Download or read book The Promise of Amida Buddha written by Hōnen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joji Atone was born in Fukuoka, Japan, in 1951 and holds a Ph.D. from the University of WisconsinûMadison. Since 1992, he has been the director of Bukkyo UniversityûLos Angeles Extension. --
Download or read book The Promise of Amida Buddha written by and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Promise of Amida Buddha is the first complete English translation of a seminal collection of writings by the Japanese Pure Land school's founder, Honen-shonin (1133-1212). The so-called Japanese Anthology (Wago Toroku) collects his surviving short writings composed in Japanese, including letters of exhortation and public pronouncements. The vital writings provide a window into Honen's life and the turbulent era in which he lived and taught. Honen-shonin, who lived in Japan in the twelfth century, saw that the complexity of traditional Buddhist practices made them inaccessible to people outside the monastic elite. Drawing on the Chinese Pure Land tradition, he re-imagined Pure Land practice for Japan and ushered in a new and dynamic practice that continues in the present day. In our degenerate age, says Honen, we cannot hope to reach enlightenment via the practices employed by the Buddhist masters of old. For us there is only one avenue to liberation--rebirth in the Pure Land of Amida, from whence our progress is irreversible and our ultimate release assured. The Pure Land is a heavenly destination made manifest through the pure vow of Amida to save all beings, and we secure passage to this land in our next life through pure faith in Amida at the very moment of death. The practice of faith in Amida is performed through nembutsu, the continual recitation of the mantra Namu Amida Butsu, which bonds us to Amida and brings us into his care.
Download or read book Honen the Buddhist Saint written by Joseph A. Fitzgerald and published by World Wisdom, Inc. This book was released on 2006 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Priest, saint, and founder of the independent school of Pure Land (Jōdo) Buddhism in 12th century Japan, Hōnen Shōnin's importance has been largely unrecognized in the West, even though his legacy includes over twenty million living practitioners of in Japan. Honen the Buddhist Saint: His Life and Teachings is the first and only English translation of a biography of this remarkable man. Edited by Joseph A. Fitzgerald, this edition combines illustrations from Japanese religious sites as well as Hōnen's own words which allow him to speak "from across the ages," to any human being, Buddhist or non-Buddhist, who desires to have faith and gain knowledge.
Download or read book No Abode written by Ippen and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1997-08-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ippen (1239-1289) was a wandering hijiri (holy man) and religious leader whose movement developed into one of the major schools of medieval Japanese Buddhism. In his life and thought we find elements of folk practices and mountain austerities, the critical spirit of Zen, and the cosmic vision of esoteric traditions. This volume presents a translation of all of Ippen's extant writings, including letters and verse, together with records of his spoken words.
Download or read book The Three Pure Land Sutras written by and published by BDK America. This book was released on 2003 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The larger sutra on Amitāyus (Taishō volume 12, number 360) -- The sutra on contemplation of Amitāyus (Taishō volume 12, number 365) -- The smaller sutra on Amitāyus (Taishō volume 12, number 366).
Download or read book Jodo Shinshu written by James C. Dobbins and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2002-04-30 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work combines the biography of the founder of Shin Buddhism with a detailed study of the complex development of the religion, from its simple beginnings as a small, rural primarily lay Buddhist movement in the 12th century to its rapid growth as a powerful urban religion in the 15th century.
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 Heart of the Shin Buddhist Path written by Takamaro Shigaraki and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-02-18 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his Heart of the Shin Buddhist Path, Takamaro Shigaraki examines Shin Buddhism anew as a practical path of spiritual growth and self-transformation, challenging assessments of the tradition as a passive religion of mere faith. Shigaraki presents the core themes of the Shin Buddhist path in fresh, engaging, down-to-earth language, considering each frankly from both secular and religious perspectives. Shigaraki discloses a nondual Pure Land that finds philosophical kinship with Zen but has been little discussed in the West. With its unassuming language and insights drawn from a life of practice, Heart of the Shin Buddhist Path dispels the fog of misconception that has shrouded Western appreciation of Shin traditions to reveal the limitless light of Amida Buddha that reaches all.
