inhabiting a palace while gestating in the womb. On the other hand, the fetus can also symbolically represent profound human needs and emotions, such as the universal experience of vulnerability. The authors note how the advent of the fetal sonogram has transformed how people everywhere imagine the unborn today, giving rise to a narrow range of decidedly literal questions about personhood, gender, and disability.
Download or read book A Direct Path to the Buddha Within written by Klaus-Dieter Mathes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-02-08 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maitreya's Ratnagotravibhaga, also known as the Uttaratantra, is the main Indian treatise on buddha nature, a concept that is heavily debated in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy. In A Direct Path to the Buddha Within, Klaus-Dieter Mathes looks at a pivotal Tibetan commentary on this text by Go Lotsawa Zhonu Pal, best known as the author of the Blue Annals. Go Lotsawa, whose teachers spanned the spectrum of Tibetan schools, developed a highly nuanced understanding of buddha nature, tying it in with mainstream Mahayana thought while avoiding contested aspects of the so-called empty-of-other (zhentong) approach. In addition to translating key portions of Go Lotsawa's commentary, Mathes provides an in-depth historical context, evaluating Go's position against those of other Kagyu, Nyingma, and Jonang masters and examining how Go Lotsawa's view affects his understanding of the buddha qualities, the concept of emptiness, and the practice of mahamudra.
Download or read book The Heart of the World written by Ian Baker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-05-02 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The myth of Shangri-la originates in Tibetan Buddhist beliefs in beyul, or hidden lands, sacred sanctuaries that reveal themselves to devout pilgrims and in times of crisis. The more remote and inaccessible the beyul, the vaster its reputed qualities. Ancient Tibetan prophecies declare that the greatest of all hidden lands lies at the heart of the forbidding Tsangpo Gorge, deep in the Himalayas and veiled by a colossal waterfall. Nineteenth-century accounts of this fabled waterfall inspired a series of ill-fated European expeditions that ended prematurely in 1925 when the intrepid British plant collector Frank Kingdon-Ward penetrated all but a five-mile section of the Tsangpo’s innermost gorge and declared that the falls were no more than a “religious myth” and a “romance of geography.” The heart of the Tsangpo Gorge remained a blank spot on the map of world exploration until world-class climber and Buddhist scholar Ian Baker delved into the legends. Whatever cryptic Tibetan scrolls or past explorers had said about the Tsangpo’s innermost gorge, Baker determined, could be verified only by exploring the uncharted five-mile gap. After several years of encountering sheer cliffs, maelstroms of impassable white water, and dense leech-infested jungles, on the last of a series of extraordinary expeditions, Baker and his National Geographic–sponsored team reached the depths of the Tsangpo Gorge. They made news worldwide by finding there a 108-foot-high waterfall, the legendary grail of Western explorers and Tibetan seekers alike. The Heart of the World is one of the most captivating stories of exploration and discovery in recent memory—an extraordinary journey to one of the wildest and most inaccessible places on earth and a pilgrimage to the heart of the Tibetan Buddhist faith.
Download or read book The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows written by Tsering Wangchuk and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2017-02-21 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With its emphasis on the concept of buddha-nature, or the ultimate nature of mind, the Uttaratantra is a classical Buddhist treatise that lays out an early map of the Mahāyāna path to enlightenment. Tsering Wangchuk unravels the history of this important Indic text in Tibet by examining numerous Tibetan commentaries and other exegetical texts on the treatise that emerged between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. These commentaries explored such questions as: Is the buddha-nature teaching found in the Uttaratantra literally true, or does it have to be interpreted differently to understand its ultimate meaning? Does it explicate ultimate truth that is inherently enlightened or ultimate truth that is empty only of independent existence? Does the treatise teach ultimate nature of mind according to the Cittamātra or the Madhyamaka School of Mahāyāna? By focusing on the diverse interpretations that different textual communities employed to make sense of the Uttaratantra, Wangchuk provides a necessary historical context for the development of the text in Tibet.
