Download or read book Little Stone Buddha written by Guangcai Hao and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Little Stone Buddha awakes to enjoy the beauty of nature and to use his powers to hearten weary travelers and protect the foxes that share the forest with him.
Download or read book Bones Stones and Buddhist Monks written by Gregory Schopen and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book From Stone to Flesh written by Donald S. Lopez Jr. and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-04-11 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We have come to admire Buddhism for being profound but accessible, as much a lifestyle as a religion. The credit for creating Buddhism goes to the Buddha, a figure widely respected across the Western world for his philosophical insight, his teachings of nonviolence, and his practice of meditation. But who was this Buddha, and how did he become the Buddha we know and love today? Leading historian of Buddhism Donald S. Lopez Jr. tells the story of how various idols carved in stone—variously named Beddou, Codam, Xaca, and Fo—became the man of flesh and blood that we know simply as the Buddha. He reveals that the positive view of the Buddha in Europe and America is rather recent, originating a little more than a hundred and fifty years ago. For centuries, the Buddha was condemned by Western writers as the most dangerous idol of the Orient. He was a demon, the murderer of his mother, a purveyor of idolatry. Lopez provides an engaging history of depictions of the Buddha from classical accounts and medieval stories to the testimonies of European travelers, diplomats, soldiers, and missionaries. He shows that centuries of hostility toward the Buddha changed dramatically in the nineteenth century, when the teachings of the Buddha, having disappeared from India by the fourteenth century, were read by European scholars newly proficient in Asian languages. At the same time, the traditional view of the Buddha persisted in Asia, where he was revered as much for his supernatural powers as for his philosophical insights. From Stone to Flesh follows the twists and turns of these Eastern and Western notions of the Buddha, leading finally to his triumph as the founder of a world religion.
Download or read book Becoming the Buddha written by Donald K. Swearer and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Becoming the Buddha is the first book-length study of a key ritual of Buddhist practice in Asia: the consecration of a Buddha image or "new Buddha," a ceremony by which the Buddha becomes present or alive. Through a richly detailed, accessible exploration of this ritual in northern Thailand, an exploration that stands apart from standard text-based or anthropological approaches, Donald Swearer makes a major contribution to our understanding of the Buddha image, its role in Buddhist devotional life, and its relationship to the veneration of Buddha relics. Blending ethnography, analysis, and Buddhist texts related to this mimetic reenactment of the night of the Buddha's enlightenment, he demonstrates that the image becomes the Buddha's surrogate by being invested with the Buddha's story and charged with the extraordinary power of Buddhahood. The process by which this transformation occurs through chant, sermon, meditation, and the presence of charismatic monks is at the heart of this book. Known as "opening the eyes of the Buddha," image consecration traditions throughout Buddhist Asia share much in common. Within the cultural context of northern Thailand, Becoming the Buddha illuminates scriptural accounts of the making of the first Buddha image; looks at debates over the ritual's historical origin, at Buddhological insights achieved, and at the hermeneutics of absence and presence; and provides a thematic comparison of several Buddhist traditions.
Download or read book Right Thoughts at the Last Moment written by Jacqueline I. Stone and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2016-11-30 with total page 633 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhists across Asia have often aspired to die with a clear and focused mind, as the historical Buddha himself is said to have done. This book explores how the ideal of dying with right mindfulness was appropriated, disseminated, and transformed in premodern Japan, focusing on the late tenth through early fourteenth centuries. By concentrating one’s thoughts on the Buddha in one’s last moments, it was said even an ignorant and sinful person could escape the cycle of deluded rebirth and achieve birth in a buddha’s pure land, where liberation would be assured. Conversely, the slightest mental distraction at that final juncture could send even a devout practitioner tumbling down into the hells or other miserable rebirth realms. The ideal of mindful death thus generated both hope and anxiety and created a demand for ritual specialists who could act as religious guides at the deathbed. Buddhist death management in Japan has been studied chiefly from the standpoint of funerals and mortuary rites. Right Thoughts at the Last Moment investigates a largely untold side of that story: how early medieval Japanese prepared for death, and how desire for ritual assistance in one’s last hours contributed to Buddhist preeminence in death-related matters. It represents the first book-length study in a Western language to examine how the Buddhist ideal of mindful death was appropriated in a specific historical context. Practice for one’s last hours occupied the intersections of multiple, often disparate approaches that Buddhism offered for coping with death. Because they crossed sectarian lines and eventually permeated all social levels, deathbed practices afford insights into broader issues in medieval Japanese religion, including intellectual developments, devotional practices, pollution concerns, ritual performance, and divisions of labor among religious professionals. They also allow us to see beyond the categories of “old” versus “new” Buddhism, or establishment Buddhism versus marginal heterodoxies, which have characterized much scholarship to date. Enlivened by cogent examples, this study draws on a wealth of sources including ritual instructions, hagiographies, doctrinal writings, didactic tales, courtier diaries, historical records, letters, and relevant art historical material to explore the interplay of doctrinal ideals and on-the-ground practice.
