This exceptional work of scholarship is the work of the scholar who brought the world "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" and an equally important work entitled "Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa," This book, perhaps the most valuable in the trilogy, exposes the deeds of some of the principal yogas and meditations which many of the most illustrious Tibetan and Indian philosophers, including Tulopa, Naropa, Marpa, and Milerepa, employed in attaining Right Knowledge.

This work shows how the Mahayanistic views of life and the world differs markedly from that of the Theravada, which is generally taken as Buddhism by occidentals, to explain how the religion of Buddha has adapted itself to its environment in the Far East. For this purpose, out of thirteen Japanese sects, the Zen sect has been singled out, not only because of the great influence it has exercised on the nation, but also because of the unique position it holds among the established religious systems of the world.

As regards Japan, it was first introduced into the island as the faith for the Samurai or the military class, and molded the characters of many distinguished soldiers and statesmen.

David Webster explores the notion of desire as found in the Buddhist Pali Canon. Beginning by addressing the idea of a 'paradox of desire', whereby we must desire to end desire, the varieties of desire that are articulated in the Pali texts are examined. A range of views of desire, as found in Western thought, are presented as well as Hindu and Jain approaches. An exploration of the concept of ditthi(view or opinion) is also provided, exploring the way in which 'holding views' can be seen as analogous to the process of desiring. Other subjects investigated include the mind-body relationship, the range of Pali terms for desire, and desire's positive spiritual value. A comparative exploration of the various approaches completes the work.

This book provides a philosophical account of the major doctrinal shift in the history of early Theravada tradition in India: the transition from the earliest stratum of Buddhist thought to the systematic and allegedly scholastic philosophy of the Pali Abhidhamma movement. Conceptual investigation into the development of Buddhist ideas is pursued, thus rendering the Buddha's philosophical position more explicit and showing how and why his successors changed it. Entwining comparative philosophy and Buddhology, the author probes the Abhidhamma's metaphysical transition in terms of the Aristotelian tradition and vis-a-vis modern philosophy, exploiting Western philosophical literature from Plato to contemporary texts in the fields of philosophy of mind and cultural criticism. This book demonstrates that not only does a philosophically oriented inquiry into the conceptual foundations of early Buddhism give rise to a better understanding of what philosophy and religion are qua thought and religion, but that it also helps introduce innovative ideas and fresh perspectives into the traditional Buddhological arena.
"Early Buddhist Metaphysics" fills a significant gap in Buddhist scholarship and does so in an innovative way by equally combining philosophically rigorous investigation and Buddhological research criteria.

The notion of "view" or "opinion" ("ditthi") as an obstacle to "seeing things as they are" is a central concept in Buddhist thought. This book considers the two ways in which the notion of views are usually understood. Are we to understand right-view as a correction of wrong-views (the opposition understanding) or is the aim of the Buddhist path the overcoming of all views, even right-view (the no-views understanding)? The author argues that neither approach is correct. Instead, he suggests that the early texts do not understand right-view as a correction of wrong-view, but as a detached order of seeing, completely different from the attitude of holding to any view, wrong or right.
Arguing that by the term "right-view" we should understand an order of seeing which transcends all views, this book makes a valuable addition to the study of Buddhist philosophy.

Hagiographies or idealized biographies which recount the lives of saints, bodhisattvas and other charismatic figures have been the meeting place for myth and experience. In medieval Europe, the "lives of saints" were read during liturgical celebrations and the texts themselves were treated as sacred objects. In Japan, it was believed that those who read the biographies of lofty monks would acquire merit. Since hagiographies were written or compiled by "believers," the line between fantasy and reality was often obscured. This study of the bodhisattva Gyoki - regarded as the monk who started the largest social welfare movement in Japan - illustrates how Japanese Buddhist hagiographers chose to regard a single monk's charitable activities as a miraculous achievement that shaped the course of Japanese history.

This is a selection from among the most significant texts in the body of Buddhist literature, culled especially for readers who want a rich, varied, and comprehensive collection in one volume, and includes translations from Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and Lao. For the benefit of the newcomer to Buddhism -- and to facilitate the use of this volume in an academic context -- the pieces are arranged in chronological order and each chapter is preceded by a separate commentary. In addition, there is a comprehensive description of life in India at the time of the Buddha and an outline of his life and mission.

