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Book An Introduction to Buddhism

Download or read book An Introduction to Buddhism written by Peter Harvey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1990-05-25 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike other studies, this work not only explores Buddhism's world views but attempts to show how it functions as a set of practices based on devotion, ethics, and meditation.

Book Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities

Download or read book Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities written by Steven Collins and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-05-13 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an answer to the question: what is nirvana? Part I distinguishes between systematic and narrative thought in the Pali texts of Theravada Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia, arguing that nirvana produces closure in both, and setting nirvana in the wider category of Buddhist Felicities. Part II explores other Buddhist utopias (both eu-topias, 'good places', and ou-topias, 'no-places'), and relates Buddhist utopianism to studies of European and American utopian writing. The book ends with a close reading of the Vessantara Jataka, which highlights the conflict between the ascetic quest for closure and ultimate felicity, and the ongoing demands of ordinary life and society. Steven Collins discusses these issues in relation to textuality, world history and ideology in premodern civilizations, aiming to contribute to an alternate vision of Buddhist history, which can hold both the inside and the outside of texts together.

Book The Origin and Nature of Ancient Indian Buddhism

Download or read book The Origin and Nature of Ancient Indian Buddhism written by K. T. S. Sarao and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Esoteric Theravada

    Book Details:
  • Author : Kate Crosby
  • Publisher : Shambhala Publications
  • Release : 2020-12-22
  • ISBN : 1611807948
  • Pages : 321 pages

Download or read book Esoteric Theravada written by Kate Crosby and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2020-12-22 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking exploration of a practice tradition that was nearly lost to history. Theravada Buddhism, often understood as the school that most carefully preserved the practices taught by the Buddha, has undergone tremendous change over time. Prior to Western colonialism in Asia—which brought Western and modernist intellectual concerns, such as the separation of science and religion, to bear on Buddhism—there existed a tradition of embodied, esoteric, and culturally regional Theravada meditation practices. This once-dominant traditional meditation system, known as borān kammatthāna, is related to—yet remarkably distinct from—Vipassana and other Buddhist and secular mindfulness practices that would become the hallmark of Theravada Buddhism in the twentieth century. Drawing on a quarter century of research, scholar Kate Crosby offers the first holistic discussion of borān kammatthāna, illuminating the historical events and cultural processes by which the practice has been marginalized in the modern era.

Book The Perfect Generosity of Prince Vessantara

Download or read book The Perfect Generosity of Prince Vessantara written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Wheel of the Law

Download or read book The Wheel of the Law written by Henry Alabaster and published by . This book was released on 1871 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Asian Traditions of Meditation

Download or read book Asian Traditions of Meditation written by Halvor Eifring and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2016-10-31 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meditation has flourished in different parts of the world ever since the foundations of the great civilizations were laid. It played a vital role in the formation of Asian cultures that trace much of their heritage to ancient India and China. This volume brings together for the first time studies of the major traditions of Asian meditation as well as material on scientific approaches to meditation. It delves deeply into the individual traditions while viewing each of them from a global perspective, examining both historical and generic connections between meditative practices from numerous historical periods and different parts of the Eurasian continent. It seeks to identify the cultural and historical peculiarities of Asian schools of meditation while recognizing basic features of meditative practice across cultures, thereby taking the first step toward a framework for the comparative study of meditation. The book, accessibly written by scholars from several fields, opens with chapters that discuss the definition and classification of meditation. These are followed by contributions on Yoga and Tantra, which are often subsumed under the broad label of Hinduism; Jainism and Sikhism, Indian traditions not usually associated with meditation; Buddhist approaches found in Southeast Asia, Tibet, and China; and the indigenous Chinese traditions, Daoism and Neo-Confucianism. The final chapter explores recent scientific interest in meditation, which, despite its Western orientation, remains almost exclusively concerned with practices of Asian origin. Until a few years ago a major obstacle to the study of specific meditation practices within the traditions explored here was a widespread scholarly orientation that prioritized doctrinal issues and sociocultural contexts over actual practice. The contributors seek to counter this bias and supplement concerns over doctrine and context with the historical study of meditative practice. Asian Traditions of Meditation will appeal broadly to readers interested in meditation, mindfulness, and spirituality and those in the emerging field of contemplative education, as well as students and scholars of Asian and religious studies.

