Download or read book Toward a Contemporary Understanding of Pure Land Buddhism written by Dennis Hirota and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2000-03-31 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the potential significance of Japanese Pure Land Buddhist Thought in the contemporary world, and provides a new model of interreligious dialogue as Buddhist thinkers engage with Christian theologians concerned with the present-day significance of their own tradition.
Download or read book Pure Land Real World written by Melissa Anne-Marie Curley and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For close to a thousand years Amida’s Pure Land, a paradise of perfect ease and equality, was the most powerful image of shared happiness circulating in the Japanese imagination. In the late nineteenth century, some Buddhist thinkers sought to reinterpret the Pure Land in ways that would allow it speak to modern Japan. Their efforts succeeded in ways they could not have predicted. During the war years, economist Kawakami Hajime, philosopher Miki Kiyoshi, and historian Ienaga Saburō—left-leaning thinkers with no special training in doctrinal studies and no strong connection to any Buddhist institution—seized upon modernized images of Shinran in exile and a transcendent Western Paradise to resist the demands of a state that was bearing down on its citizens with increasing force. Pure Land, Real World treats the religious thought of these three major figures in English for the first time. Kawakami turned to religion after being imprisoned for his involvement with the Japanese Communist Party, borrowing the Shinshū image of the two truths to assert that Buddhist law and Marxist social science should reinforce each other, like the two wings of a bird. Miki, a member of the Kyoto School who went from prison to the crown prince’s think tank and back again, identified Shinran’s religion as belonging to the proletariat: For him, following Shinran and working toward building a buddha land on earth were akin to realizing social revolution. And Ienaga’s understanding of the Pure Land—as the crystallization of a logic of negation that undermined every real power structure—fueled his battle against the state censorship system, just as he believed it had enabled Shinran to confront the world’s suffering head on. Such readings of the Pure Land tradition are idiosyncratic—perhaps even heretical—but they hum with the same vibrancy that characterized medieval Pure Land belief. Innovative and refreshingly accessible, Pure Land, Real World shows that the Pure Land tradition informed twentieth-century Japanese thought in profound and surprising ways and suggests that it might do the same for twenty-first-century thinkers. The critical power of Pure Land utopianism has yet to be exhausted.
Download or read book The Dawn of Chinese Pure Land Buddhist Doctrine written by Kenneth K. Tanaka and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1990-08-14 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Path of No Path written by Richard Karl Payne and published by Institute of Buddhist Studies. This book was released on 2009 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roger Corless (1938-2007) pursued his own path, one he described as a path with heart. This enabled him to bring new perspectives to the study of Buddhism in general and Pure Land in particular. Honoring his life and his contribution to the field, this collection brings together ten essays by his colleagues and friends. These articles cover a range of topics, from the practice of Pure Land to its historical transmission and its contemporary interpretation. Contributors include Harvey Aronson, Gordon Bermant, Alfred Bloom, Ruben Habito, Charles Jones, Charles Orzech, Richard Payne, Charles Prebish, James Sanford, and Kenneth Tanaka, as well as a remembrance by one of Corless's students, Arthur Holder. As is only appropriate in memory of a pioneer in the field of Pure Land Buddhist studies, this work itself contributes to the further development of research and interpretation of the tradition.
Download or read book Chinese Pure Land Buddhism written by Charles B. Jones and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice is the first book in any western language to provide a comprehensive overview of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism. Even though Pure Land Buddhism was born in China and currently constitutes the dominant form of Buddhist practice there, it has previously received very little attention from western scholars. In this book, Charles B. Jones examines the reasons for the lack of scholarly attention and why the few past treatments of the topic missed many of its distinctive features. He argues that the Chinese Pure Land tradition, with its characteristic promise of rebirth in the Pure Land to even non-elite or undeserving practitioners, should not be viewed from the perspective of the Japanese Pure Land tradition, which differs greatly. More accurately contextualizing Chinese Pure Land Buddhism within the landscape of Chinese Buddhism and the broader global Buddhist tradition, this work celebrates Chinese Pure Land, not as a school or sect, but as a unique and inherently valuable “tradition of practice.” This volume is organized thematically, clearly presenting topics such as the nature of the Pure Land, the relationship between “self-power” and “other-power,” the practice of nianfo (buddha-recollection), and the formation of the line of “patriarchs” that keep the tradition grounded. It guides us in understanding the vigorous debates that Chinese Pure Land Buddhism evoked and delves into the rich apologetic literature that it produced in its own defense. Drawing upon a wealth of previously unexamined primary source materials, as well as modern texts by contemporary Chinese Pure Land masters, the author provides lucid translations of resources previously unavailable in English. He also shares his lifetime of experience in this field, enlivening the narrative with personal anecdotes of his visits to sites of Pure Land practice in China and Taiwan. The straightforward and nontechnical prose makes this book a standby resource for anyone interested in pursuing research in this lively, sophisticated, and still-evolving religious tradition. Scholars—including undergraduates—specializing in East Asian Buddhism, as well as those interested in Buddhism or Chinese religion and history in general, will find this book invaluable.