In massmarket for the first time, Start Where You Are is an indispensable handbook for cultivating fearlessness and awakening a compassionate heart, from bestselling author Pema Chodron. With insight and humour, she presents down-to-earth guidance on how to make friends with ourselves and develop genuine compassion towards others. This book shows how we can 'start where we are' by embracing rather than denying the painful aspects of our lives. Pema Chodron frames her teachings on compassion around fifty-nine traditional Tibetan Buddhist maxims, or slogans, such as: 'Always apply a joyful state of mind', 'Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment' and 'Be grateful to everyone'. Working with these slogans and through the practice of meditation, Start Where You Are shows how we can all develop the courage to work with our own inner pain and discover joy, well-being and confidence.

"The Politics of Buddhist Organizations in Taiwan" looks at a relatively unexplored aspect of modern Taiwan: the influence of religion on politics. Although much has been written on the contribution of Christian churches to the debates on self-determination and democratic tradition on the island, we know less about the political influence on Buddhist organizations, which claim together to attract over four million adherents. These organizations exercise considerable influence in Taiwanese society and yet their stand on relations across the Taiwan Strait, communal harmony, economic and political liberalization, as well as the creation of a welfare State, remains largely unexplored.
Laliberte demonstrates that Taiwanese Buddhists are not a monolithic bloc, and that the organizations that represent them reflect in their diversity the complexity and pluralism of the society in which they have evolved. This book offers a detailed survey of three of the most important Buddhist organizations in Taiwan: the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (BAROC), the Buddha Light Mountain (or Foguanshan) monastic order, and the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Association (or Ciji). It examines their contrasting approaches to three issues: state supervision of religion, the first presidential election of 1996, and the establishment of the National Health Insurance.
This study analyses the factors that explain the diverse paths the three organizations have taken in the politics of Taiwan. It reveals that despite a shared theological background, individual religious leaders interpret their tradition very differently when they believe it constrains the development of their organizationsand the fulfilling of its goals. Based on an in-depth examination of Buddhist leaders' behavior, "The Politics of Buddhist Organizations in Taiwan" compels us to question conventional views about the allegedly passive aspect of religious tradition, deference to authority in societies influencedby Confucian culture and the adverse legacy of authoritarian regimes.

Traditionally, Buddhist philosophy has seemingly rejected the autonomous self. In Western philosophy, free will and the philosophy of action are established areas of research. This book presents a comprehensive analytical review of extant scholarship on perspectives on free will. It studies and refutes the most powerful Western and Buddhist philosophical objections to free will and explores the possibility that a form of agency may in fact exist within Buddhism. Providing a detailed explanation of how Buddhist meditation increases self-regulative mind-control abilities, the author argues that the Buddhist path is designed to produce meditation virtuosos exhibiting mind-control abilities far exceeding the free-will advocate's ability to 'do otherwise' or have their choices be 'up to' them. Based on the empirically-supported mind-control cultivated by these meditation virtuosos, the book proposes the principle of, 'Buddhist Soft Compatibilism', a theory of 'freedom of the mind' that entails freedoms of the will, attention, emotion and action, compatible with both determinism and indeterminism. Buddhism, Meditation and Free Will will be of interest to Buddhist and Western philosophers and academics interested in comparative philosophy, free will, philosophy of action, metaphysics, ethics and Religious Studies.

`It is its spiritual background which gives to Sangharakshita's poetry its depth and emotional appeal. It rests on the inner parallelism between the most fundamental human emotions and the highest experiences on the path of liberation and enlightenment, the relationship between love and wisdom, the individual and the universal, the moods of Nature and the moods of the human heart.' - Lama Anagarika Govinda In his preface to the Complete Poems published in 1994 Sangharakshita wrote that his poems 'constitute a sort of spiritual autobiography, sketchy indeed, but perhaps revealing, or at least suggesting, aspects of my life that would not otherwise be known'. He wrote many more poems after that, and more from his early years have come to light. This volume contains all of them, offering a truly complete collection, and also includes six short stories, written over many years and some of them previously unpublished, also shedding new light on the imagination and perceptions of their author. The volume is prefaced by a foreword and two essays introducing the poems in different ways, and also contains edited versions of two talks Sangharakshita gave about specific poems, and a sequence of conversations about his poetry that were recorded towards the end of his life.