Book Traditional Theravada Meditation and Its Modern era Suppression

Download or read book Traditional Theravada Meditation and Its Modern era Suppression written by Kate Crosby (Religion scholar) and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book A Handbook of Pali Literature

Download or read book A Handbook of Pali Literature written by Oskar von Hinüber and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-03-20 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook surveys the whole of Pali Theravada Buddhist literature (Ceylon, South East Asia). It reviews previous research in the field, and then concentrates on new methodological approaches and a treatment of later Pali literature (after the twelfth century).

Book Meditation  Buddhism  and Science

Download or read book Meditation Buddhism and Science written by David L. McMahan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The scientific study of Buddhist forms of meditation has surged in recent years, capturing the popular imagination and reshaping conceptions of what meditation is and what it can do. For perhaps the first time in history, meditation has shifted from Buddhist monasteries and practice centers to some of the most prominent and powerful modern institutions in the world, as well as non-institutional settings. As their contexts change, so do the practices-sometimes drastically. New ways of thinking about meditation are emerging as it moves toward more secular settings, ways that profoundly affect millions of lives all over the world. To understand these changes and their effects, the essays in this volume explore the unaddressed complexities in the interrelations between Buddhist history and thought and the scientific study of meditation. The contributors bring philosophical, cultural, historical, and ethnographic perspectives to bear, considering such issues as the philosophical presuppositions behind practice, the secularization of meditation, the values and goods assumed in clinical approaches, and the sorts of subjects that take shape under the influence of these transformed and transformative practices-all the more powerful for being so often formulated with the authority of scientific discourse.

Book Abhidhamma Studies

    Book Details:
  • Author : Nyanaponika (Thera)
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 1998-03
  • ISBN : 0861711351
  • Pages : 178 pages

Download or read book Abhidhamma Studies written by Nyanaponika (Thera) and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1998-03 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Abhidhamma, the third great division of the early Buddhist teaching, maps out with remarkable rigor & precision the inner landscape of the mind to be crossed through the practical work of Buddhist meditation. In this groundbreaking book, Venerable Nyanaponika Thera penetrates Abhidhamma's formidable face to make its principles intelligible to the thoughtful reader of today.

Book Remembering the Present

Download or read book Remembering the Present written by J. L. Cassaniti and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-15 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is ambitious and easy to read, has many "rich descriptions," that would be good for undergraduates and graduate students interested in mindfulness, Southeast Asian Theravada Buddhism, and the anthropology of Buddhism. ― Religious Studies Review What is mindfulness, and how does it vary as a concept across different cultures? How does mindfulness find expression in practice in the Buddhist cultures of Southeast Asia? What role does mindfulness play in everyday life? J. L. Cassaniti answers these fundamental questions and more through an engaged ethnographic investigation of what it means to "remember the present" in a region strongly influenced by Buddhist thought. Focusing on Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar, Remembering the Present examines the meanings, practices, and purposes of mindfulness. Using the experiences of people in Buddhist monasteries, hospitals, markets, and homes in the region, Cassaniti shows how an attention to memory informs how people live today and how mindfulness is intimately tied to local constructions of time, affect, power, emotion, and selfhood. By looking at how these people incorporate Theravada Buddhism into their daily lives, Cassaniti provides a signal contribution to the psychological anthropology of religious experience. Remembering the Present heeds the call made by researchers in the psychological sciences and the Buddhist side of mindfulness studies for better understandings of what mindfulness is and can be. Cassaniti addresses fundamental questions about selfhood, identity, and how a deeper appreciation of the many contexts and complexities intrinsic in sati (mindfulness in the Pali language) can help people lead richer, fuller, and healthier lives. Remembering the Present shows how mindfulness needs to be understood within the cultural and historical influences from which it has emerged.

Book The Path of Serenity and Insight

Download or read book The Path of Serenity and Insight written by Henepola Gunaratana and published by Motilal Banarsidass. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the oldest scriptures of Theravada Buddhism much attention is given to the jhanas, high levels of meditative attainment distinguished by powerful concentration and purity of mind. Ven. Dr. Gunaratana examines these jhanas within the context of Buddhist teaching as a whole and particularly within the meditation disciplines taught by the Buddha. Beginning with the ethical foundation for meditation, the role of the teacher, the classical subjects of meditation, and the appropriateness of these subjects to individual practitioners, the author traces the practice of meditation to the higher reaches of realization. The eight stages of jhana are individually analyzed and explained in terms of their relation to one another and to the ultimate goal of the teaching. The author makes the critical distinction between the mundane jhanas and supermundane jhanas, pointing out that the lower four, while leading to various mental powers and psychic attainments, are not necessary to full enlightenment and may be developed or bypassed as the medita-tor wishes. The author goes on to explain the place of the jhanas among the accomplishments of an arahat and elucidate their usefulness for a dedicated meditator.