Download or read book Rainbow Body and Resurrection written by Francis V. Tiso and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading authority on the rainbow body traces its history in the encounter of religions in medieval Central Asia, exploring a previously unimagined connection between early Dzogchen and the resurrection of Jesus Francis V. Tiso, a noted authority on the rainbow body, explores this manifestation of spiritual realization in a wide-ranging and deeply informed study of the transformation of the material body into a body of light. Seeking evidence on the boundary between physical science and deep spirituality that might elucidate the resurrection of Jesus, he investigates the case of Khenpo A Chö, a Buddhist monk who died in eastern Tibet in 1999. Rainbow Body and Resurrection chronicles the dissolution of Khenpo's material body within a week of his death, including eye-witness interviews. Tiso describes the spiritual practices that give rise to the rainbow body and traces their history deep into the encounter of religions in medieval Central Asia. His erudite exploration of the Tibetan phenomenon raises the fascinating question of whether there is a connection between the rainbow body and the dying and rising of Jesus. Drawing on a wealth of recent research, Tiso expands his discussion to include the contemplative geography out of which Dzogchen arose some time in the eighth century along the great Silk Road across Central Asia. The result is an illuminating consideration of previously unimagined relationships between spiritual practices and beliefs in Central Asia.
Download or read book Wisdom Rising written by Lama Tsultrim Allione and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through her own story of loss and spiritual seeking, paired with mandala meditations and rituals, bestselling author of Feeding Your Demons Lama Tsultrium Allione teaches you how to embody the enlightened, fierce power of the sacred feminine—the tantric dakinis. Ordained as one of the first Western Buddhist nuns and recognized as a reincarnation of a renowned eleventh century Tibetan yogini, Lama Tsultrim nonetheless yearned to become a mother, ultimately renouncing her vows so she could marry and have children. When she subsequently lost a child to SIDS, she found courage again in female Buddhist role models, and discovered a way to transform her pain into a path forward. Through Lama Tsultrim’s story of loss and spiritual seeking, paired with her many years of expertise in mandala meditation, you will learn how to strengthen yourself by following this experiential journey to Tantric Buddhist practice. The mandala was developed as a tool for spiritual transformation, and as you harness its power, it can serve as a guide to wholeness. With knowledge of the mandala of the five dakinis (female Buddhist deities who embody wisdom), you’ll understand how to embrace the distinct energies of your own nature. In Wisdom Rising, Lama Tsultrim shares from a deep trove of personal experiences as well as decades of sacred knowledge to invite you to explore an ancient yet accessible path to the ability to shift your emotional challenges into empowerment. Her unique perspective on female strength and enlightenment will guide you as you restore your inner spirit, leading you toward the change you aspire to create in the world.
Download or read book Entering the Way of the Great Vehicle written by Rongzom Chokyi Zangpo and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first English translation of a classic treatise on how the Tibetan practice of Dzogchen, or Great Perfection, is in fact the culmination of the path of Mahayana Buddhism. Rongzom Chökyi Zangpo wrote this treatise in the eleventh century during the renaissance of Buddhism in Tibet that was spurred by the influx of new translations of Indian Buddhist texts, tantras, and esoteric transmissions from India. For political and religious reasons, adherents of the “new schools” of Tibetan Buddhism fostered by these new translations cast the older tradition of lineages and transmissions as impure and decadent. Rongzompa composed the work translated here in order to clearly and definitively articulate how Dzogchen was very much in line with the wide variety of sutric and tantric teachings espoused by all the Tibetan schools. Using the kinds of philosophic and linguistic analyses favored by the new schools, he demonstrates that the Great Perfection is indeed the culmination and maturation of the Mahāyāna, the Great Vehicle. The central topic of the work is the notion of illusory appearance, for when one realizes deeply that all appearances are illusory, one realizes also that all appearances are in that respect equal. The realization of the equality of all phenomena is said to be the Great Perfection approach to the path, which frees one from both grasping at, and rejecting, appearances. However, for those unable to remain effortlessly within the natural state, in the final chapter Rongzompa also describes how paths with effort are included in the Great Perfection approach.
