The Early 20th Century Resurgence of the Tibetan Buddhist World is a cohesive collection of studies by Japanese, Russian and Central Asian scholars deploying previously unexplored Russian, Mongolian, and Tibetan sources concerning events and processes in the Central Asian Buddhist world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Set in the final days of the Qing Empire when the Russian and British empires were expanding into Central Asia, this work examines the interplay of religious, economic and political power among peoples who acknowledged the religious authority of Tibet's Dalai Lama. It focuses on diplomatic initiatives involving the 13th Dalai Lama . and other Tibetan Buddhist hierarchs . during and after his exile in Mongolia and China, as well as his relations with Mongols, and with Buryat, Kalmyk, and other Russian Buddhists. It demonstrates how these factors shaped historical processes in the region, not least the reformulations of both group identity and political consciousness.

Padmasambhava, the Indian mystic and tantric Buddhist master, is second only to Buddha Shakyamuni as the most famous personage in the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism. In the ninth century, he made the journey across the Himalayan Mountains to establish Buddhism for the people in that country. Now, more than 1,000 years later, we are able to hear and be touched by his voice as contained within this collection of oral advice. The selections in Dakini Teachings are timely advice - short, direct instructions relating to the three levels of Buddhist practice: Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. The main emphasis of Padmasambhava's teaching is that spiritual knowledge must be personalized and not remain as mere theory. The book includes an introductory discourse by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and a short biography of Padmasambhava by Jamgon Kongtrul the First.

This book is the first socio-intellectual history of the Dharma Drum Lineage of Chan (Zen), a new lineage of Buddhism founded by the late Chinese Buddhist cleric, Sheng Yen (1931-2009)-arguably one of the most influential Chan masters in contemporary times. The book challenges the received academic and popular image of Chan Buddhism as a meditation school that bypasses scriptural learning. Using Sheng Yen's doctrinal classification (Chn. panjiao) chart as an example, the book shows Sheng Yen's Chan as a synthesis of both Indian and Chinese premodern forms of Buddhism, and as the summum bonum of Han transmission of Chinese Buddhism (Chn. Hanchuan fojiao). The book demonstrates how Sheng Yen's presentation of Chan was intimately related to the volatile social and political realities of his life-the Communist takeover of China and the subsequent industrial boom that impacted Taiwanese society. In short, this book presents a historically and culturally embodied approach to the formation of Buddhist doctrine and practice. Drawing on the works of postcolonial theories that integrate the role of the researcher into the research, the book also offers a more integrated approach between emic and etic, insider and outsider perspectives to research. Advancing the field of Buddhist studies, the book will be of interest to scholars of Buddhism in the modern period, twentieth-century religious history of China and Taiwan, Chan/Zen studies, World Religions, Asian civilizations, and Modern Biographies.

How to Love is part of a charming series of books from Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh, exploring the essential foundations of mindful meditation and practise. How to Love shows that when we feel closer to our loved ones, we are also more connected to the world as a whole. Nhat Hanh brings his signature clarity, compassion and humour to the thorny question of how to love and distils one of our strongest emotions down to four essentials: you can only love another when you feel true love for yourself; love is understanding; understanding brings compassion; and deep listening and loving speech are key ways of showing our love.

The book offers a conception of philosophy as a form of self-enquiry which begins not in reflection, but in silence and meditation, conceived as conditions for the emergence and cessation of contending states of mind which influence perception and action. The philosopher thus becomes a kind of cartographer of a shifting interior landscape. This underlying perspective explains the personal nature of the writing and its mixing of genres. The book draws on both the Greek and Buddhist traditions, recognising that it is time for Western thinkers to acknowledge and respond to an intercultural canon. It aims to integrate ethics and a non-theistic philosophy of religion through the medium of aesthetics, mapping Buddhist 'mindfulness' and the Greek virtues and vices of temperance and licentiousness, continence and incontinence, onto an account of the development of moral sentiments and their relation to practical judgement in the context of oppressive political and social realities.

