Having identified early material that goes back to the Buddha himself, the author argues that the two teachers of the Buddha were historical figures. Based on the early Brahminic literature, namely the early Upanishads and Moksadharma, the author asserts the origin of the method of meditation learned by the Buddha from these teachers, and attempts to use them to identify some authentic teachings of the Buddha on meditation.

Stimulating debate within the field of Buddhist Studies, the following claims are put forward:

• the Buddha was taught by Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, as stated in the literature of numerous early Buddhist sects, is historically authentic
• Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta taught a form of early Brahminic meditation
• the Buddha must consequently have been trained in a meditative school whose ideology was provided by the philosophical portions of early Upanishads

Shedding new light on a fascinating aspect of the origins of Buddhism, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of Buddhist studies, Asian religion and South Asian studies.

This book, first published in 1935, is an early western study of the practice of yoga. It examines the theories of yoga, and attempts to understand and explain its philosophy and beliefs.

This book traces the lifestory of Rechungpa (1084-1161) - the student of the famous teacher Milarepa - using rare and little-known manuscripts, and discovers how the image of both Milarepa and Rechungpa underwent fundamental transformations over a period of over three centuries.

Peter Alan Roberts compares significant episodes in the life of Rechungpa as portrayed in a succession of texts, and thus demonstrates the evolution of Rechungpaa (TM)s biography. This is the first survey of the surviving literature which includes a detailed analysis of their dates, authorship and interrelationships. It shows how Rechungpa was increasingly portrayed as a rebellious, volatile and difficult pupil, as a lineage from a fellow-pupil prospered to become dominant in Tibet.

Written in a style that makes it accessible to broad readership, Roberts' book will be of great value to anyone with an interest in the fields of Tibetan literature, history or religion.

Vastly different in belief and practice, two new Buddhist religious movements in Thailand, namely the Wat Phra Dhammakaya and Santi Asoke emerged in Thailand in the 1970s at a time of political uncertainty, social change and increasing dissatisfaction with the Thai Sangha and its leadership.

Examining these movements, which represent two distinctive trends within contemporary Buddhism in Thailand, this book explains why they have come into being, what they have reacted against and what they offer to their members. Both movements have a wide membership outside of Thailand, with temples in the UK, Europe, USA, Japan and Australia. New Buddhist Movements in Thailand will appeal to those interested in Buddhism's confrontation with modernity, and its responses to evolving social issues in Thailand, as well as to those interested in new religions in the broader context of religious studies.

Tenemos a nuestro alcance una oportunidad fundamental de felicidad que por lo general desperdiciamos, ironicamente, por estar atrapados en nuestros intentos por escapar del dolor y el sufrimiento. Pema Chodron da un consejo compasivo y radical extraido de la sabiduria budista para cuando todo se derrumba en nuestras vidas, consejo que va a contrapelo de nuestras costumbres y expectativas habituales. Solo hay una manera de encarar el sufrimiento que proporcione beneficio duradero, nos ensena Pema: ir hacia las situaciones dolorosas con cordialidad y curiosidad, relajandonos en la insubstancialidad fundamental de toda nuestra situacion. Es ahi, en medio del caos, que podemos descubrir la verdad y el amor que son indestructibles.
El libro incluye:
- Modos de usar las emociones dolorosas para cultivar la sabiduria, la compasion y la valentia
- Metodos de comunicacion que llevan a una verdadera apertura hacia los demas y a una verdadera cercania
- Practicas para revertir patrones negativos habituales
- Tecnicas para trabajar con situaciones caoticas
- Herramientas para cultivar una accion social energica y compasiva