Book Mind Cure

    Book Details:
  • Author : Wakoh Shannon Hickey
  • Publisher : Oxford University Press
  • Release : 2019-02-01
  • ISBN : 0190864265
  • Pages : 454 pages

Download or read book Mind Cure written by Wakoh Shannon Hickey and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-01 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mindfulness and yoga are widely said to improve mental and physical health, and booming industries have emerged to teach them as secular techniques. This movement is typically traced to the 1970s, but it actually began a century earlier. Wakoh Shannon Hickey shows that most of those who first advocated meditation for healing were women: leaders of the "Mind Cure" movement, which emerged during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Instructed by Buddhist and Hindu missionaries, many of these women believed that by transforming consciousness, they could also transform oppressive conditions in which they lived. For women - and many African-American men - "Mind Cure" meant not just happiness, but liberation in concrete political, economic, and legal terms. In response to the perceived threat posed by this movement, white male doctors and clergy with elite academic credentials began to channel key Mind Cure methods into "scientific" psychology and medicine. As mental therapeutics became medicalized and commodified, the religious roots of meditation, like the social-justice agendas of early Mind Curers, fell by the wayside. Although characterized as "universal," mindfulness has very specific historical and cultural roots, and is now largely marketed by and accessible to affluent white people. Hickey examines religious dimensions of the Mindfulness movement and clinical research about its effectiveness. By treating stress-related illness individualistically, she argues, the contemporary movement obscures the roles religious communities can play in fostering civil society and personal wellbeing, and diverts attention from systemic factors fueling stress-related illness, including racism, sexism, and poverty.

Book The Progress of Insight

    Book Details:
  • Author : Mahasi Sayadaw
  • Publisher : Buddhist Publication Society
  • Release : 1994
  • ISBN : 9552400902
  • Pages : 64 pages

Download or read book The Progress of Insight written by Mahasi Sayadaw and published by Buddhist Publication Society. This book was released on 1994 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The practice of Vipassana or insight meditation was described by the Buddha as the “direct way” for the overcoming of all sorrow and grief and for realizing Nibbana, the state of perfect liberation from suffering. The essence of this practice consists in the four foundations of mindfulness: mindful contemplation of the body, feelings, states of mind, and mind objects.

Book Burma s Mass Lay Meditation Movement

Download or read book Burma s Mass Lay Meditation Movement written by Ingrid Jordt and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Burma's Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power describes a transformation in Buddhist practice in contemporary Burma. This revitalization movement has had real consequences for how the oppressive military junta, in power since the early 1960s, governs the country. Drawing on more than ten years of extensive fieldwork in Burma, Ingrid Jordt explains how vipassana meditation has brought about a change of worldview for millions of individuals, enabling them to think and act independently of the totalitarian regime. She addresses human rights as well as the relationship between politics and religion in a country in which neither the government nor the people clearly separates the two. Jordt explains how the movement has been successful in its challenge to the Burmese military dictatorship where democratically inspired resistance movements have failed. Jordt’s unsurpassed access to the centers of political and religious power in Burma becomes the reader’s opportunity to witness the political workings of one of the world’s most secretive and tyrannically ruled countries. Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement is a valuable contribution to Buddhist studies as well as anthropology, religious studies, and political science.

Book Samatha  Jhana  and Vipassana

Download or read book Samatha Jhana and Vipassana written by Hyun-Soo Jeon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A clear and comprehensive handbook to a revered path of meditation. This step-by-step meditator’s guide walks the reader through practices that can hold the key to unlocking new levels of concentration and insight. A student of the famed Pa-Auk Monastery and a practicing psychiatrist, Jeon Hyun-soo, MD, PhD, uses these two paths to guide the reader to a new understanding of themselves and the world around them. Drawing both from Jeon’s own experience with Pa-Auk Sayadaw and from the words of the Buddha, this is an authentic and practical guide to samatha, materiality, mentality, dependent origination, and vipassana.