In this third decade of the 21st century, deep problems plague our world. Many people lack adequate nutrition, health care, and education, because-while there is enough wealth for everyone to meet these basic needs-most of it is tightly controlled by precious few. Global warming causes droughts, floods, rising sea levels, and soon the forced migrations of millions of people. In this book, philosopher Graham Priest explains why we find ourselves in this situation, defines the nature of the problems we face, and explains how we might solve and move beyond our current state. The first part of this book draws on Buddhist philosophy, Marx's analysis of capitalism, and their complementary role in explaining our present crisis and the events that led us here. In the second part of the book, Priest turns to the much harder question of how one might go about creating a more rational and humane world. Here, he draws again on Buddhist and Marxist ideas as well as some key aspects of anarchist thought. His discussion of the need for bottom-up control of production, power, ideology, and an emerging awareness of our interdependence is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of the planet and our latent capacity to care for each other. Key Features Explains the necessary elements of Marxist, Buddhist, and anarchist thought-no background knowledge of political theory or Buddhism is necessary Shows how Buddhist and Marxist notions of persons are complementary Convincingly shows capitalism's role in creating current socio-economic problems Provides an analysis of the corrosiveness of top-down power structures and why they should be eliminated in a post-capitalist state Discusses capitalism's role in war, environmental degradation, and race and gender-based oppression

In this third decade of the 21st century, deep problems plague our world. Many people lack adequate nutrition, health care, and education, because-while there is enough wealth for everyone to meet these basic needs-most of it is tightly controlled by precious few. Global warming causes droughts, floods, rising sea levels, and soon the forced migrations of millions of people. In this book, philosopher Graham Priest explains why we find ourselves in this situation, defines the nature of the problems we face, and explains how we might solve and move beyond our current state. The first part of this book draws on Buddhist philosophy, Marx's analysis of capitalism, and their complementary role in explaining our present crisis and the events that led us here. In the second part of the book, Priest turns to the much harder question of how one might go about creating a more rational and humane world. Here, he draws again on Buddhist and Marxist ideas as well as some key aspects of anarchist thought. His discussion of the need for bottom-up control of production, power, ideology, and an emerging awareness of our interdependence is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of the planet and our latent capacity to care for each other. Key Features Explains the necessary elements of Marxist, Buddhist, and anarchist thought-no background knowledge of political theory or Buddhism is necessary Shows how Buddhist and Marxist notions of persons are complementary Convincingly shows capitalism's role in creating current socio-economic problems Provides an analysis of the corrosiveness of top-down power structures and why they should be eliminated in a post-capitalist state Discusses capitalism's role in war, environmental degradation, and race and gender-based oppression

Nomads on Pilgrimage: Mongols on Wutaishan (China), 1800-1940 is a social history of the Mongols' pilgrimages to Wutaishan in late imperial and Republican times. In this period of economic crisis and rise of nationalism and anticlericalism in Mongolia and China, this great Buddhist mountain of China became a unique place of intercultural exchanges, mutual borrowings, and competition between different ethnic groups. Based on a variety of written and visual sources, including a rich corpus of more than 340 Mongolian stone inscriptions, it documents why and how Wutaishan became one of the holiest sites for Mongols, who eventually reshaped its physical and spiritual landscape by their rites and strategies of appropriation.

This essential book critically examines the various ways in which Eastern spiritual traditions have been typically stripped of their spiritual roots, content and context, to be more readily assimilated into secular Western frames of Psychology. Beginning with the colonial histories of Empire, the author draws from the 1960s Counterculture and the subsequent romanticising and idealising of the East. Cohen explores how Hindu, Buddhist and Daoist traditions have been gradually transformed into forms of Psychology, Psychotherapy and Self-Help, undergoing processes of 'modernisation' and secularisation until their respective cosmologies had been successfully reinterpreted and reimagined. An important component of this psychologisation is the accompanying commodification of Eastern spiritual practices, including the mass-marketing of mindfulness and meditation as part of the burgeoning well-being industry. Also presenting emerging voices of resistance from within Eastern spiritual traditions, the book ends with a chapter on Transpersonal Psychology, showing a path for how to gradually move away from colonisation and towards collaboration. Engaging with the 'mindfulness movement' and other practices assimilated by Western culture, this is fascinating reading for students and academics in psychology, philosophy and religious studies, as well as mindfulness practitioners.

This essential book critically examines the various ways in which Eastern spiritual traditions have been typically stripped of their spiritual roots, content and context, to be more readily assimilated into secular Western frames of Psychology. Beginning with the colonial histories of Empire, the author draws from the 1960s Counterculture and the subsequent romanticising and idealising of the East. Cohen explores how Hindu, Buddhist and Daoist traditions have been gradually transformed into forms of Psychology, Psychotherapy and Self-Help, undergoing processes of 'modernisation' and secularisation until their respective cosmologies had been successfully reinterpreted and reimagined. An important component of this psychologisation is the accompanying commodification of Eastern spiritual practices, including the mass-marketing of mindfulness and meditation as part of the burgeoning well-being industry. Also presenting emerging voices of resistance from within Eastern spiritual traditions, the book ends with a chapter on Transpersonal Psychology, showing a path for how to gradually move away from colonisation and towards collaboration. Engaging with the 'mindfulness movement' and other practices assimilated by Western culture, this is fascinating reading for students and academics in psychology, philosophy and religious studies, as well as mindfulness practitioners.