Download or read book Uncontrived Mindfulness written by Vajradevi and published by Windhorse Publications. This book was released on 2021-03-31 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive guide to ending suffering through the practice of mindfulness In Uncontrived Mindfulness Vajradevi guides us in the practice of exploring our experience as it happens. The emphasis is on cultivating wisdom, using the tools of attention and curiosity to see through the delusion that is causing our suffering.
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. However, its range, inconsistency, variability, and complexity have tended to be misevaluated. The pieces reproduced in this set, organized both chronologically and thematically, have been chosen as linchpin works accentuating the diversity of what evolved under this heading of Buddhism. Special attention is given to the traps into which Western observers may fall, the role of the large True Pure Land (Jōdoshinshū) school, and the richness of Tokugawa and twentieth-century developments. 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 Letters of the Nun Eshinni written by James C. Dobbins and published by . This book was released on 2004-09-30 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eshinni (1182–1268?), a Buddhist nun and the wife of Shinran (1173–1262), the celebrated founder of the True Pure Land, or Shin, school of Buddhism, was largely unknown until the discovery of a collection of her letters in 1921. In this study, James C. Dobbins, a leading scholar of Pure Land Buddhism, has made creative use of these letters to shed new light on life and religion in medieval Japan. He provides a complete translation of the letters and an explication of them that reveals the character and flavor of early Shin Buddhism. Readers will come away with a new perspective on Pure Land scholarship and a vivid image of Eshinni and the world in which she lived. After situating the ideas and practices of Pure Land Buddhism in the context of the actual living conditions of thirteenth-century Japan, Dobbins examines the portrayal of women in Pure Land Buddhism, the great range of lifestyles found among medieval women and nuns, and how they constructed a meaningful religious life amid negative stereotypes. He goes on to analyze aspects of medieval religion that have been omitted in our modern-day account of Pure Land and tries to reconstruct the religious assumptions of Eshinni and Shinran in their own day. A prevailing theme that runs throughout the book is the need to look beyond idealized images of Buddhism found in doctrine to discover the religion as it was lived and practiced. Scholars and students of Buddhism, Japanese history, women’s studies, and religious studies will find much in this engaging work that is thought-provoking and insightful.
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 Essential Shinran written by Shinran and published by World Wisdom, Inc. This book was released on 2007 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shinran (1173-1262) is the founder of the Jodo Shinshu Pure Land Buddhist tradition in Japan during the Kamakura period. This movement, once set in motion, eventually became the largest Buddhist sect in Japan and spread to the West at the end of the nineteenth century. Renowned scholar of Shin Buddhism, Alfred Bloom, presents the life and spiritual legacy of Shinran Shonin, the influential religious reformer and founder of Pure Land Buddhism, the most popular school of Buddhism in Japan today. Bloom presents a wide selection of Shinran's essential writings on the key Shin Buddhist idea of true entrusting (shinjin) to the Other-Power of Amida Buddha through His Vow to save all sentient beings. The Essential Teachings of Shinran, also, includes a foreword by Shin Buddhist scholar, Rueben Habito, a detailed glossary of foreign terms, and a select bibliography for further reading.
Download or read book Dharma Paths written by Khenpo Karthar and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2011-10-16 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its initial publication, Dharma Paths has quietly gained a reputation as one of the most useful introductory texts on Tibetan Buddhism. Assuming no prior background or knowledge of Buddhist terminology, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche presents Buddhist ways of working with anxiety and frustration, the nature and development of love and compassion, and the profound methods of the vajrayana. The Four Noble Truths, taking refuge, and the Stages of the Path are concisely explained, and clear instructions for shamatha ("calm abiding") meditation are provided. Question-and-answer sections follow each chapter, anticipating common problems and addressing them in a direct, accessible style.
Download or read book Unlocking Tannisho written by Kentetsu Takamori and published by Ichimannendo Pub. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Originally published in Japanese by Ichimannendo Publishing under the title of Tannisho wo hiraku, 2008"--T.p. verso.
Download or read book Visions of Sukhavati written by Julian F. Pas and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the masters of Pure Land Buddhism shows how to have a vision of the Land Sukhavati and its Lord by using the sutra as a manual of visualization.
Download or read book Traversing the Pure Land Path written by Jonathan Watts and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
