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 The Pure Land Handbook written by Shakya YongHua and published by . This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pure Land Dharma Door is the most popular form of Buddhism in Asia, though it is largely unknown in the West. In this book, we introduce the Pure Land teachings to those who may not yet be familiar with this profound practice, hoping that more people will benefit from these methods. Furthermore, we will shed new light on the fundamentals of Pure Land, so even those who have grown up with and practiced Pure Land for years, can learn important points that are not commonlyknown. We present for you here a genuine, American, form of Pure Land Buddhism.
Download or read book The Chan Handbook written by Hsuan Hua and published by Buddhist Text Translation Society. This book was released on 2012-10-27 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not everyone is fortunate enough to attend a meditation retreat with a Chan master, yet everyone can benefit from this handbook that explains the essential principals of chan meditation as taught by the late Tripitika Master Hsuan Hua, former instructor at Nan Hua Monastery in Canton, China, the bodhimanda of the Sixth Patriarch Hui Neng. Compiled from Chinese and translated into English, these talks span a 40 year period during retreats in China and America. Topics covered include - What are the benefits of meditation? - How do we sit in meditation? - What are the states of meditation? - How do we reach nirvana? - What is absolute enlightenment?
Download or read book Anarchy in the Pure Land written by Justin Ritzinger and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-31 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anarchy in the Pure Land investigates the twentieth-century reinvention of the cult of Maitreya, the future Buddha, conceived by the reformer Taixu and promoted by the Chinese Buddhist reform movement. The cult presents an apparent anomaly: It shows precisely the kind of concern for ritual, supernatural beings, and the afterlife that the reformers supposedly rejected in the name of "modernity." This book shows that, rather than a concession to tradition, the reimagining of ideas and practices associated with Maitreya was an important site for formulating a Buddhist vision of modernity. Justin Ritzinger argues that the cult of Maitreya represents an attempt to articulate a new constellation of values, integrating novel understandings of the good, clustered around modern visions of utopia, with the central Buddhist goal of Buddhahood. In Part One he traces the roots of this constellation to Taixu's youthful career as an anarchist. Part Two examines its articulation in the Maitreya School's theology and its social development from its inception to World War II. Part Three looks at its subsequent decline and contemporary legacy within and beyond orthodox Buddhism. Through these investigations, Anarchy in the Pure Land develops a new framework for alternative understandings of modernity in Buddhism.
Download or read book Essence of the Infinite Life Sutra written by Chin Kung Shi and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 Guide to Dakini Land written by Kelsang Gyatso and published by Tharpa Publications US. This book was released on 1996 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprint. originally published: Tharpa Publications, 1991.
Download or read book Taixu s On the Establishment of the Pure Land in the Human Realm written by Charles B. Jones and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-14 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Charles B. Jones provides the first English language translation of one of the most important texts of modern Chinese Buddhism: monk-reformer Taixu's 'On the Establishment of the Pure Land in the Human Realm'. The essay, written in 1926 as part of Taixu's attempt to revive Chinese Buddhism with a Humanistic Buddhist approach, incorporates Western thought into a reconstruction of the idea of the 'Pure Land in the human realm'. In his commentary on the text, Jones argues that it has been widely misunderstood and mischaracterized. Jones demonstrates that, besides laying out the very modern idea of the Pure Land in the human realm as a slogan for Buddhist engagement with the problems of the modern world, the essay does not, as commonly assumed, discourage practices leading to rebirth in the Pure Land. He also shows that the 'human realm' can mean anywhere in Buddhist cosmology that humans reside, and that the essay's attempts to reconcile Buddhism with modern science is tentative and incomplete. Jones reveals that the essay promotes visions of both paradises and utopias, and that Taixu supports his ideas with many lengthy sutra quotations. The book concludes with an examination of how Taixu's followers developed the idea of the Pure Land in the human realm into a more coherent and modernized ideal.
Download or read book Handbook of East Asian New Religious Movements written by Lukas Pokorny and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 634 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * This Handbook has won the ICAS Edited Volume Accolade 2019. Brill warmly congratulates editors Lukas Pokorny and Franz Winter and their authors with this award. * A vibrant cauldron of new religious developments, East Asia (China/Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam) presents a fascinating arena of related research for scholars across disciplines. Edited by Lukas Pokorny and Franz Winter, the Handbook of East Asian New Religious Movements provides the first comprehensive and reliable guide to explore the vast East Asian new religious panorama. Penned by leading scholars in the field, the assembled contributions render the Handbook an invaluable resource for those interested in the crucial new religious actors and trajectories of the region.
Download or read book The Shin Buddhist Classical Tradition written by Alfred Bloom and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Buddhist Handbook written by John Snelling and published by Inner Traditions / Bear & Co. This book was released on 1991 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first definitive guide to the complete panorama of Buddhist teaching, practice, schools, and history. One of the fastest growing religions in the world, Buddhism includes with its scope numerous traditions. The Buddhist Handbook provides a comprehensive and nonsectarian survey of these traditions and their contemporary exponents throughout the world, providing necessary information for those who wish to explore the various options thoroughly and find one that is suited to their needs. For those already practicing in a particular school of Buddhism, it offers illuminating insight into the teachings of other schools for a more holistic view.
