Download or read book The Holy Madmen of Tibet written by David M. DiValerio and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the course of the last millennium in Tibet, tantric yogins have been taking on norm-overturning modes of behaviour and dress, including provoking others to violence, publicly consuming filth, having sex, and draping themselves in human remains. Because of this they have been called 'madmen' (smyon pa), but have also achieved a degree of saintliness. This book is the first comprehensive study of these 'holy madmen', who have captured the imaginations of Tibetans and Westerners alike.
Download or read book The Holy Madmen of Tibet written by David M DiValerio and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Life of the Madman of U written by David M. DiValerio and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-02 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Life of the Madman of Ü tells the story of Künga Zangpo (1458-1532), a famous Tibetan Buddhist ascetic of the Kagyü sect. Having grown weary of the trials of human existence, Künga Zangpo renounced the world during his teenage years, committing himself to learning and practicing the holy Dharma as a monk. Some years later he would give up his monkhood to take on a unique tantric asceticism that entailed dressing in human remains, wandering from place to place, and provoking others to attack him physically, among other norm-overturning behaviors. It was because of this asceticism that Künga Zangpo came to be known as the Madman of Ü. David M. Divalerio translates this biography, originally written in two parts in 1494 and 1537, making accessible to a modern audience a rich depiction of religious life in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Tibet. The book also details Künga Zangpo's many miracles, a testament to the spiritual perfection he attained. His final thirty years were spent at his monastery of Tsimar Pel, where he dispensed teachings to his numerous disciples and followers. The Life of this remarkable and controversial figure, now available in English for the first time, provides new means for understanding the tradition of the "holy madman" (smyon pa) in Tibetan Buddhism.
Download or read book The Holy Madmen of Tibet written by David M. DiValerio and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the past millennium, certain Tibetan Buddhist yogins have taken on profoundly norm-overturning modes of dress and behavior, including draping themselves in human remains, consuming filth, provoking others to violence, and even performing sacrilege. They became known far and wide as "madmen" (smyon pa, pronounced nyönpa), achieving a degree of saintliness in the process. This book offers the first comprehensive study of Tibet's "holy madmen" drawing on their biographies and writings, as well as tantric commentaries, later histories, oral traditions, and more. Much of The Holy Madmen of Tibet is dedicated to examining the lives and legacies of the three most famous "holy madmen" who were all of the Kagyü sect: the Madman of Tsang (author of The Life of Milarepa), the Madman of Ü, and Drukpa Künlé, Madman of the Drukpa Kagyü. Each born in the 1450s, they rose to prominence during a period of civil war and of great shifts in Tibet's religious culture. By focusing on literature written by and about the "holy madmen" and on the yogins' relationships with their public, this book offers in-depth looks at the narrative and social processes out of which sainthood arises, and at the role biographical literature can play in the formation of sectarian identities. By showing how understandings of the "madmen" have changed over time, this study allows for new insights into current notions of "crazy wisdom." In the end, the "holy madmen" are seen as self-aware and purposeful individuals who were anything but insane.
Download or read book The Yogin and the Madman written by Andrew Quintman and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tibetan biographers began writing Jetsun Milarepa's (1052–1135) life story shortly after his death, initiating a literary tradition that turned the poet and saint into a model of virtuosic Buddhist practice throughout the Himalayan world. Andrew Quintman traces this history and its innovations in narrative and aesthetic representation across four centuries, culminating in a detailed analysis of the genre's most famous example, composed in 1488 by Tsangnyön Heruka, or the "Madman of Western Tibet." Quintman imagines these works as a kind of physical body supplanting the yogin's corporeal relics.
Download or read book The Snow Lion s Turquoise Mane written by Surya Das and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-06 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This remarkable book brings together more than 150 authentic Buddhist teaching tales from the Hidden Kingdom of Tibet — most never before translated into English. These captivating stories, legends and yarns — passed orally from teacher to student — capture the vibrant wisdom of an ancient and still-living oral tradition. Magical, whimsical, witty and ribald, The Snow Lion's Turquoise Mane unfolds a luminous vision of a universe where basic goodness, harmony, and hope prevails.
Download or read book Naked Seeing written by Christopher Hatchell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhism is in many ways a visual tradition, with its well-known practices of visualization, its visual arts, its epistemological writings that discuss the act of seeing, and its literature filled with images and metaphors of light. Some Buddhist traditions are also visionary, advocating practices by which meditators seek visions that arise before their eyes. Naked Seeing investigates such practices in the context of two major esoteric traditions, the Wheel of Time (Kalacakra) and the Great Perfection (Dzogchen). Both of these experimented with sensory deprivation, and developed yogas involving long periods of dwelling in dark rooms or gazing at the open sky. These produced unusual experiences of seeing, which were used to pursue some of the classic Buddhist questions about appearances, emptiness, and the nature of reality. Along the way, these practices gave rise to provocative ideas and suggested that, rather than being apprehended through internal insight, religious truths might also be seen in the exterior world-realized through the gateway of the eyes. Christopher Hatchell presents the intellectual and literary histories of these practices, and also explores the meditative techniques and physiology that underlie their distinctive visionary experiences. The book also offers for the first time complete English translations of three major Tibetan texts on visionary practice: a Kalacakra treatise by Yumo Mikyo Dorjé, The Lamp Illuminating Emptiness, a Nyingma Great Perfection work called The Tantra of the Blazing Lamps, and a Bön Great Perfection work called Advice on the Six Lamps, along with a detailed commentary on this by Drugom Gyalwa Yungdrung.