A growing number of people describe themselves as both Buddhist and Christian; but does such a self-description really make sense? Many people involved in inter-faith dialogue argue that this dialogue leads to a mutually transformative process, but what if the transformation reaches the point where the Buddhist or Christian becomes a Buddhist Christian? Does this represent a fulfilment of or the undermining of dialogue? Exploring the growing phenomenon of Buddhist-Christian dual belonging, a wide variety of authors including advocates, sympathisers and opponents from both faiths, focus on three key questions: Can Christian and Buddhist accounts and practices of salvation or liberation be reconciled? Are Christian theism and Buddhist non-theism compatible? And does dual belonging inevitably distort the essence of these faiths, or merely change its cultural expression? Clarifying different ways of justifying dual belonging, contributors offer criticisms of dual belonging from different religious perspectives (Theravada Buddhist, Evangelical Reformed and Roman Catholic) and from different methodological approaches. Four chapters then carry the discussion forward suggesting ways in which dual belonging might make sense from Catholic, Theravada Buddhist, Pure-land Buddhist and Anglican perspectives. The conclusion clarifies the main challenges emerging for dual belongers, and the implications for interreligious dialogue.

The first-ever comprehensive analysis of its kind in any western language, this unique volume provides a social art history of Yungang: a 5th-century rock-cut court cave complex, UNESCO World Heritage site, and one of the greatest Buddhist monuments of all time. Yungang asks why, when, and under what circumstances this impressive cave sanctuary was made, and who played significant roles at various stages. Recent economic changes in China including the expansion of roads have led to unprecedented numbers of objects being unearthed on site and near the cave-chapels. Archaeological discoveries in 2010 have shed significant new light on the architectural configuration of monasteries in the capital and the functions of different sections of the cave complex, as well as monastic life within it. For the first time, it is possible to reconstruct where the monks lived and translated sacred literary texts, and to fully understand that freestanding monasteries are an important component of the rock-cut cave complex. Illustrated throughout with remarkable full-colour photographs, this re-examination of the cave-chapels, which brings together previous scholarship, primary documentation, and more than a decade of first-hand field research, will not only fill in the gaps in our knowledge about Yungang, but also raise, and perhaps answer, new questions in art history.

Zen Buddhism and Environmental Ethics explores the implications of Zen Buddhist teachings and practices for our moral relations with the natural world. At once an accessible introduction to Zen and an important contribution to the debate concerning the environmental implications of the tradition, this book will appeal both to readers unfamiliar with East Asian thought and to those well versed in the field. In elucidating the philosophical implications of Zen, the author draws upon both Eastern and Western philosophy, situating the Zen understanding of nature within the Buddhist tradition, as well as relating it to the ideas of key Western philosophers such as Aristotle, Kant and Heidegger. These philosophical reflections on Zen are used to shed light on some prominent debates in contemporary environmental ethics concerning such issues as the intrinsic value of nature.

While process philosophers and theologians have written numerous essays on Buddhist-Christian dialogue, few have sought to expand the current Buddhist-Christian dialogue into a trilogue by bringing the natural sciences into the discussion as a third partner. This was the topic of Paul O. Ingram's previous book, Buddhist-Christian Dialogue in an Age of Science. The thesis of the present work is that Buddhist-Christian dialogue in all three of its forms-conceptual, social engagement, and interior-are interdependent processes of creative transformation. Ingram appropriates the categories of Whitehead's process metaphysics as a means of clarifying how dialogue is now mutually and creatively transforming both Buddhism and Christianity. (James Clarke & Co 2011)

This book explores the ideals of liberation theology from the perspectives of major religious traditions, including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and the neo-Vedanta and Advaita Hindu traditions. The goal of this volume is not to explain the Christian liberation theology tradition and then assess whether the non-Christian liberation theologies meet the Christian standards. Rather, authors use comparative/interreligious methodologies to offer new insights on liberation theology and begin a dialogue on how to build interreligious liberation theologies. The goal is to make liberation theology more inclusive of religious diversity beyond traditional Christian categories.