There is a fundamental opportunity for happiness right within our reach, yet we usually miss it--ironically while we are caught up in attempts to escape pain and suffering. Drawn from traditional Buddhist wisdom, Pema Chodron's radical and compassionate advice for what to do when things fall apart in our lives goes against the grain of our usual habits and expectations. There is only one approach to suffering that is of lasting benefit, Pema teaches, and that approach involves moving toward painful situations with friendliness and curiosity, relaxing into the essential groundlessness of our entire situation. It is there, in the midst of chaos, that we can discover the truth and love that are indestructible.
Included in the book are:
- Ways to use painful emotions to cultivate wisdom, compassion, and courage
- Methods of communicating that lead to openness and true intimacy with others
- Practices for reversing negative habitual patterns
- Techniques for working with chaotic situations
- Tools for cultivating compassionate, energetic social action

En esta guia concisa, que comienza con un relato de la vida de Buda, se exponen los principios fundamentales en los que se basa el modo de vida budista, como la comprension de la mente, la reencarnacion, el karma, la verdad ultima y lo que significa ser budista. Se revela el arte de la meditacion de forma clara y sencilla como herramienta para desarrollar cualidades espirituales, como la paz interior, el amor y la paciencia. A lo largo del libro se hace hincapie en la aplicacion de la teoria y la practica de las ensenanzas budistas para encontrar soluciones a los problemas de la vida cotidiana. Aquellos que esten interesados en el budismo y la meditacion encontraran en este libro una guia y una enriquecedora fuente de orientacion e inspiracion."

This book focuses on the ritualized forms of mobility that constitute phenomena of pilgrimage in South Asia and establishes a new analytical framework for the study of ritual journeys. The book advances the conceptual scope of 'classical' Pilgrimage Studies and provides empirical depth through individual case studies. A key concern is the strategies of ritualization through which actors create, assemble and (re-)articulate certain modes of displacement to differentiate themselves from everyday forms of locomotion. Ritual journeys are understood as being both productive of and produced by South Asia's socio-economically uneven, politically charged and culturally variegated landscapes. From various disciplinary angles, each chapter explores how spaces and movements in space are continually created, contested and transformed through ritual journeys. By focusing on this co-production of space and mobility, the book delivers a conceptually driven and empirically grounded engagement with the diverse and changing traditions of ritual journeying in South Asia. Interdisciplinary in its approach, the book is a must-have reference work for academics interested in South Asian Studies, Religious Studies, Anthropology and Human Geography with a focus on pilgrimage and the socio-spatial ideas and practices of ritualized movements in South Asia.

Taking a comparative approach, this fieldwork-based study explores the lives and thoughts of Buddhist nuns in present-day Taiwan and Sri Lanka. The author examines the postcolonial background and its influence on the modern situation, as well as surveying the main historical, economic, and social factors which influence the position of nuns in society. Based on original research, including interviews with nuns in both countries, the book examines their perspectives on controversial issues and in particular those concerning the status of women in Buddhism. Concerns discussed include allegedly misogynist teachings relating to women's inferior karma, that they cannot become Buddhas, and that nuns have to follow additional rules that monks do not. Bridging the gap between feminist theory and the reality of women in religion, the book makes a distinct contribution to the study of women in Buddhism by focusing on nuns from both of the main wings of Buddhism (Theravada and Mahayana) as well as furthering feminist studies of Buddhism and religion in general.

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.

Will Tuladhar-Douglas sheds new light on an important branch of Mahayana Buddhism and establishes the existence, character and causes of a renaissance of Buddhism in the fifteenth century in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. He provides the basis for the historical study of Newar Buddhism as one distinct tradition among the many that comprise Indic Buddhism. Through a thorough study of the relevant texts in the classical Himalayan languages (Sanskrit, Newari, Tibetan and Nepali), the book puts forward a new thesis about how the Newars legitimated and reinvented their tradition by devising new concepts of canonicity, as such it will appeal to scholars of the history and philology of Buddhism.

Soonil Hwang studies the doctrinal development of nirvana in the Pali Nikaaya and subsequent tradition and compares it with the Chinese aagama and its traditional interpretation. He clarifies early doctrinal developments of Nirvana and traces the word and related terms back to their original metaphorical contexts, elucidating diverse interpretations and doctrinal and philosophical developments in the abhidharma exegeses and treatises of Southern and Northern Buddhist schools. The book finally examines which school, if any, kept the original meaning and reference of Nirvana.