Download or read book Tibetan Renaissance written by Ronald M. Davidson and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishe. This book was released on 2008 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did a society on the edge of collapse and dominated by wandering bands of armed men give way to a vibrant Buddhist culture, led by yogins and scholars? Ronald M. Davidson explores how the translation and spread of esoteric Buddhist texts dramatically shaped Tibetan society and led to its rise as the center of Buddhist culture throughout Asia, replacing India as the perceived source of religious ideology and tradition. During the Tibetan Renaissance (950-1200 C.E.), monks and yogins translated an enormous number of Indian Buddhist texts. They employed the evolving literature and practices of esoteric Buddhism as the basis to reconstruct Tibetan religious, cultural, and political institutions. Many translators achieved the de facto status of feudal lords and while not always loyal to their Buddhist vows, these figures helped solidify political power in the hands of religious authorities and began a process that led to the Dalai Lama's theocracy. Davidson's vivid portraits of the monks, priests, popular preachers, yogins, and aristocratic clans who changed Tibetan society and culture further enhance his perspectives on the tensions and transformations that characterized medieval Tibet.
Download or read book Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy of Mind and Nature written by Douglas S. Duckworth and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy of Mind and Nature is a philosophical overview of Tibetan Buddhist thought. Charting the different ways Buddhist traditions in Tibet configure the relationship between Madhyamaka and Mind-Only, Duckworth shows how these configurations inform the shape of distinct contemplative practices"--
Download or read book Among Tibetan Texts written by E. Gene Smith and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-06-15 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For three decades, E. Gene Smith ran the Library of Congress's Tibetan Text Publication Project of the United States Public Law 480 (PL480) - an effort to salvage and reprint the Tibetan literature that had been collected by the exile community or by members of the Bhotia communities of Sikkim, Bhutan, India, and Nepal. Smith wrote prefaces to these reprinted books to help clarify and contextualize the particular Tibetan texts: the prefaces served as rough orientations to a poorly understood body of foreign literature. Originally produced in print quantities of twenty, these prefaces quickly became legendary, and soon photocopied collections were handed from scholar to scholar, achieving an almost cult status. These essays are collected here for the first time. The impact of Smith's research on the academic study of Tibetan literature has been tremendous, both for his remarkable ability to synthesize diverse materials into coherent accounts of Tibetan literature, history, and religious thought, and for the exemplary critical scholarship he brought to this field.
Download or read book Buddhist Magic written by Sam van Schaik and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2020-07-28 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating exploration of the role that magic has played in the history of Buddhism As far back as we can see in the historical record, Buddhist monks and nuns have offered services including healing, divination, rain making, aggressive magic, and love magic to local clients. Studying this history, scholar Sam van Schaik concludes that magic and healing have played a key role in Buddhism's flourishing, yet they have rarely been studied in academic circles or by Western practitioners. The exclusion of magical practices and powers from most discussions of Buddhism in the modern era can be seen as part of the appropriation of Buddhism by Westerners, as well as an effect of modernization movements within Asian Buddhism. However, if we are to understand the way Buddhism has worked in the past, the way it still works now in many societies, and the way it can work in the future, we need to examine these overlooked aspects of Buddhist practice. In Buddhist Magic, van Schaik takes a book of spells and rituals--one of the earliest that has survived--from the Silk Road site of Dunhuang as the key reference point for discussing Buddhist magic in Tibet and beyond. After situating Buddhist magic within a cross-cultural history of world magic, he discusses sources of magic in Buddhist scripture, early Buddhist rituals of protection, medicine and the spread of Buddhism, and magic users. Including material from across the vast array of Buddhist traditions, van Schaik offers readers a fascinating, nuanced view of a topic that has too long been ignored.
Download or read book Identity Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism written by Martin A. Mills and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a major anthropological study of contemporary Tibetan Buddhist monasticism and tantric ritual in the Ladakh region of North-West India and of the role of tantric ritual in the formation and maintenance of traditional forms of state structure and political consciousness in Tibet. Containing detailed descriptions and analyses of monastic ritual, the work builds up a picture of Tibetan tantric traditions as they interact with more localised understandings of bodily identity and territorial cosmology, to produce a substantial re-interpretation of the place of monks as ritual performers and peripheral householders in Ladakh. The work also examines the central and indispensable role of incarnate lamas, such as the Dalai Lama, in the religious life of Tibetan Buddhists.
