This is the first scholarly treatment of the emergence of American Buddhist Studies as a significant research field. Until now, few investigators have turned their attention to the interpretive challenge posed by the presence of all the traditional lineages of Asian Buddhism in a consciously multicultural society. Nor have scholars considered the place of their own contributions as writers, teachers, and practising Buddhists in this unfolding saga. In thirteen chapters and a critical introduction to the field, the book treats issues such as Asian American Buddhist identity, the new Buddhism, Buddhism and American culture, and the scholar's place in American Buddhist Studies. The volume offers complete lists of dissertations and theses on American Buddhism and North American dissertations and theses on topics related to Buddhism since 1892.

New edition. Pali is one of the Middle Indian idioms and the classical language of Theravada Buddhism - and thus important both to linguists and scholars of Buddhism. The original texts collected here are selected for their important and beautiful formulation of Buddhist ideas.

This work presents an exploration of Buddhist philosophy and practice as a potential resource for an approach to psychotherapy which is responsive to the needs of its time and context, and attempts to open up a three-way dialogue between Buddhism, psychotherapy and contemporary discourse to reveal a meaningful theory and practice for a contemporary psychotherapy.

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.

A detailed exploration of the quest for liberation on the part of the early bhikkunis. Only text in the Buddhist tradition of known female authorship. Important to anyone investigating women's own perspective on their religion. Also provides a clear statement about how renunciants understand nibbana.

Originated by the great sage of modern India, Sri Aurobindo, integral yoga has been presented in this volume, first published in 1965, in the context of modern western thinking. It expounds the concept of harmonious and creative living on the basis of a fruitful reconciliation of the self-perfecting mysticism of the East and the rationalistic humanism of the West. It gives a dynamic form, an evolutionary perspective, and a creative impetus to the ancient mystic idea of union with the eternal.

The aphorisms collected in this book, first published in 1953, were composed by Patanjali, a great Indian sage, over 1,500 years ago, and here translated into clear English prose. The accompanying commentary interprets the sayings for the modern world, and in doing so gives a full picture of what yoga is, what its aims are, and how it can be practised.

The decline of mechanism and positivism offers new opportunities to bring together Western and Buddhist views of the mind and its relationship to its surroundings. The purpose of this collection of readings is to present some contemporary views on this progressive integration.

Discusses historical and contemporary aspects of pilgrimage within the Tibetan cultural world. Examines myths and legends, material conditions, textual sources, a modern pilgrim's impressions, political and economic influences, biographies and contemporary developments.

Buddhism is one of the oldest and largest of the world's religions. But it is also a tradition that has proven to have enormous contemporary relevance. Founded by Siddhartha Gautama, who came to be called the Buddha, the religion has spread from its origins in northeast India, across Asia, and eventually to the West, taking on new forms at each step of the way. Buddhism: What Everyone Needs to Know offers readers a brief, authoritative guide to one of the world's most diverse religious traditions in a reader-friendly question-and-answer format. Dale Wright covers the origins and early history of Buddhism, the diversity of types of Buddhism throughout history, and the status of contemporary Buddhism. This is a go-to book for anyone seeking a basic understanding of the origins, history, teachings, and practices of Buddhism.

It is difficult to think of a more urgent question for Buddhism in the late 20th century than human rights. The political ethical and philosophical questions surrounding human rights are debated vigorously in political and intellectual circles throughout the world. Yet despite its contemporary significance, the subject has merited little attention in mainstream academic research and publication in the field of Buddhist studies. If Buddhism wishes to address the issues which are of concern to today's global community, it must begin to ask itself new questions alongside the old ones. The papers in this collection were presented at the first online conference sponsored by the Journal of Buddhist ethics from 1-13 October 1995. In the context of human rights, which was the theme of the conference, an important preliminary question would seem to be whether traditional Buddhism has any understanding of what is meant by "human rights" at all. Even if it is felt that this objection is overstated, and that the issue of human rights does not have a legitimate place on the Buddhist agenda, there would still remain the separate and no less difficult question of how human rights were to be groun

This volume brings together Paul Williams's previously published papers on the Indian and Tibetan interpretations of selected verses from the eighth and ninth chapters of the Bodhicaryavatara. In addition, there is a much longer version of the paper "Identifying the object of negation", and nearly half the book consist of a wholly new essay, "The absence of self and the removal of pain", subtitled "How Santideva destroyed the Bodhisattva Path". In this paper, Williams seeks to engage in a critical way with some central issues of Buddhist thought relating to the coherence of a reductionist model of the person. He argues for an irreducible subject-involvement of pain-statements, and suggests that given an approach to the person explicitly avowed in the Bodhicaryavatara it becomes impossible to make sense of such subject-involvement, and thus of the removal of pain which is central to the path to Buddhahood. Paul Williams approaches selected verses from the Bodhicaryavatara in the light of all the extant Indian commentaries available as well as many indigenous Tibetan commentaries from all Tibetan traditions. This book will be of interested to those concerned with the history and inte

This collection of writings presents contemporary views on the integration of Buddhism in the West. Over the past few decades Buddhism has deepened its presence in the West and as a result teachings and practices are becoming integrated with those of Western psychology in a more productive way. The decline of mechanism and positivism offers new opportunities to bring together Western Buddhist views of the mind and its relationship to its surroundings. Written by psychologists and scholars, the essays discuss many of the difficult questions raised by Buddhism's increased presence. In particular the issue of the balance between authenticity and accessibility is examined. Buddhist traditions are often perceived as inaccessible and too firmly fixed to a cultural framework with some people, especially women, left feeling alienated and undervalued. However, by responding to this by attempting to synthesise Buddhism with the values of contemporary culture can lead to doubts about authenticity and dilution. Examining these issues and many more, the contributors seek to bring Buddhism into a realistic and informed relationship with contemporary Western thought.

