The first major collection of teachings by Kalu Rinpoche, a great meditation master in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. These discourses were presented in America with a Western audience in mind, and have been specially edited for this volume.

This title was first published in 2002: Religion and Social Transformations examines the reciprocal relationship between religion, modernity and social change. The book focuses on the world's three major missionary religions - Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. It explores how these three traditions are responding to some of the most challenging issues associated with globalization, including the role of religion in the fall of Communism; the tension between religion and feminism; the compatibility of religion and human rights; and whether ancient religions can accommodate new challenges such as environmentalism. The five textbooks and Reader that make up the Religion Today Open University/Ashgate series are: From Sacred Text to Internet; Religion and Social Transformations; Perspectives on Civil Religion; Global Religious Movements in Regional Context; Belief Beyond Boundaries; Religion Today: A Reader

'This is a deep and intense book, written with empathy for everything involved, and is of vital global, social significance.' - Revd Mary Sellers, Church Times

'Gosling's work is clearly and passionately written, betraying careful scholarship in science and religious studies. It should help to clarify the role of religious traditions in increasing ecological awareness, and, it is to be hoped, in promoting some resolution of the social and environmental problems our world faces' - THES

'The book is a must in any serious library dealing with ecology in India and Southeast Asia' - G. Gispert-Sauch, VJTR

'... a book which should allow Hinduism and Buddhism, and activists from India and Thailand, to challenge those of us from "religions of the book".' - Andrew Wingate, Theology

Shabad Yoga is the highest of the Indian yoga systems. Shabad means divine or inner sound, and refers to the power which in the Bible is called the Word or Logos. Shabad Yoga is similar to the basic spiritual teachings of the Bible. This book, first published in 1963, gives an explanation of many vital Bible truths as taught by the spiritual masters of the Orient.

This book discusses what is now called "Buddhism". It started as an effort to strengthen a weak point in that "immanence" which had become the accepted religious teaching in the valley of the Ganges, by showing that the "God/in/man" was realizable, not by gnosis and ritual, but in conduct. Conduct needed to be brought into relgion, into the relation between man and his eternal destiny. Man's being is more truly becoming; and only in and by becoming a More, will he attain to an actual, not potential Most. In teaching a More worth in conduction, Buddhism brought in a teaching of the man himself as Less.

This is the only book to date offering a critical overview of Shinto from early times to the modern era, and evaluating Shinto's place in Japanese religious culture. In recent years, a few books on medieval Shinto have appeared, but none has attempted to depict the broader picture, to examine critically Shinto's origins and its subsequent development through the medieval, pre-modern and modern periods. The essays in this book address such key topics as Shinto and Daoism in early Japan, Shinto and the natural environment, Shinto and state ritual in early Japan, Shinto and Buddhism in medieval Japan, and Shinto and the state in the modern period. All of the essays highlight the dynamic nature of Shinto and shrine history by focusing on the three-way relationship, often fraught, between local shrine cults, Shinto agendas and Buddhism.

Combines the voices of scholars and practitioners in analysing Buddhist women's history. 26 articles document the lives of women who have set in motion changes within Buddhist societies, with analyses of issues such as gender, ethnicity, authority, and class that affect the lives of women in traditional Buddhist cultures and, increasingly, the west.

This critical overview of Shinto from early times to the modern era evaluates Shinto's place in Japanese religious culture. In recent years, a few books on mediaeval Shinto have appeared, but not has attempted to depict the broader picture, to examine critically Shinto's origins and its subsequent development through the mediaeval, pre-modern and modern periods. The essays here address such key topics as Shinto and Daoism in early Japan, Shinto and the natural environment, Shinto and state ritual in early Japan, Shinto and Buddhism in medieval Japan, and Shinto and the state in the modern period. They highlight the dynamic nature of Shinto and shrine history by focusing on the three-way relationship, often fraught, between local shrine cults, Shinto agenda and Buddhism.