Download or read book The Legend and Cult of Upagupta written by John S. Strong and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Buddhist monk Upagupta, who preached and taught meditative practices in Northwest India over two thousand years ago, is venerated today by the laity in parts of Burma, Thailand, and Laos as a protective figure endowed with magical powers. In this monumental work John Strong offers a systematic presentation of the Indian and Southeast Asian legends and rituals surrounding this popular saint. Once considered by Buddhist authorities as only marginally important, Upagupta emerges here as a central, ubiquitous figure within the Buddhist world. The author demonstrates the remarkable continuity among traditions focused on Upagupta in ancient Sarvastivadin Sanskrit materials, key Pali texts, medieval Thai and Burmese texts, and contemporary oral traditions and religious rituals in Southeast Asia. In so doing he reflects the orientation of popular Sanskrit Hinayana Buddhism, which allows for new perspectives on such classic questions as the nature of enlightenment, the role of asceticism, the problem of evil, the worship of the Buddha image, the veneration of saints, master-disciple relationships, the treatment of heterodoxy, and the relation of myth and ritual. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Awake in the World written by Michael Stone and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we live a balanced life in unbalanced times? How can the practices of meditation and yoga support our relationships, our work lives, and the greater good? Author, teacher, and psychotherapist Michael Stone presents the essential insights of mindfulness and yoga, emphasizing the teachings of simplicity and the interdependence of all life. Stone explains that the practices of yoga and meditation are not about escaping reality but about living fully in the here and now, opening to our experience, and gaining access to stillness within the flow of life. The essence of yoga and Buddhist practice is opening the heart—our own and the heart of the world. With that awareness, Stone encourages us to get involved in our communities, to speak out when we see wrongdoing, and to find ways of helping others.
Download or read book From Stone to Flesh written by Donald S. Lopez and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-04-12 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We have come to admire Buddhism for being profound but accessible, as much a lifestyle as a religion. The credit for creating Buddhism goes to the Buddha, a figure widely respected across the Western world for his philosophical insight, his teachings of nonviolence, and his practice of meditation. But who was this Buddha, and how did he become the Buddha we know and love today? Leading historian of Buddhism Donald S. Lopez Jr. tells the story of how various idols carved in stone—variously named Beddou, Codam, Xaca, and Fo—became the man of flesh and blood that we know simply as the Buddha. He reveals that the positive view of the Buddha in Europe and America is rather recent, originating a little more than a hundred and fifty years ago. For centuries, the Buddha was condemned by Western writers as the most dangerous idol of the Orient. He was a demon, the murderer of his mother, a purveyor of idolatry. Lopez provides an engaging history of depictions of the Buddha from classical accounts and medieval stories to the testimonies of European travelers, diplomats, soldiers, and missionaries. He shows that centuries of hostility toward the Buddha changed dramatically in the nineteenth century, when the teachings of the Buddha, having disappeared from India by the fourteenth century, were read by European scholars newly proficient in Asian languages. At the same time, the traditional view of the Buddha persisted in Asia, where he was revered as much for his supernatural powers as for his philosophical insights. From Stone to Flesh follows the twists and turns of these Eastern and Western notions of the Buddha, leading finally to his triumph as the founder of a world religion.
Download or read book Collection of British Authors written by Lafcadio Hearn and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Golden Buddha written by Clive Cussler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2003-10-07 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling Oregon Files series, Chairman Juan Cabrillo and his crew are hired by the US government to free Tibet from Chinese control... The Corporation, a group of highly intelligent and skilled mercenaries, under the leadership of Juan Cabrillo, board a brand new ship. It's a state-of-the-art seagoing marvel with unthinkable technology at its disposal. And it's designed to look like a rusty old lumber hauler. But if Cabrillo and his team plan to make this spy ship their new headquarters, their first mission had better be a success. With the secret backing of the US government, Cabrillo sets out to put Tibet back in the hands of the Dalai Lama by striking a deal with the Russians and the Chinese. His main negotiating chip is knowledge of a golden Buddha containing records of vast oil reserves in the disputed land. But first, he'll have to locate—and steal—the all-important artifact. And there are certain people who would do anything in their power to see him fail...