Theravada Buddhism is widely recognized as the classic introduction to the branch of Buddhism found in Sri Lanka and parts of South East Asia. The Buddha preached in north-east India in about the fifth-century BC. He claimed that human beings are responsible for their own salvation, and put forward a new ideal of the holy life, establishing a monastic Order to enable men and women to pursue that ideal. For most of its history the fortunes of Theravada, the most conservative form of Buddhism, have been identified with those of that Order. Under the great Indian emperor, Asoka, himself a Buddhist, Theravada reached Sri Lanka in about 250 BC. There it became the religion of the Sinhala state, and from there it spread, much later, to Burma and Thailand.
Richard Gombrich, the leading authority on Theravada Buddhism, has updated his text and bibliographies to take account of recent research, including the controversies of the date of the Buddha and recent social and political developments in Sri Lanka.. He explores the legacy of the Buddha's predecessors and the social and religious contexts against which Buddhism has developed and changed throughout history. Above all, he shows how it has always influenced and been influenced by its social surroundings in a way which continues to this day.

The core teachings and practices of Buddhism are systematically directed toward developing keen and caring insight into the relational or interdependent nature of all things. Hershock applies Buddhist thought to reflect on the challenges to public good, created by emerging social, economic, and political realities associated with increasingly complex global interdependence. In eight chapters, the key arenas for public policy are addressed: the environment, health, media, trade and development, the interplay of politics and religion, international relations, terror and security, and education. Each chapter explains how a specific issue area has come to be shaped by complex interdependence and offers specific insights into directing the growing interdependence toward greater equity, sustainability, and freedom. Thereby, a sustained meditation on the meaning and means of realizing public good is put forward, which results in a solid Buddhist conception of diversity. Hershock argues that concepts of Karma and emptiness are relevant across the full spectrum of policy domains and that Buddhist concepts become increasingly forceful as concerns shift from the local to the global. A remarkable book on this fascinating religion, Buddhism in the Public Sphere will be of interest to scholars and students in Buddhist studies and Asian religion in general.

The vast majority of books on Buddhism describe the Buddha using the word enlightened, rather than awakened. This bias has resulted in Buddhism becoming generally perceived as the eponymous religion of enlightenment.

Beyond Enlightenment is a sophisticated study of some of the underlying assumptions involved in the study of Buddhism (especially, but not exclusively, in the West). It investigates the tendency of most scholars to ground their study of Buddhism in these particular assumptions about the Buddha's enlightenment and a particular understanding of religion, which is traced back through Western orientalists to the Enlightenment and the Protestant Reformation.

Placing a distinct emphasis on Indian Buddhism, Richard Cohen adeptly creates a work that will appeal to those with an interest in Buddhism and India and also scholars of religion and history.

British Buddhism presents a useful insight into contemporary British Buddhist practice. It provides a survey of the seven largest Buddhist traditions in the United Kingdom, including the Forest Sangha (Theravada) and the Samatha Trust (Theravada), the Serene Reflection Meditation tradition (Soto Zen) and Soka Gakkai (both originally Japanese), the Tibetan Karma Kagyu and New Kadampa traditions and Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. Based on extensive fieldwork, this fascinating book determines how and to what extent British Buddhist groups are changing from their Asian roots, and whether any forms of British Buddhism are beginning to emerge.

Despite the popularity of Buddhism in Britain, there has so far been no study documenting the full range of teachings and practice. This is an original study that fills this gap and serves as an important reference point for further studies in this increasingly popular field.

First published in 1915, this book presents a dramatization of part ofthe author's The Light of Asia. The original text represents one of the first successful attempts to popularise Buddhism and its founder Gautama Buddha - presenting his life, teachings and philosophy in verse poetry. This adaptation dramatizes part of the The Light of Asia and includes staging instructions, properties required, illustrative drawings of suggested costumes, and incidental music composed specifically for the piece. This book will be of interest to students of Indian and Buddhist literature - and how this has interacted with the West - as well as students of drama.