This innovative volume brings together the views of leading scholars on a range of controversial subjects including human rights, animal rights, ecology, abortion, euthanasia, and contemporary business practice.

This innovative volume brings together the views of leading scholars on a range of controversial subjects including human rights, animal rights, ecology, abortion, euthanasia, and contemporary business practice.

In this book, first published in 1956, the two authors, representatives of two different worlds and two entirely different attitudes, explore the wide domain of Eastern and Western philosophy. They put forward the theory that it is in Yoga that the two worlds meet.

Looks at Aum's claims about itself and asks, why did a religious movement ostensibly focussed on yoga, meditation, asceticism and enlightenment become involved in violent activities, and discusses Aum's spiritual roots, placing it in the context of contemporary Japanese religious patterns.

New interpretations of the central teachings of early Buddhism, mainly the relationship between identity and perception in early Buddhism.

Building on the author's previous published work, this book focuses on the relationship between identity and perception in early Buddhism, drawing out and explaining the way they relate in terms of experience. It presents a coherent picture of these issues in the context of Buddhist teachings as a whole and suggests that they represent the heart of what the Buddha taught. This book will be of primary interest to scholars working within all fields of Buddhist studies.

The Tokyo subway attack in March 1995 was just one of a series of criminal activities including murder, kidnapping, extortion, and the illegal manufacture of arms and drugs carried out by the Japanese new religious movement Aum Shinrikyo, under the guidance of its leader Asahara Shoko. Reader looks at Aum's claims about itself and asks, why did a religious movement ostensibly focussed on yoga, meditation, asceticism and the pursuit of enlightenment become involved in violent activities?

Reader discusses Aum's spiritual roots, placing it in the context of contemporary Japanese religious patterns. Asahara's teaching are examined from his earliest public pronouncements through to his sermons at the time of the attack, and statements he has made in court. In analysing how Aum not only manufactured nerve gases but constructed its own internal doctrinal justifications for using them Reader focuses on the formation of what made all this possible: Aum's internal thought-world, and on how this was developed.

Reader argues that despite the horrors of this particular case, Aum should not be seen as unique, nor as solely a political or criminal terror group. Rather it can best be analysed within the context of religious violence, as an extreme example of a religious movement that has created friction with the wider world that escalated into violence.

Empowering Bernard Lonergan's Legacy offers an interdisciplinary approach to Lonergan's work. It presents a series of five "feedback matrices" to situate his work within a historical context. The matrices also serve to establish foundations for an interdisciplinary ethics and a method for interreligious dialogue. "Feedback" and "matrix" are key, but previously unstressed, notions in Lonergan's work. The book's final two collaborative feedback matrices could best be implemented in a proposed international Lonergan association. Raymaker argues that without such an association, Lonergan's breakthrough method cannot reach its interdisciplinary and collaborative potential. One of Lonergan's most important achievements was his development of foundations for the sciences, ethics, and interreligious dialogue. One can best empower Lonergan's legacy through a correct understanding and implementation of how the data of human consciousness affects all human knowledge and activities.

This book, first published in 1961, examines the old Tibetan Bon religion, the development of Buddhism in India and Tibet, and covers the religious struggles of the eighth and ninth centuries. It also describes the rise of the Lamaist sects and the priest state of the Dalai Lamas, and taken as a whole is a study of the development of the character of Tibet itself.

Scholars of Buddhism, themselves Buddhist, here seek to apply the critical tools of the academy to reassess the truth and transformative value of their tradition in its relevance to the contemporary world.

By providing an annotated translation of, and applying the methods of literary criticism to, a first-century account of the life of the saint Purna, this study introduces the reader to a genre which has played an essential role in Buddhist self-understanding for over 2000 years.