Download or read book Liberation Philosophy From the Buddha to Omar Khayyam written by Mostafa Vaziri and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The critical narrative of this interdisciplinary book offers a first-time look at the interrelationship between biology, mythology and philosophy in human development. Its daring premise follows the trajectory of human thought, starting with the biological roots of fear and the original need for religion, truth-seeking, and myth-making. The narrative then innovatively links a number of maverick philosophical teachings over the centuries, from pre-Buddhist times to the Buddha, from Epicurus and Pyrrho to Lucretius, and eventually to the seminal poetry of Omar Khayyam. These emergent philosophies exemplified liberation from the grasp of mythical and religious thinking and instead espoused an empirical and joyful mind. The narrative concludes with a look at the emancipating philosophical movement that resulted in the European Enlightenment, and it suggests that the philosophical teachings explored in the book may offer the potential for a second, broader Enlightenment.
Download or read book Longmen s Stone Buddhas and Cultural Heritage written by Dong Wang and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thoroughly researched book provides the first comprehensive history of how a UNESCO World Heritage site on the Central China Plain, Longmen’s caves and the Buddhist statuary of Luoyang, was rediscovered in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Drawing on original research and archival sources in Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, and Swedish, as well as extensive fieldwork, Dong Wang traces the ties between cultural heritage and modernity, detailing how this historical monument has been understood from antiquity to the present. She highlights the manifold traffic and expanded contact between China and other countries as these nations were reorienting themselves in order to adapt their own cultural traditions to newly industrialized and industrializing societies. Unknown to much of the world, Longmen and its mesmerizing modern history takes readers to the heartland of China, known as “Chinese Babylon” a century ago. With remarkable depth and breadth, this book unravels both a bygone and a continuing human pursuit of artefacts—shared, spiritual, modern, and above all beautiful that have linked so many lives, Chinese and foreign.
Download or read book Buddha or Bust written by Perry Garfinkel and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does an idea that’s 2,500 years old seem more relevant today than ever before? How can the Buddha’s teachings help us solve many of the world’s problems? Journalist Perry Garfinkel circumnavigated the globe to discover the heart of Buddhism and the reasons for its growing popularity—and ended up discovering himself in the process. The assignment from National Geographic couldn’t have come at a better time for Garfinkel. Burned out, laid up with back problems, disillusioned by relationships and religion itself, he was still hoping for that big journalistic break—and the answers to life’s biggest riddles as well. So he set out on a geographic, historical and personal expedition that would lead him around the world in search of those answers, and then some. First, to better understand the man who was born Prince Siddhartha Gautama, he followed the time-honored pilgrimage “in the footsteps of the Buddha” in India. From there, he tracked the historical course of Buddhism: to Sri Lanka, Thailand, China, Tibet, Japan and on to San Francisco and Europe. He found that the Buddha’s teachings have spawned a worldwide movement of “engaged Buddhism,” the application of Buddhist principles to resolve social, environmental, health, political and other contemporary problems. From East to West and back to the East again, this movement has caused a Buddhism Boom. Along the way he met a diverse array of Buddhist practitioners—Thai artists, Indian nuns, Sri Lankan school children, Zen archers in Japan, kung fu monks in China and the world’s first Buddhist comic (only in America). Among dozens of Buddhist scholars and leaders, Garfinkel interviewed His Holiness the Dalai Lama, an experience that left him speechless—almost. As just reward for his efforts, toward the end of his journey Garfinkel fell in love in the south of France at the retreat center of a leader of the engaged movement, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh—a romance that taught him as much about Buddhism as all the masters combined. In this original, entertaining book, Garfinkel separates Buddhist fact from fiction, sharing his humorous insights and keen perceptions about everything from spiritual tourism to Asian traffic jams to the endless road to enlightenment.
Download or read book The Trail to Buddha s Mirror written by Don Winslow and published by Blackstone Publishing. This book was released on 2023-09-19 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 30th Anniversary Edition with a new introduction by the author Robert Pendleton is a chemical genius with a fertilizer worth a fortune to whoever controls the formula. Not surprisingly, the Bank, his notoriously exclusive backer, wants to keep an eye on its investment. But so does the CIA. And the Chinese government. And a few shadier organizations. So when Pendleton disappears from a conference in San Francisco, along with all of his research, Neal Carey enters the picture. Neal knows the Bank is calling in its chips in return for paying his grad school bills. He thinks this assignment will be a no-brainer until he meets the beguiling Li Lan and touches off a deadly game of hide-and-seek that will lead him from San Francisco’s Chinatown to the lawless back streets of Hong Kong, and finally into the dark heart of China. In a world where no one is what they seem, Neal must unravel the mystery of a beautiful woman and reach the fabled Buddha’s Mirror, a mist-shrouded lake where all secrets are revealed.