The medieval period of Japanese religious history is commonly known as one in which there was a radical transformation of the religious culture. This book suggests an alternate approach to understanding the dynamics of that transformation. One main topic of analysis focuses on what Buddhism - its practices and doctrines, its traditions and institutions - meant for medieval Japanese peoples themselves. This is achieved by using the notions of discourse and ideology and juxtaposing various topics on shared linguistic practices and discursive worlds of medieval Japanese Buddhism.

Collating contributions from outstanding scholars in the field of Buddhist Studies, the editors have created an important work that builds on preliminary work on rethinking the importance and meaning of Kamakura Buddhism published recently in English, and adds greatly to the debate.

This major new work explores the British encounter with Buddhism in nineteenth century Sri Lanka, examining the way Buddhism was represented and constructed in the eyes of the British scholars, officials, travellers and religious seekers who first encountered it.

Tracing the three main historical phases of the encounter from 1796 to 1900, the book provides a sensitive and nuanced exegesis of the cultural and political influences that shaped the early British understanding of Buddhism and that would condition its subsequent transmission to the West.

Expanding our understanding of inter-religious relations between Christians and Buddhists, the book fills a significant gap in the scholarship on Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka by concentrating on missionary writings and presenting a thorough exploration of original materials of several important pioneers in Buddhist studies and mission studies.

Is the world created by a divine creator? Or is it the constant product of karmic forces? The issue of creation was at the heart of the classic controversies between Buddhism and Hindu Theism. In modern times it can be found at the centre of many polemical debates between Buddhism and Christianity. Is this the principal barrier that separates Buddhism from Christianity and other theistic religions? The contributions to Part One explore the various aspects of traditional and contemporary Buddhist objections against the idea of a divine creator as well as Christian possibilities to meet the Buddhist critique. Part Two asks for the potential truth on both sides and suggests a surprising way that the barrier might be overcome. This opens a new round of philosophical and theological dialogue between these two major traditions with challenging insights for both. Contributors: Jose I. CabezA(3)n, John P. Keenan, Armin Kreiner, Aasulv Lande, John D'Arcy May, Eva K. Neumaier, Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Ernst Steinkellner.

Meditative practice lies at the heart of the Buddhist tradition. This introductory anthology gives a representative sample of the various kinds of meditations described in the earliest body of Buddhist scripture, the Pali canon. It provides a broad introduction to their traditional context and practice and supplies explanation, context and doctrinal background to the subject of meditation. The main themes of the book are the diversity and flexibility of the way that the Buddha teaches meditation from the evidence of the canon. Covering fundamental features of Buddhist practice such as posture, lay meditation, and meditative technique it provides comments both from the principal early commentators on Buddhist practice, Upatissa and Buddhaghosa, and from reputable modern meditation teachers in a number of Theravadin traditions. This is the first book on Pali Buddhism which introduces the reader to the wide range of the canon. It demonstrates that the Buddha's meditative tradition still offers a path of practice as mysterious, awe-inspiring yet as freshly accessible as it was centuries ago, and will be of interest to students and scholars of Buddhism as well as Buddhist practitioners.

This book analyses the moral theory of the seventh century Indian Mahayana master, Santideva. Santideva is the author of the well-known religious poem the Bodhicaryavatara (Entering the Path of Enlightenment), as well as the significant, but relatively overlooked, Siksasamuccaya (Compendium of Teachings) . Both of these works describe the nature and path of the bodhisattva, the altruistic spiritual ideal especially exalted in Mahayana literature. With particular focus on the Siksasamuccaya, this work offers a response to three questions: What is Santideva's moral theory? How does it compare to other analyses of Buddhist ethics? Can one moral theory adequately describe Buddhist moral thought? An exegetical account of the bodhisattva path as outlined in the Siksasamuccaya is provided by textual analysis and translations. The central moral concept of this Buddhist thinker and Santideva's ethical presuppositions and moral reasoning are brought to light by analysing the use of key moral terms and comparing them to other Buddhists' principles. It is also considered in relation to dominant Western ethical theories. Barbra Clayton helps to redress a significant imbalance in the scholarship on Buddhist ethics, which has up to now focused primarily on the ethics of the Pali literature and as interpreted in the Theravada tradition.