Download or read book The Buddha Party written by John Powers and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Buddha Party tells the story of how the People's Republic of China employs propaganda to define Tibetan Buddhist belief and sway opinion within the country and abroad. The narrative they create is at odds with historical facts and deliberately misleading but, John Powers argues, it is widely believed by Han Chinese. Most of China's leaders appear to deeply believe the official line regarding Tibet, which resonates with Han notions of themselves as China's most advanced nationality and as a benevolent race that liberates and culturally uplifts minority peoples. This in turn profoundly affects how the leadership interacts with their counterparts in other countries. Powers's study focuses in particular on the government's "patriotic education" campaign-an initiative that forces monks and nuns to participate in propaganda sessions and repeat official dogma. Powers contextualizes this within a larger campaign to transform China's religions into "patriotic" systems that endorse Communist Party policies. This book offers a powerful, comprehensive examination of this ongoing phenomenon, how it works and how Tibetans resist it.
Download or read book The Divine Madman written by Brag-phug Dge-bśes Dge-ʼdun-rin-chen and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of anecdotes and songs by, and concerning, the Tibetan Saint, Buddha Drukpa Kunley.
Download or read book Tales of a Mad Yogi written by Elizabeth L. Monson and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating biography of Drukpa Kunley, a Tibetan Buddhist master and crazy yogi. The fifteenth-century Himalayan saint Drukpa Kunley is a beloved figure throughout Tibet, Bhutan, and Nepal, known both for his profound mastery of Buddhist practice as well as his highly unconventional and often humorous behavior. Ever the proverbial trickster and “crazy wisdom” yogi, his outward appearance and conduct of carousing, philandering, and breaking social norms is understood to be a means to rouse ordinary people out of habitual ways of thinking and lead them toward spiritual awakening. Elizabeth L. Monson has spent decades traveling throughout the Himalayas, retracing Drukpa Kunley’s steps and translating his works. In this creative telling, direct translations of his teachings are woven into a life story based on historical accounts, autobiographical sketches, folktales, and first-hand ethnographic research. The result, with flourishes of magical encounters and references to his superhuman capacities, is a poignant narrative of Kunley’s life, revealing to the reader the quintessential example of the capacity of Buddhism to skillfully bring people to liberation.
Download or read book Love and Rage written by Lama Rod Owens and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2020-06-16 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER In the face of systemic racism and state-sanctioned violence, how can we metabolize our anger into a force for liberation? White supremacy in the United States has long necessitated that Black rage be suppressed, repressed, or denied, often as a means of survival, a literal matter of life and death. In Love and Rage, Lama Rod Owens, coauthor of Radical Dharma, shows how this unmetabolized anger--and the grief, hurt, and transhistorical trauma beneath it--needs to be explored, respected, and fully embodied to heal from heartbreak and walk the path of liberation. This is not a book about bypassing anger to focus on happiness, or a road map for using spirituality to transform the nature of rage into something else. Instead, it is one that offers a potent vision of anger that acknowledges and honors its power as a vehicle for radical social change and enduring spiritual transformation. Love and Rage weaves the inimitable wisdom and lived experience of Lama Rod Owens with Buddhist philosophy, practical meditation exercises, mindfulness, tantra, pranayama, ancestor practices, energy work, and classical yoga. The result is a book that serves as both a balm and a blueprint for those seeking justice who can feel overwhelmed with anger--and yet who refuse to relent. It is a necessary text for these times.
Download or read book The Madman s Middle Way written by Donald S. Lopez Jr. and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gendun Chopel is considered the most important Tibetan intellectual of the twentieth century. His life spanned the two defining moments in modern Tibetan history: the entry into Lhasa by British troops in 1904 and by Chinese troops in 1951. Recognized as an incarnate lama while he was a child, Gendun Chopel excelled in the traditional monastic curriculum and went on to become expert in fields as diverse as philosophy, history, linguistics, geography, and tantric Buddhism. Near the end of his life, before he was persecuted and imprisoned by the government of the young Dalai Lama, he would dictate the Adornment for Nagarjuna’s Thought, a work on Madhyamaka, or “Middle Way,” philosophy. It sparked controversy immediately upon its publication and continues to do so today. The Madman’s Middle Way presents the first English translation of this major Tibetan Buddhist work, accompanied by an essay on Gendun Chopel’s life liberally interspersed with passages from his writings. Donald S. Lopez Jr. also provides a commentary that sheds light on the doctrinal context of the Adornment and summarizes its key arguments. Ultimately, Lopez examines the long-standing debate over whether Gendun Chopel in fact is the author of the Adornment; the heated critical response to the work by Tibetan monks of the Dalai Lama’s sect; and what the Adornment tells us about Tibetan Buddhism’s encounter with modernity. The result is an insightful glimpse into a provocative and enigmatic workthatwill be of great interest to anyone seriously interested in Buddhism or Asian religions.