Download or read book In the Buddha s Words written by Bodhi and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2005-07-28 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This landmark collection is the definitive introduction to the Buddha's teachings in his own words. The American scholar monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, whose voluminous translations have won widespread acclaim, here presents selected discourses of the Buddha from the Pali Canon, the earliest record of what the Buddha taught. Divided into ten thematic chapters, In the Buddha's Words reveals the full scope of the Buddha's discourses, from family life and marriage to renunciation and the path of insight. A concise informative introduction precedes each chapter, guiding the reader toward a deeper understanding of the texts that follow." "In the Buddha's Words allows even readers unacquainted with Buddhism to grasp the significance of the Buddha's contributions to our world heritage. Taken as a whole, these texts bear eloquent testimony to the breadth and intelligence of the Buddha's teachings, and point the way to an ancient yet ever vital path. Students and seekers alike will find this systematic presentation indispensable."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Silent Illumination written by Guo Gu and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our natural awakening—or buddha-nature—is inherent within all of us and waiting to be realized. Buddha-nature has the qualities of both silence and illumination, and by working with silent illumination meditation you can find your own awakening. Distinguished Chan Buddhist teacher Guo Gu introduces you to the significance and methods of this practice through in-depth explanations and guided instructions. To help establish a foundation for realizing silent illumination, he has translated twenty-five teachings from the influential master Hongzhi Zhengjue into English, accompanied by his personal commentary. This book will be an indispensable resource for meditators interested in beginning or deepening their silent illumination practice.
Download or read book The Pure Land Handbook written by Master YongHua and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-12-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pure Land Dharma Door is the most popular form of Buddhism in Asia, though it is largely unknown in the West. In this book, we introduce the Pure Land teachings to those who may not yet be familiar with this profound practice, hoping that more people will benefit from these methods. Furthermore, we will shed new light on the fundamentals of Pure Land, so even those who have grown up with and practiced Pure Land for years, can learn important points that are not commonly known. We present for you here a genuine, American, form of Pure Land Buddhism. What If? What if you could end all suffering and enjoy eternal bliss? What if you could attain a permanent state of perfect happiness, without the duality of its opposite - pain? What if you could break the cycle of reincarnation and continue your spiritual cultivation with a constant forward movement, never losing ground? What if you could cultivate in a world of peace, where everyone around you supports your efforts, and you support theirs? What if you could clear away the debris that prevents you from seeing your True Self, and that of all others? What if you could realize your True Nature, become a Buddha, and realize the vow to help all living beings attain the same? This is what the Buddhas promise us, if we cultivate our inner gardens and plant good strong seeds that take root and flourish. The quest for enlightenment is a long and arduous spiritual journey that can take many lifetimes. But there is a shorter and more pleasurable path... It is called the Pure Lands.
Download or read book Buddha Standard Time written by Surya Das and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-05-24 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Awealth of inspiration and practical tips for enjoying the Kingdom of God, thePure Land of the Buddha, now." —Thich Nhat Hanh, bestselling author of Peace Is EveryStep "Fornewcomers to Buddhism (and non-Buddhists interested in universal wisdom!) and‘old hands’ at practice . . . [Das] promises nothing less than a liberatedlife, freed from angst over the tyranny of time, though the practice of lovingpresence." —Sylvia Boorstein, author of Happiness Is An Inside Job Internationallyrenowned meditation scholar Lama Surya Das delivers a penetrating and practicalguide to discovering the power of living fully in the now. In the tradition ofthe Dalai Lama’s The Art of Happiness and Noah Levine’s Heartof the Revolution, Buddha Standard Time is a roadmap to discoveringyour own inner kingdom of awareness, patience, and love.
Download or read book Modern Buddhism written by Kelsang Gyatso and published by Tharpa Publications US. This book was released on 2011 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on teachings from the Kadampa Buddhist Tradition, Modern Buddhism is a special presentation that communicates the essence of the entire path to liberation and enlightenment in a way that is easy to understand and put into practice.
Download or read book Peaceful Death Joyful Rebirth written by Tulku Thondup and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2006-12-12 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of The Healing Power of Mind draws on Buddhist scripture, firsthand accounts, and other sources to present an overview of Tibetan Buddhist teachings on facing death with openness and insight Buddhism teaches that death can be a springboard to enlightenment—yet for all but the most advanced meditators, it will be the gateway to countless future lives of suffering in samsara. Tulku Thondup wrote this guide to help us heal our fear and confusion about death and strengthen our practice in anticipation of this transition, and to help us realize the enlightened goal of ultimate peace and joy—not only for death and rebirth, but for this very lifetime. In simple language, he distills a vast range of sources, including scriptures, classic commentaries, oral teachings, and firsthand accounts. The book includes: • A downloadable audio program of guided meditations (URL provided in the book) • An overview of the dying process, the after-death bardo states, and teachings on why, where, and how we take rebirth • Accounts by Tibetan "near-death experiencers" (delogs), who returned from death with amazing reports of their visions • Ways to train our minds during life, so that at death, all the phenomena before us will arise as a world of peace, joy, and enlightenment • Simple meditations, prayers, and rituals to benefit the dead and dying • Advice for caregivers, helpers, and survivors of the dying The paperback edition links to a downloadable audio program providing guided instructions by the author on how to visualize Amitabha Buddha in the Pure Realm; how to receive his blessings; how to visualize transforming your body into light and sound at the time of death; how to share the blessings with compassion for all sentient beings; and how to rest in oneness. By becoming intimate with this practice while we're alive, we can alleviate our fear of death, improve our appreciation of this life, and prepare for death in a very practical way, while planting the seeds for rebirth in the Pure Land.