Contents:
Illustrations Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Part I: Life of the Buddha 1. Rejection and reconciliation Part II: Parents and procreation 2. Mothers and sons 3. Medical excursus 4. Fathers and heirs Part III: Sexualities 5. Wives and husbands 6. South Asian Courtesans 7. Courtesans in Buddhist literature 8. Tantric consorts: Tibet 10. The traffic in women 11. Women, men, and impurity 12. Sex changes 13. Other lands/other realities Conclusion Bibliography Index

Contents:
Illustrations Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Part I: Life of the Buddha 1. Rejection and reconciliation Part II: Parents and procreation 2. Mothers and sons 3. Medical excursus 4. Fathers and heirs Part III: Sexualities 5. Wives and husbands 6. South Asian Courtesans 7. Courtesans in Buddhist literature 8. Tantric consorts: Tibet 10. The traffic in women 11. Women, men, and impurity 12. Sex changes 13. Other lands/other realities Conclusion Bibliography Index

How do contemporary Westerners and Tibetans understand not only what it means to be 'Buddhist', but what it means to be hailed as one from 'the West' or from 'Tibet'? This anthropological study examines the encounter between Western travellers and Tibetan exiles in Bodhanath, on the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal and analyses the importance of Buddhism in discussions of political, cultural and religious identity. Moran examines how Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhism are 'created' in the encounters taking place in Bodhanath and how Western Buddhists come to terms with their imagined, then reified culture and religion. Tibetan Buddhism has become Bodhanath's cultural product par excellence, it is not only a spectacle for foreign tourists to see, but a reminder of national-culture for displaced Tibetans. Special focus is given here to the ways in which Tibetan Buddhism has been presented as an object to be observed, reflected upon, and internalized by Western travellers, often at the feet of Tibetan lamas. perception of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as the practices and narratives through which Tibetan and Western Buddhist subjects are produced. Based on extensive field research in Nepal, Buddhism Observed questions traditional assumptions about Buddhism and examines the rarely considered phenomenon of Western conversions to a non-Western religion. Scholars of anthropology, religion and cultural studies will find here a refreshing insight into how to approach 'other' societies, religions and cultures.

A secret traveller to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, the author was forced to live, dress and behave as a Tibetan in order to remain undetected. Because of his unique perspective, he was able to provide an excellent description of the diplomatic, political, military and industrial situation of the country in the 1920s.

This invaluable interpretive tool, first published in 1937, is now available for the first time in a paperback edition specially aimed at students of Chinese Buddhism.
Those who have endeavored to read Chinese texts apart from the apprehension of a Sanskrit background have generally made a fallacious interpretation, for the Buddhist canon is basically translation, or analogous to translation. In consequence, a large number of terms existing are employed approximately to connote imported ideas, as the various Chinese translators understood those ideas. Various translators invented different terms; and, even when the same term was finally adopted, its connotation varied, sometimes widely, from the Chinese term of phrase as normally used by the Chinese.
For instance, "klesa" undoubtedly has a meaning in Sanskrit similar to that of, i.e. affliction, distress, trouble. In Buddhism affliction (or, as it may be understood from Chinese, the afflicters, distressers, troublers) means passions and illusions; and consequently "fan-nao" in Buddhist phraseology has acquired this technical connotation of the passions and illusions. Many terms of a similar character are noted in the body of this work. Consequent partly on this use of ordinary terms, even a well-educated Chinese without a knowledge of the technical equivalents finds himself unable to understand their implications.

Being and Ambiguity is a brilliant work of philosophy, filled with insights, jokes, and topical examples. Professor Ziporyn draws on the works of such Western thinkers as Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, and Hegel, but develops his main argument from Tiantai school of Chinese Buddhism. This important work introduces Tiantai Buddhism to the reader and demonstrates its relevance to profound philosophical issues. Ziporyn argues that we can make both of the claims below simultaneously: This book is about everything. It contains the answers to all philosophical problems which ever shall exist. This book is all claptrap. It is completely devoid of objective validity of any kind. These claims are not contradictory. Rather, they state the same thing in two different ways. To be objective truth is to be subjective claptrap, and vise versa. All interchanges of any kind - conversations, daydreams, sensations - are not only about something but also about everything. Thus, this book concerns itself with no less than the nature of what is and what it means for something to be what it is. It provides a new approach to the basic Western philosophical and psychological issues of identity, determinacy, being, desire, boredom, addiction, love and truth.

In his most intimate book, the world-renowned spiritual teacher shares his inner journey of transformation and wisdom.

The essays in this volume attempt to place the Chan and Zen tradition in their ritual and cultural contexts, looking at various aspects heretofore largely (and unduly) ignored. In particular, they show the extent to which these traditions, despite their claim to uniqueness, were indebted to larger trends in East Asian Buddhism, such as the cults of icons, relics and the monastic robe.
The book emphasises the importance of ritual for a proper understanding of this allegedly anti-ritualistic form of Buddhism. In doing so, it deconstructs the Chan/Zen 'rhetoric of immediacy' and its ideological underpinnings.