Download or read book Cultivating Spirituality written by Mark L. Blum and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2013-03-02 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four Shin Buddhist thinkers reflect on their traditions encounter with modernity. Cultivating Spirituality is a seminal anthology of Shin Buddhist thought, one that reflects this traditions encounter with modernity. Shin (or Jod? Shinsh?) is a popular form of Pure Land Buddhism, the most widely practiced form of Buddhism in Japan, but is only now becoming well known in the West. The lives of the four thinkers included in the book spanned the years 18631982, from the Meiji opening to the West to Japans establishment as an industrialized democracy and world economic power. Kiyozawa Manshi, Soga Ry?jin, Kaneko Daiei, and Yasuda Rijin, all associated with Kyotos ?tani University, dealt with the spiritual concerns of a society undergoing great change. Their philosophical orientation known as Seishinshugi (cultivating spirituality) provides a set of principles that prioritized personal, subjective experience as the basis for religious understanding. In addition to providing access to work generally unavailable in English, this volume also includes both a contextualizing introduction and introductions to each figure included. Buddhism, whether in Asia or the West, reveals itself to be a rich tapestry of diverse strands in which pioneers risked their standing and even their very lives to establish new pathways appropriate for their times and places. The editors invite the reader to explore developments in Japanese Pure Land Buddhism as emblematic of this tradition of innovation. Buddhadharma
Download or read book Establishing a Pureland on Earth written by Christopher Stuart Chandler and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 Engaged Pure Land Buddhism written by Kenneth Kenʼichi Tanaka and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism written by Don A. Pittman and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2001-02-01 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Venerable Master Taixu (1890–1947) is the most important and controversial Chinese Buddhist reformer of the twentieth century. Viewed as dangerously rash by conservative Buddhists, irrelevant by secular humanists, and spiritually misguided by Christian missionaries, Taixu was nevertheless committed to forging a socially engaged form of Buddhism and to organizing a Buddhist mission in the West. His bold and inventive "Buddhist revolution" continues to shape aspects of a revitalized Buddhism in East Asia and around the world. The present volume is the first major study in English to focus on the charismatic reformer and his teachings and provides a comprehensive and absorbing interpretation of Taixu’s aims and the divisive controversies that surrounded him. This nuanced work is richly documented with quotations from Taixu’s own writings and from various Chinese intellectuals and evangelists of the period. As the most politically involved of all the Buddhist leaders in the Republican period, Taixu sought to present Mahâyâna Buddhism as the core of a new Chinese culture and the only adequate foundation for a truly global civilization. Distancing himself from those masters who focused on otherworldly paradises and stressed dependence on celestial buddhas and bodhisattvas, he emphasized what could actually be accomplished in this world through the work of thousands of living bodhisattvas dedicated to building a pure land here and now. A realist who acknowledged the complexities of the human condition in an increasingly interdependent and violent world, Taixu was also a utopian who tried to imagine how Buddhists could begin to realize their ultimate ideals—ideals that in fact lay beyond the preservation of institutional Buddhism itself. Students of Buddhism, Chinese religion, contemporary Chinese history and culture, and Taiwan studies will welcome this study of a crucially important and intriguingly complex individual whose life encapsulates many of the forces and possibilities apparent within Chinese Buddhism in the contemporary world.
Download or read book Esoteric Pure Land Buddhism written by Aaron P. Proffitt and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What, if anything, is Esoteric Pure Land Buddhism? In 1224, the medieval Japanese scholar-monk Dohan (1179-1252) composed The Compendium on Esoteric Mindfulness of Buddha (Himitsu nenbutsu sho), which begins with another seemingly simple question: Why is it that practitioners of mantra and meditation rely on the recitation of the name of the Buddha Amitabha? To answer this question, Dohan explored diverse areas of study spanning the whole of the East Asian Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Although contemporary scholars often study Esoteric Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism as if they were mutually exclusive, diametrically opposed, schools of Buddhism, in the present volume Aaron Proffitt examines Dohan's Compendium in the context of the eastward flow of Mahayana Buddhism from India to Japan and uncovers Mahayana Buddhists employing multiple, overlapping, so-called esoteric approaches along the path to awakening. Proffitt divides his study into two parts. In Part I he considers how early Buddhologists, working under colonialism, first constructed Mahayana Buddhism, Pure Land Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism as discrete fields of inquiry. He then surveys the flow of Indian Buddhist spells, dharaòni, and mantra texts into China and Japan and the diverse range of Buddhist masters who employed these esoteric techniques to achieve rebirth in Sukhavati, the Pure Land of Bliss. In Part II, he considers the life of Dohan and analyzes the monk's comprehensive view of buddhanusmrti as a form of ritual technology that unified body and mind, Sukhavati as a this-worldly or other-worldly soteriological goal synonymous with nirvana itself, and the Buddha Amitabha as an object of devotion beyond this world of suffering. The work concludes with the first full translation of Dohan's Himitsu nenbutsu sho into a modern language"--
Download or read book The Prince and the Monk written by Kenneth Doo Young Lee and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Prince and the Monk addresses the historical development of the political and religious myths surrounding Shōtoku Taishi and their influence on Shinran, the founder of the Jōdo-Shinshū school of Pure Land Buddhism. Shōtoku Taishi (574–622) was a prince who led the campaign to unify Japan, wrote the imperial constitution, and promoted Buddhism as a religion of peace and prosperity. Shinran's Buddhism developed centuries later during the Kamakura period, which began in the late twelfth century. Kenneth Doo Young Lee discusses Shinran's liturgical text, his dream of Shōtoku's manifestation as Kannon (the world-saving Bodhisattva of Compassion), and other relevant events during his life. In addition, this book shows that Shinran's Buddhism was consistent with honji suijaku culture—the synthesis of the Shinto and Buddhist pantheons—prevalent during the Kamakura period.