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.

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

Early European histories of India frequently reflected colonialist agendas. The idea that Indian society had declined from an earlier Golden Age helped justify the colonial presence. It was said, for example, that modern Buddhism had fallen away from its original identity as a purely rational philosophy that arose in the mythical 5th-century BCE Golden Age unsullied by the religious and cultural practices that surrounded it. In this book Robert DeCaroli seeks to place the formation of Buddhism in its appropriate social and political contexts. It is necessary, he says, to acknowledge that the monks and nuns who embodied early Buddhist ideals shared many beliefs held by the communities in which they were raised. In becoming members of the monastic society these individuals did not abandon their beliefs in the efficacy and the dangers represented by minor deities and spirits of the dead. Their new faith, however, gave them revolutionary new mechanisms with which to engage those supernatural beings. Drawing on fieldwork, textual, and iconographic evidence, DeCaroli offers a comprehensive view of early Indian spirit-religions and their contributions to Buddhism-the first attempt at such a study since Ananda Coomaraswamy's pioneering work was published in 1928. The result is an important contribution to our understanding of early Indian religion and society, and will be of interest to those in the fields of Buddhist studies, Asian history, art history, and anthropology.

"Right Development" examines the Santi Asoke Buddhist Reform Movement of Thailand as a culturally and environmentally appropriate alternative to western development programs. The Asoke group's aim is not a Western ideal, to accumulate high levels of material comfort, but a Buddhist ideal to release attachment to the material world and attain spiritual freedom. Ethnographic research at one Asoke community illuminates how Asoke beliefs and practices foster development on three levels: the individual, community, and society. A closer look at "a day in the life" of four women provides further insight into this development. This book stipulates that development must be culturally/locally situated, focused on livelihoods rather than economic growth, environmentally sustainable, and endogenously inspired, implemented, and maintained. The intent here is not to offer a new meta-strategy for global development but to underscore the need for diverse responses to the vast array of economic, social, and environmental dilemmas. "Right Development" offers alternatives for sustainable development perfect for scholars of Buddhism or Thailand.

Buddhist meditation has given rise to much literature. Despite differences in style and terminology, these modern writings serve much the same purpose as did the manuals and commentaries of the classical masters: to explicate and interpret the Buddha's teachings on meditation, to clarify the nature and value of the various meditative techniques and attainments, and/or to offer advice on the actual practice of meditation. This collection of 28 readings is designed to give meditators, researchers and general readers access to representative examples of those writings, and to the principal relevant texts. The readings are grouped under four headings, arranged roughly in chronological order. Section I covers "Pali Sources", historically the earliest source of information on Buddhist meditation in the "suttas", or discourses of the Buddha, preserved principally in the canonical texts of Theravada Buddhism. Excerpts from eight "suttas" containing important teachings on meditation are presented in this first section. Section II presents "Classical Masters", six samples of the writings of highly-regarded classical authorities on meditation. They cover a wide historical and geographical ran

Buddhist meditation has given rise to much literature. Despite differences in style and terminology, these modern writings serve much the same purpose as did the manuals and commentaries of the classical masters: to explicate and interpret the Buddha's teachings on meditation, to clarify the nature and value of the various meditative techniques and attainments, and/or to offer advice on the actual practice of meditation. This collection of 28 readings is designed to give meditators, researchers and general readers access to representative examples of those writings, and to the principal relevant texts. The readings are grouped under four headings, arranged roughly in chronological order. Section I covers "Pali Sources", historically the earliest source of information on Buddhist meditation in the "suttas", or discourses of the Buddha, preserved principally in the canonical texts of Theravada Buddhism. Excerpts from eight "suttas" containing important teachings on meditation are presented in this first section. Section II presents "Classical Masters", six samples of the writings of highly-regarded classical authorities on meditation. They cover a wide historical and geographical ran

When we read about the profundity and complexity of the Buddhist tradition, we are hard pressed to imagine how the earliest Japanese priests propagated this tradition and how the common people accepted it. Kyokai's collection of 'miraculous stories throw much light on this.

In this compact book, the authors reflect on the legacy of four great religious thinkers: Buddha, Jesus, Confucius, and Muhammad. They offer a brief biography of each founder, describing the events that most shaped his life, how his personal spirituality developed, how he lived and how he died, what kind of person he was, and finally, they briefly trace the course of each religious tradition after its founder's death. The Carmodys divide their topic into the major dimensions of spiritual life - nature, society, the self, and divinity - and provide clear and easy access to where each figure stands on enduring issues and how each compares with the others.

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.

This study is an investigation of the moral percepts and codes of every day conduct by which ordained women regulated their lives. It takes as its basis the Bhiksuni Pratmoksa Sutras of the Dharmagupta school, preserved in Chinese translation, and the Mulasarvastivada school, preserved in Tibetan translation.