The Zhenzheng lun (T 2112, Treatise of Revealing the Correct) is a Chinese Buddhist apologetic treatise with a distinct anti-Daoist stance in three juan. It is organized as a dialogue between a Daoist, the "Venerable Obstructed by Customs" (zhisu gongzi ), and the Buddhist "Master Revealing the Correct" (zhenzheng xiansheng ) in which the former is gradually led towards an orthodox Buddhist understanding by the latter through the refutation of his various arguments against Buddhism. Composed in the late 7th century, the text was authored depending on the political interests and strategies of Wu Zhao (624-705), who in 690 was enthroned as Empress Wu Zetian . This study of Thomas Julch offers a richly annotated and complete translation of the Zhenzheng lun along with an introductory part that focuses on reconstructing the political and propagandistic circumstances relevant to the understanding of the Zhenzheng lun.

In the midst of our busy activity, people often feel fragmented. We experience conflicting demands from our work, our personal relationships, our families, and our spiritual practice. In this book, the author, a practicing psychotherapist, explores the challenges and joys of making our life into a coherent whole.
Psychotherapy addresses a sense of fragmentation in an effort to help us be uniquely ourselves. Zen Buddhist practice insists we find ourselves on every moment of our lives; it speaks to the basic connectedness of all things. This book attempts to integrate the two. Each chapter examines some aspect of sewing together the practice of Zen with the realization of psychotherapy, and its implications for daily life. Though there is a logical progression to the chapters, each chapter can be read on its own if the reader is interested in how a particular text might inform their psychotherapy or life circumstances.
Through the stories of his clients' and his own difficulties anddiscoveries, the author invites each reader to actualize the fundamental point: to realize the joy and compassion that comes when we touch the basic ground of life, and put it into play in our everyday activity.

The story of Tenzin Palmo, an Englishwoman, the daughter of a fishmonger from London's East End, who spent 12 years alone in a cave 13,000 feet up in the Himalayas and became a world-renowned spiritual leader and champion of the right of women to achieve spiritual enlightenment.

Diane Perry grew up in London's East End. At the age of 18 however, she read a book on Buddhism and realised that this might fill a long-sensed void in her life. In 1963, at the age of 20, she went to India, where she eventually entered a monastery. Being the only woman amongst hundreds of monks, she began her battle against the prejudice that has excluded women from enlightenment for thousands of years.

In 1976 she secluded herself in a remote cave 13,000 feet up in the Himalayas, where she stayed for 12 years between the ages of 33 and 45. In this mountain hideaway she faced unimaginable cold, wild animals, floods, snow and rockfalls, grew her own food and slept in a traditional wooden meditation box, three feet square — she never lay down. In 1988 she emerged from the cave with a determination to build a convent in northern India to revive the Togdenma lineage, a long-forgotten female spiritual elite.

Yongming Yanshou ranks among the great thinkers of the Chinese and East Asian Buddhist traditions, one whose legacy has endured for more than a thousand years. Albert Welter offers new insight into the significance of Yanshou and his major work, the Zongjing lu, by showing their critical role in the contested Buddhist and intellectual territories of the Five Dynasties and early Song dynasty China.
Welter gives a comprehensive study of Yanshou's life, showing how Yanshou's Buddhist identity has been and continues to be disputed. He also provides an in-depth examination of the Zongjing lu, connecting it to Chan debates ongoing at the time of its writing. This analysis includes a discussion of the seminal meaning of the term zong as the implicit truth of Chan and Buddhist teaching, and a defining notion of Chan identity. Particularly significant is an analysis of the long underappreciated significance of the Chan fragments in the Zongjing lu, which constitute some of the earliest information about the teachings of Chan's early masters.
In light of Yanshou's advocacy of a morally based Chan Buddhist practice, Welter also challenges the way Buddhism, particularly Chan, has frequently been criticized in Neo-Confucianism as amoral and unprincipled. Yongming Yanshou's Conception of Chan in the Zongjing lu concludes with an annotated translation of fascicle one of the Zongjing lu, the first translation of the work into a Western language.

The first scholarly study of the emergence of American Buddhist Studies as a significant research field, approaching issues such as identity in Asian-American Buddhism, the new Buddhism, and the scholar's place in American Buddhist Studies.