Naturalism, Human Flourishing, and Asian Philosophy: Owen Flanagan and Beyond is an edited volume of philosophical essays focusing on Owen Flanagan's naturalized comparative philosophy and moral psychology of human flourishing. Flanagan is a philosopher well-known for his naturalized approach to philosophical issues such as meaning, physicalism, causation, and consciousness in the analytic school of Western philosophy. Recently, he develops his philosophical interest in Asian philosophy and discusses diverse philosophical issues of human flourishing, Buddhism and Confucianism from comparative viewpoints. The current volume discusses his philosophy of human flourishing and his naturalized approaches to Buddhism and Confucianism. The volume consists of five sections with eleven chapters written by leading experts in the fields of philosophy, religion, and psychology. The first section is an introduction to Flanagan's philosophy. The introductory chapter provides a general overview of Flanagan's philosophy, i.e., his philosophy of naturalization, comparative approach to human flourishing, and detailed summaries of the following chapters. In the second section, the three chapters discuss Flanagan's naturalized eudaimonics of human flourishing. The third section discusses Flanagan's naturalized Buddhism. The fourth section analyzes Flanagan's interpretation of Confucian philosophy (specifically Mencius's moral sprouts), from the viewpoint of moral modularity and human flourishing. The fifth section is Flanagan's responses to the comments and criticisms developed in this volume.

The eagerly awaited Complete Works of Sangharakshita begins with Volume 9 on Dr Ambedkar and the revival of Buddhism. One of the most far-reaching of Sangharakshita's contributions to modern Buddhism was giving shape to the Buddhist conversion movement begun by the great Indian statesman and reformer, Dr B.R. Ambedkar. In 1956, along with hundreds of thousands of his followers, Ambedkar renounced the Hindu caste system - according to which they were condemned to be 'untouchable' - and converted to Buddhism, thus beginning a new life.The first part of this volume tells the story of how Ambedkar overcame the suffering and struggle of his early years to become the shaper of the Indian constitution and the leader of his people to a new life; and how, following Ambedkar's untimely death, Sangharakshita took on the challenge of teaching Buddhism to the new community of Buddhists.The second part is a collection of 36 edited talks, many published here for the first time, from Sangharakshita's tour of the Buddhist communities in India in 1981-2. Wherever and in whatever circumstances you live, there is much here to bring new life and depth to your Buddhist practice.

This book analyzes Buddhist discussions of the Aryan myth and scientific racism and the ways in which this conversation reshaped Buddhism in the United States, and globally. The book traces the development of notions of Aryanism in Buddhism through Buddhist publications from 1899-1957, focusing on this so-called "yellow peril," or historical racist views in the United States of an Asian "other." During this time period in America, the Aryan myth was considered to be scientific fact, and Buddhists were able to capitalize on this idea throughout a global publishing network of books, magazines, and academic work which helped to transform the presentation of Buddhism into the "Aryan religion." Following narratives regarding colonialism and the development of the Aryan myth, Buddhists challenged these dominant tropes: they combined emic discussions about the "Aryan" myth and comparisons of Buddhism and science, in order to disprove colonial tropes of "Western" dominance, and suggest that Buddhism represented a superior tradition in world historical development. The author argues that this presentation of a Buddhist tradition of superiority helped to create space for Buddhism within the American religious landscape. The book will be of interest to academics working on Buddhism, race and religion, and American religious history.