The work explores the historical and intellectual context of Tsongkhapa's philosophy and addresses the critical issues related to questions of development and originality in Tsongkhapa's thought. It also deals extensively with one of Tsongkhapa's primary concerns, namely his attempts to demonstrate that the Middle Way philosophy's deconstructive analysis does not negate the reality of the everyday world. The study's central focus, however, is the question of the existence and the nature of self. This is explored both in terms of Tsongkhapa's deconstruction of the self and his reconstruction of person. Finally, the work explores the concept of reality that emerges in Tsongkhapa's philosophy, and deals with his understanding of the relationship between critical reasoning, no-self, and religious experience.

Written by leading scholars and including a foreword by the Dalai Lama, this book explores the interface between Buddhist studies and the uses of Buddhist principles and practices in psychotherapy and consciousness studies. The contributors present a compelling collection of articles that illustrate the potential of Buddhist informed social sciences in contemporary society, including new insights into the nature of human consciousness. The book examines the origins and expressions of Buddhist thought and how it is now being utilized by psychologists and social scientists, and also discusses the basic tenets of Buddhism and contemporary Buddhist-based empirical research in the psychological sciences. Further emphasis is placed on current trends in the areas of clinical and cognitive psychology, and on the Mahayana Buddhist understanding of consciousness with reference to certain developments in consciousness studies and physics. A welcome addition to the current literature, the works in this remarkable volume ably demonstrate how Buddhist principles can be used to develop a deeper understanding of the human condition and behaviours that lead to a balanced and fulfilling life.

This highly original work explores the concept of self-awareness or self-consciousness in Buddhist thought. Within the Buddhist doctrinal system, the Sanskrit word svasamvedana or svasamvitti (self-cognition, self-awareness or self-consciousness) signifies a form of reflexive awareness. It is one of the key concepts in the Buddhist epistemological system developed by Dignaga (ca. 480-540 CE) and his followers. The discussion on whether the mind knows itself also had a long history in the Buddhist schools of Mahasamghika, Sarvastivada, Sautrantika and early Yogacara. The same issue was debated later among followers of the Madhyamaka and Yogacara schools. This work is the first systematically to study the Buddhist theory of self-cognition with an emphasis on its pre-Dignaga development. Its central thesis is that the Buddhist theory of self-cognition originated in a soteriological discussion of omniscience among the Mahasamghikas, and then evolved into a topic of epistemological inquiry among the Yogacarins. Toillustrate this central theme, this book explores a large body of primary sources in Chinese, Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan, most of which are being presented to an English readership for the first time. This work makes available important resources for the study of the Buddhist philosophy of mind.

In his "Fragments of a Journal", playwright Eugene Ionesco wrote: "According to Freud, the three obstacles that prevent us from being are anxiety, pity and aversion. This is the threefold chain that binds us. But our chain is fourfold or even fivefold: hatred or aggressiveness are equal hindrances to freedom. Desire is the most serious obstacle to our deliverance. Freudianism can thus, to some extent, be reconciled with Buddhism..." Ionesco goes on to suggest that the ultimate implications of psychoanalysis are not far removed from those of Buddhism. In this book, Anthony Molino teases out those implications in a collection of writings on the complex relationship between the two disciplines. Comprised of both a historical overview of the classic writings in the "dialogue" (with works by Alexander, Fromm, Suzuki, Hisamatsu and Jung), and a far-reaching panorama on the state-of-the-dialogue today (with contributions by Adam Phillips, Mark Epstein, Masao Abe, the late Nina Coltart, and, in conversation, psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall and His Holiness the Dalai Lama), "The Couch and the Tree" is intended as a watershed in interdisciplinary and cross-cultural exploration.