Download or read book Religion Medicine and the Human Embryo in Tibet written by Frances Garrett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-04-24 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the cultural history of embryology in Tibet, in culture, religion, art and literature. Filling a significant gap, this is the first in-depth exploration of Tibetan medical history in the English language. It examines embryological narratives in relation to turning points in Tibetan medical history, and its relationship with religious doctrine and practice.
Download or read book The Lamp for the Eye of Contemplation written by Dylan Esler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-27 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an English translation of the Samten Migdron (Lamp for the Eye of Contemplation) by Nubchen Sangye Yeshe, a seminal 10th-century Tibetan Buddhist work on contemplation. This treatise is one of the most important sources for the study of the various meditative currents that were transmitted to Tibet from India and China during the early dissemination of Buddhism in Tibet. Written from the vantage point of the Great Completeness (Dzogchen) and its vehicle of effortless spontaneity, it discusses, in the manner of a doxography, both sutra-based-including Chan-and tantric approaches to meditation. The unabridged, annotated English translation of this Tibetan treatise is preceded by a general introduction situating the author-a pivotal figure in what would become the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism-and their work in historical and doctrinal context. The detailed annotations provide elucidating comments as well as crucial references to the numerous texts quoted by the Tibetan author. This book makes this groundbreaking Tibetan work on meditation accessible in English and opens fascinating windows on early forms of contemplative practice in Tibet.
Download or read book Living Treasure written by Andrew Quintman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Senior scholars and former students celebrate the life and work of Janet Gyatso, professor of Buddhist studies at Harvard Divinity School. Inspired by her contributions to life writing, Tibetan medicine, gender studies, and more, these offerings make a rich feast for readers interested in Tibetan and Buddhist studies. Janet Gyatso has made substantial, influential, and incredibly valuable contributions to the fields of Buddhist and Tibetan studies. Her paradigm-shifting approach is to take a topic, an idea, a text, a term—often one that had long been taken for granted or overlooked—and turn it inside out, to radically reimagine the kinds of questions that might be asked and what the answers might reveal. The twenty-nine essays in this volume, authored by colleagues and former students—many of whom are now also colleagues—represent the breadth of her interests and influence and the care that she has taken in training the current generation of scholars of Tibet and Buddhism. They are organized into five sections: Women, Gender, and Sexuality; Biography and Autobiography; the Nyingma Imaginaire; Literature, Art, and Poetry; and Early Modernity: Human and Nonhuman Worlds. Contributions include José Cabezón on the incorporation of a Buddhist rock carving in Central Asian culture; Matthew Kapstein on the memoirs of an ambivalent reincarnated lama; Willa Baker on Jikmé Lingpa’s theory of absence; Andrew Quintman on a found poem expressing worldly sadness on the forced closure of a monastery; and Padma ’tsho on Tibetan women’s advocacy for full female ordination. These and the many other chapters, each fascinating reads in their own right, together offer a glowing tribute to a scholar who indelibly changed the way we think about Buddhism, its history, and its literature.
Download or read book Liberation in One Lifetime written by Francis V. Tiso and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2014-06-24 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Milarepa (1052-1135), a major figure in the history of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and known as one of Tibet's greatest lamas and poets, continues to inspire Buddhist practitioners worldwide to the present day. Liberation in One Lifetime explores the history and spirituality of the Kagyu lineage in relationship to the narratives and teachings attributed to Milarepa by studying some of the earliest versions of these materials. Offering a detailed analysis of the biographical material that has been written about Milarepa (who was also a student of Marpa, a major figure in the development of the Bka'-brgyud-pa school of Tibetan Buddhism), author, theologian, and well-respected Tibetan Buddhist scholar, Francis V. Tiso, describes the historical context of the tradition of hagiography (biography) in Buddhism and other spiritual traditions, and provides a history of Milarepa's influence in Tibet. Part One explains the tradition of composing stories about Milarepa's life and teachings (there have been many throughout the centuries) and includes outlines of the contents of some of them as well as an explanation of the oral versions that have been transmitted via oral epic songs and poems that Milarepa composed. Describing the spiritual components of Bka'-brgyud-pa, Part Two includes tantric practices, an outline for the path of liberation, definitions of "voidness," and the characteristics of fully enlightened Buddhahood. Part Three includes translated biographies and oral teachings of Milarepa (in poetic form) that are considered sacred texts. The book also includes a foreword by Roberto Vitali, a prominent Tibetan Buddhist scholar as well as an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources.