Buddhist and Taoist Systems Thinking explores a radical new conception of business and management. It is grounded on the reconnection of humans with nature as the new competitive advantage for living organizations and entrepreneurs that aspire to regenerate the economy and drive a positive impact on the planet, in the context of the Anthropocene. Organizations today struggle in finding a balance between maximizing profits and generating value for their stakeholders, the environment and the society at large. This happens in a paradigm shift characterized by unprecedented levels of exponential change and the emergence of disruptive technologies. Adaptability, thus, is becoming the new business imperative. How can, then, entrepreneurs and organizations constantly adapt and, at the same time, design the sustainable futures they'd like? This book uniquely explores the benefits of applying Buddhist and Taoist Systems Thinking to sustainable management. Grounded in Taoist and Zen Buddhist philosophies, it offers a modern scientific perspective fundamentally based on the concepts of bio-logical adaptability and lifefulness amidst complexity and constant change. The book introduces the new concept of the Gaia organization as a living organism that consciously helps perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet. It is subject to the natural laws of transformation and the principles of oneness, emptiness, impermanence, balance, self-regulation and harmonization. Readers will find applied Eastern systems theories such as the Yin-Yang and the Five Elements operationalized through practical methodologies and tools such as T-Qualia and the Zen Business model. They are aimed at guiding Gaia organizations and entrepreneurs in leading sustainable transformations and qualifying economic growth. The book offers a vital toolkit for purpose-driven practitioners, management researchers, students, social entrepreneurs, evaluators and change-makers to reinvent, create and mindfully manage sustainable and agile organizations that drive systemic transformation.

This text provides a comparative investigation of the affinities and differences of two of the most dynamic currents in World Buddhism: Zen Buddhism and the Thai Forest Movement. Defying differences in denomination, culture, and historical epochs, these schools revived an unfettered quest for enlightenment and proceeded to independently forge like practices and doctrines. The author examines the teaching gambits and tactics, the methods of practice, the place and story line of teacher biography, and the nature and role of the awakening experience, revealing similar forms deriving from an uncompromising pursuit of awaking, the insistence on self-cultivation, and the preeminent role of the charismatic master. Offering a pertinent review of their encounters with modernism, the book provides a new coherence to these seemingly disparate movements, opening up new avenues for scholars and possibilities for practitioners.

The 547 Buddhist jatakas, or verse parables, recount the Buddha's lives in previous incarnations. In his penultimate and most famous incarnation, he appears as the Prince Vessantara, perfecting the virtue of generosity by giving away all his possessions, his wife, and his children to the beggar Jujaka. Taking an anthropological approach to this two-thousand-year-old morality tale, Katherine A. Bowie highlights significant local variations in its interpretations and public performances across three regions of Thailand over 150 years. The Vessantara Jataka has served both monastic and royal interests, encouraging parents to give their sons to religious orders and intimating that kings are future Buddhas. But, as Bowie shows, characterizations of the beggar Jujaka in various regions and eras have also brought ribald humor and sly antiroyalist themes to the story. Historically, these subversive performances appealed to popular audiences even as they worried the conservative Bangkok court. The monarchy sporadically sought to suppress the comedic recitations. As Thailand has changed from a feudal to a capitalist society, this famous story about giving away possessions is paradoxically being employed to promote tourism and wealth.

Originally published in 2002 Culture, Ritual and Revolution in Vietnam is a study of the history and consequences of the revolutionary campaign to transform culture and ritual in northern Vietnam. Based upon official documents and several years of field research in Thinh Liet Commune, a Red River delta community near Hanoi, it provides the first detailed account of the nature of revolutionary cultural reforms in Vietnam as how those reforms continue to animate contemporary socio-cultural life. The study examines the key foci of revolutionary cultural change, such as the articulation of a new moral system, the attempts to eliminate explanations that invoke supernatural causality, the creation of socialist weddings and funerals, and the development of innovation ties to commemorate war dead. By examining debates over culture, ritual, and morality that have emerged between residents, notably between men and women, and party members and non-party members, the study shows how ideas and values that preceded the revolution have entered into a creative dialogue with those that were articulated by the revolution, and how this has produced an innovative set of ritual and other practices, particularly since the relaxation of the cultural reform agenda in the post-1986 period.

Becoming a Buddhist monk in Thailand has for a long time provided the opportunity for access to a good education and to social advancement, both to bright, poor rural youths and to members of the urban elite whose youth often become monks for a few months as a rite of passage into adulthood. Moreover, although women are not allowed to become fully fledged monks, recent developments have encouraged a special status akin to nuns for many devout Thai Buddhist women. All this has resulted in large numbers of well-educated, well-motivated Buddhist religious people, keen both to engage in religious contemplation and also determined to contribute to this-worldly social, economic, educational and medical development goals. This book, by a leading authority on the subject, considers the role of Thai Buddhist religious people in development within Thailand. It discusses how Thai Buddhism has evolved philosophically and in its organisation to allow this, examines various examples of Buddhist people's engagement in development projects, and assesses how the situation is likely to unfold going forward. In addition, the book considers the relationship between science and religion in Thai Buddhism and also some aspects of the parallel situation in Sri Lanka.