Download or read book The Buddha in Lanna written by Angela S. Chiu and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2017-03-31 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, wherever Thai Buddhists have made their homes, statues of the Buddha have provided striking testament to the role of Buddhism in the lives of the people. The Buddha in Lanna offers the first in-depth historical study of the Thai tradition of donation of Buddha statues. Drawing on palm-leaf manuscripts and inscriptions, many never previously translated into English, the book reveals the key roles that Thai Buddha images have played in the social and economic worlds of their makers and devotees from the fifteenth to twentieth centuries. Author Angela Chiu introduces stories from chronicles, histories, and legends written by monks in Lanna, a region centered in today’s northern Thailand. By examining the stories’ themes, structures, and motifs, she illuminates the complex conceptual and material aspects of Buddha images that influenced their functions in Lanna society. Buddha images were depicted as social agents and mediators, the focal points of pan-regional political-religious lineages and rivalries, indeed, as the very generators of history itself. In the chronicles, Buddha images also unified the Buddha with the northern Thai landscape, thereby integrating Buddhist and local conceptions of place. By comparing Thai Buddha statues with other representations of the Buddha, the author underscores the contribution of the Thai evidence to a broader understanding of how different types of Buddha representations were understood to mediate the “presence” of the Buddha. The Buddha in Lanna focuses on the Thai Buddha image as a part of the wider society and history of its creators and worshippers beyond monastery walls, shedding much needed light on the Buddha image in history. With its impressive range of primary sources, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Buddhism and Buddhist art history, Thai studies, and Southeast Asian religious studies.
Download or read book The Buddha and the Borderline written by Kiera Van Gelder and published by New Harbinger Publications. This book was released on 2010-08-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kiera Van Gelder's first suicide attempt at the age of twelve marked the onset of her struggles with drug addiction, depression, post-traumatic stress, self-harm, and chaotic romantic relationships-all of which eventually led to doctors' belated diagnosis of borderline personality disorder twenty years later. The Buddha and the Borderline is a window into this mysterious and debilitating condition, an unblinking portrayal of one woman's fight against the emotional devastation of borderline personality disorder. This haunting, intimate memoir chronicles both the devastating period that led to Kiera's eventual diagnosis and her inspirational recovery through therapy, Buddhist spirituality, and a few online dates gone wrong. Kiera's story sheds light on the private struggle to transform suffering into compassion for herself and others, and is essential reading for all seeking to understand what it truly means to recover and reclaim the desire to live.
Download or read book The Busybody Buddha written by Margie Rutledge and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2002-11-01 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the sequel to The Great Laundry Adventure, the three Lawrence children, Abigail, Jacob and Ernest (from oldest to youngest) are again embarked on a mysterious adventure, but this time, the adventure is initiated, it appears, by a small blue stone buddha which Ernest has discovered in a mysterious shop. The little buddha has a way of showing Ernest the unhappiness of others, and his brother and sister have expressly forbidden him to bring the buddha along on their summer holiday. With their parents, they arrive by motorboat on the wonderfully primitive island where they always spend their holidays, ready for a carefree summer. At first they are delighted to rediscover their favorite haunts and activities, but soon five-year-old Ernest is oppressed by a sense of foreboding. He is afraid to tell Abigail and Jacob that he has brought the buddha to the island, but they soon discover its presence and take measures to try to prevent the buddhas powerful and unhappy messages from spoiling their holiday. Then the children discover a battered replica of the tourist boat, the Segwun, which has plied these shores for decades, and which then leads them to a small mist shrouded island, called Serene Island. They also discover a mysterious cave with ancient drawings and a tunnel through which pours the sound of sobbing. They follow the tunnel and it leads them back to the same small island. This time they find someone who is indeed unhappy and needs their help. And so their adventure with Charlotte, a young girl from another time, begins. A junior novel with a classic feel, illustrated with black and white illustrations, which will delight children eight and up. Rutledge has mined the mysterious elements of an untamed island to produce a story which is both whimsical and enchanting.