Download or read book The Philosophical View of the Great Perfection in the Tibetan Bon Religion written by Donatella Rossi and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dzogchen, or the Great Perfection, is considered by both the Bonpos and the followers of the Nyigma school in Tibet to be the culmination of all spiritual teachings. The philosophical view of the Great Perfection introduces the individual to the knowledge of reality, which is one with the enlightened state of all beings. In this book the Dzogchen view is presented in two Bonpo texts belonging to the revered terma (treasure) and oral traditions, here for the first time translated and critically edited in their entirety.
Download or read book Power Objects in Tibetan Buddhism written by James Duncan Gentry and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Power Objects in Tibetan Buddhism: The Life, Writings, and Legacy of Sokdokpa Lodrö Gyeltsen, James Duncan Gentry explores how objects of power figure in Tibetan religion, society, and polity through a study of the life of the Tibetan Buddhist ritual specialist Sokdokpa Lodrö Gyeltsen (1552–1624) within the broader context of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Tibet. In presenting Sokdokpa’s career and legacy, Gentry traces the theme of power objects across a wide spectrum of genres to show how Tibetan Buddhists themselves have theorized about objects of power and implemented them in practice. This study therefore provides a lens into how power objects serve as points of convergence for elite doctrinal discourses, socio-political dynamics, and popular religious practices in Tibetan Buddhist societies.
Download or read book Himalayan Hermitess written by Kurtis R. Schaeffer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-07-08 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Himalayan Hermitess is a vivid account of the life and times of a Buddhist nun living on the borderlands of Tibetan culture. Orgyan Chokyi (1675-1729) spent her life in Dolpo, the highest inhabited region of the Nepal Himalayas. Illiterate and expressly forbidden by her master to write her own life story, Orgyan Chokyi received divine inspiration, defied tradition, and composed one of the most engaging autobiographies of the Tibetan literary tradition. The Life of Orgyan Chokyi is the oldest known autobiography authored by a Tibetan woman, and thus holds a critical place in both Tibetan and Buddhist literature. In it she tells of the sufferings of her youth, the struggle to escape menial labor and become a hermitess, her dreams and visionary experiences, her relationships with other nuns, the painstaking work of contemplative practice, and her hard-won social autonomy and high-mountain solitude. In process it develops a compelling vision of the relation between gender, the body, and suffering from a female Buddhist practitioner's perspective. Part One of Himalayan Hermitess presents a religious history of Orgyan Chokyi's Himalayan world, the Life of Orgyan Chokyi as a work of literature, its portrayal of sorrow and joy, its perspectives on suffering and gender, as well as the diverse religious practices found throughout the work. Part Two offers a full translation of the Life of Orgyan Chokyi. Based almost entirely upon Tibetan documents never before translated, Himalayan Hermitess is an accessible introduction to Buddhism in the premodern Himalayas.
Download or read book Meeting the Great Bliss Queen written by Anne C. Klein and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhist practices such as mindfulness - in which calm centering and keen awareness of change coexist - and compassion - in which the self is recognized as both powerful in itself and interdependently connected with all others - can be important resources for contemporary Western women. Likewise, feminism can expand the traditional horizons of Buddhist concerns to include social, historical, and psychological issues.