The study of the Chinese Buddhist Canon-the basic literature of Buddhism-does not have an eminent place in study either in China or in the Western World. For the contributors to this volume, their chapters are the result of decades of dedication to academic research, and they reveal many facets of the Buddhist Canon that were previously unstudied. This book originated in the first and second International Conferences on Chinese Buddhist Canon, and focuses on the communication of the Chinese Buddhist Canon through the medium of print. It enhances our knowledge of how the canon was collated, proofread and printed. This book was originally published as a special issue of Studies in Chinese Religions.

This volume examines several theoretical concerns of embodiment in the context of Asian religious practice. Looking at both subtle and spatial bodies, it explores how both types of embodiment are engaged as sites for transformation, transaction and transgression. Collectively bridging ancient and modern conceptualizations of embodiment in religious practice, the book offers a complex mapping of how body is defined. It revisits more traditional, mystical religious systems, including Hindu Tantra and Yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, Bon, Chinese Daoism and Persian Sufism and distinctively juxtaposes these inquiries alongside analyses of racial, gendered, and colonized bodies. Such a multifaceted subject requires a diverse approach, and so perspectives from phenomenology and neuroscience as well as critical race theory and feminist theology are utilised to create more precise analytical tools for the scholarly engagement of embodied religious epistemologies. This a nuanced and interdisciplinary exploration of the myriad issues around bodies within religion. As such it will be a key resource for any scholar of Religious Studies, Asian Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Philosophy, and Gender Studies.

This collection of original essays explores metaethical views from outside the mainstream European tradition. The guiding motivation is that important discussions about the ultimate nature of morality can be found far beyond ancient Greece and modern Europe. The volume's aim is to show how rich the possibilities are for comparative metaethics, and how much these comparisons offer challenges and new perspectives to contemporary analytic metaethics. Representing five continents, the thinkers discussed range from ancient Egyptian, ancient Chinese, and the Mexican (Aztec) cultures to more recent thinkers like Augusto Salazar Bondy, Bimal Krishna Matilal, Nishida Kitaro, and Susan Sontag. The philosophical topics discussed include religious language, moral discovery, moral disagreement, essences' relation to evaluative facts, metaphysical harmony and moral knowledge, naturalism, moral perception, and quasi-realism. This volume will be of interest to anyone interested in metaethics or comparative philosophy.

This book examines the importance of the topic of 'feeling tone' (vedana) as it appears in early Buddhist texts and practice, and also within contemporary, secular, mindfulness-based interventions. The volume aims to highlight the crucial nature of the 'feeling tone' or 'taste of experience' in determining mental reactivity, behaviour, character, and ethics. In the history of Buddhism, and in its reception in contemporary discourse, vedana has often been a much-neglected topic, with greater emphasis being accorded to other meditational focuses, such as body and mind. However, 'feeling tone' (vedana) can be seen as a crucial pivotal point in understanding the cognitive process, both in contemporary mindfulness and meditation practice within more traditional forms of Buddhism. The taste of experience, it is claimed, comes as pleasant, unpleasant, and neither pleasant nor unpleasant - and these 'tones' or 'tastes' inevitably follow from humans being embodied sensory beings. That experience comes in this way is unavoidable, but what follows can be seen in terms of reactivity or responsiveness. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Buddhism.

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.

Based on detailed ethnographic research, this book explores the varied experiences of women who have converted to Buddhism in contemporary Britain and analyses the implications of their experiences for understanding the translation and transference of Buddhist practices temporally and geographically. This book examines how women initially engage with Buddhist groups, their perspectives on religious discipline, and their relationships to ideas of gender equality and feminism. Whilst the recent study of Buddhism outside Asia has tended to emphasise the transnational and the global, this book de-centres this, highlighting the significance of locality and immediate community in contemporary women's faith practices. Showcasing the narratives and life stories of 25 ordained women across seven different Buddhist groups connected to Britain, the research in this book challenges uncritical assumptions made about 'Western' women who engage with Buddhist practices, and provides a new framing of contemporary ordination through a detailed and holistic examination of a group of Buddhist practitioners that have received little focused attention. The first multi-tradition study of ordained Buddhist women in Britain, this book will be of interest to academics working in the fields of Buddhist studies, religious studies, gender studies, Asian studies and the sociology of religion.