Download or read book Critical Readings on Pure Land Buddhism in Japan written by Galen Amstutz and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-06-08 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pure Land was one of the main fields of mythopoesis and discourse among the Asian Buddhist traditions, and in Japan of central cultural importance from the Heian period right up to the present. The pieces reproduced in this set have been chosen as linchpin works accentuating the diversity and evolution of Pure Land Buddhism. These selections of previously published articles will serve as an essential starting-point for anyone interested in this perhaps underestimated area of Buddhist studies.
Download or read book Atonement and Comparative Theology written by Catherine Cornille and published by Fordham University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The central Christian belief in salvation through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ remains one of the most intractable mysteries of Christian faith. Throughout history, it has given rise to various theories of atonement, many of which have been subject to critique as they no longer speak to contemporary notions of evil and sin or to current conceptions of justice. One of the important challenges for contemporary Christian theology thus involves exploring new ways of understanding the salvific meaning of the cross. In Atonement and Comparative Theology, Christian theologians with expertise in Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, and African Religions reflect on how engagement with these traditions sheds new light on the Christian understanding of atonement by pointing to analogous structures of sin and salvation, drawing attention to the scandal of the cross as seen by the religious other, and re-interpreting aspects of the Christian understanding of atonement. Together, they illustrate the possibilities for comparative theology to deepen and enrich Christian theological reflection.
Download or read book The Dawn of Chinese Pure Land Buddhist Doctrine written by Kenneth K. Tanaka and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1990-01-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Establishing a Pure Land on Earth written by Stuart Chandler and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2004-07-31 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With more than 150 temples in thirty countries, Foguangshan has developed over the last thirty-five years into one of the world’s largest and most influential Chinese Buddhist movements. The result of two years of fieldwork in Foguangshan temples in Taiwan, the U.S., Australia, and South Africa, this volume is an unprecedented examination of the inner workings of a dynamic and innovative religious movement. Based on direct observations, private interviews, and careful textual and historical analysis, Stuart Chandler looks at the challenges faced by Foguangshan’s leader, Master Xingyun, and his followers as they try to adhere to traditional practices and values while tapping into the advantages afforded by modern, global society. Foguangshan’s slogans (“Humanistic Buddhism” and “Establishing a Pure Land on Earth”) are placed in historical context to reveal their role in shaping the group’s attitudes toward capitalism, women’s rights, and democracy, as well as toward the traditional Chinese virtue of filial piety and the Chinese Buddhist concept of “links of affinity” (jieyuan). Chandler goes on to analyze Foguangshan’s educational system and its understanding of how precepts relate to contemporary problems such as abortion and capital punishment. The book’s final chapters consider the cultural and political dynamics at play in Foguangshan’s ambitious attempt to spread Humanistic Buddhism around the world and how its followers have reinterpreted the Buddhist ideal of homelessness to take advantage of the spiritual potentialities of people’s lives as global citizens.
Download or read book Visions of Sukh vat written by Julian F. Pas and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1995-08-17 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pure Land movement focuses on the worship of one particular Buddha, Amitabha or Amitayus who created a paradise named Sukhavati, Land of Extreme Bliss. The scriptures of this school promise rebirth in that Land to the devotees of that Buddha. It was considered to be an "easy way" to gain salvation in contrast with the "arduous path" of self-sacrifice recommended in original Buddhism. T'ang monk Shan-tao was instrumental in the propagation and popularity of this devotional school. He was an ascetic and serious meditator who followed the techniques of visualization explained in the Sutra on Visualizing Buddha Amita, and his commentary on this text was later considered to be his most outstanding work. Western authors, however, misrepresent Shan-tao because they follow the lead of Japanese Jodo Shinshu masters who deemphasized meditative practices. With the hope that old stereotypes will be dropped, this book lets the Chinese texts speak for themselves.
