This study argues that, in early medieval South India, it was in the literary arena that religious ideals and values were publicly contested. While Tamil-speaking South India is today celebrated for its preservation of Hindu tradition, non-Hindu religious communities have played a significant role in shaping the religious history of the region. Among the least understood of such non-Hindu contributions is that of the Buddhists, who are little understood because of the scarcity of remnants of Tamil-speaking Buddhist culture. However, the two exant Buddhist texts in Tamil that are complete - a sixth-century poetic narrative known as the Manimekalai and an eleventh-century treatise on grammar and postics, the Viracoliyam - reveal a wealth of information about their textual communities and their vision of Buddhist life in a diverse and competitive religious milieu. By focusing on these texts, Monius sheds light on their role of literature and literary culture in the information, articulation, and evolution of religious identity and community.

The popular name for Chan Buddhism, in the West, is Zen Buddhism, as it was Japanese scholars who first introduced Chan Buddhism to the West with this translation. Indeed, chan is a shortened form of the Chinese word channa, rendered from the Sanskrit word dhyana, which denotes practices of the concentration of the mind through meditation or contemplation. Although rooted in the Indian tradition of yoga, which aims at the unification of the individual with the divine, meditative concentration became integrated into the Buddhist path to enlightenment as one of the three learnings (sanxue) of Buddhism. Early Buddhist (or the so-called Hinayana Buddhist) scriptures include the teachings on four stages of meditation, four divine abodes, four formless meditations, the tranquility (samatha) and insight (vipassana) meditations, and so on. Early Buddhist communities commonly practiced these meditations, along with the moral disciplines and the study of the scriptures and doctrines. Mahayana Buddhism, in India and East Asia, continued the practice of meditation as one of the six perfections (or virtues) of the bodhisattva path. In this general context, some eminent monks might have composed scriptures/treatises for the training of meditation or have become more famed with meditation. However, the school of Chan is more than just a group of meditation practitioners. As one of the Chinese Buddhist schools, it involves its own ideology, its own community, and its own genealogical history, serving to establish its own identity. The Historical Dictionary of Chan Buddhism contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, schools, texts, vocabularies, doctrines, rituals, temples, events, and other practices. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Chan Buddhism.

Inspired by Buddhist teachings and psychoanalytic thought, this book explores gentleness as a way of being and a developmental achievement. It offers reflections on the unique position of "gentle people", as well as certain gentle layers of the psyche in general, as they meet the world. Examining the perceptual-sensory-conscious discrepancy that often exists between a gentle person and their surroundings, it follows the intricate relationship between sensitivity and fear, the need for self-holding, and the possibility of letting go. Incorporating theoretical investigation, clinical vignettes, and personal contemplation, the book looks into those states of mind and qualities of attention that may compose a favorable environment, internal and interpersonal, where gentleness can be delicately held. There, it is suggested, gentleness may gradually shed the fragility, confusion, and destructiveness that often get entangled with it, and serve as a valuable recourse. Offering a unique perspective on a topic rarely discussed, the book has broad appeal for both students and practitioners of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, as well as Buddhist practitioners and scholars.

The power of capital is the power to target our attention, mould market-ready identities, and reduce the public realm to an endless series of choices. This has far-reaching implications for our psychological, physical and spiritual well-being, and ultimately for our global ecology. In this consumer age, the underlying teachings of Buddhist mindfulness offer more than individual well-being and resilience. They also offer new sources of critical inquiry into our collective condition, and may point, in time, to regulatory initiatives in the field of well-being. This book draws together lively debates from the new economics of transition, commons and well-being, consumerism, and the emerging role of mindfulness in popular culture. Engaged Buddhist practices and teachings correspond closely to insights in contemporary political philosophical investigations into the nature of power, notably by Michel Foucault. The 'attention economy' can be understood as a new arena of struggle in our age of neoliberal governmentality; as the forces of enclosure - having colonized forests, land and the bodies of workers - are now extended to the realm of our minds and subjectivity. This poses questions about the recovery of the 'mindful commons': the practices we must cultivate to reclaim our attention, time and lives from the forces of capitalization. This is a valuable resource for students and scholars of environmental philosophy, environmental psychology, environmental sociology, well-being and new economics, political economy, environmental politics, the commons and law, as well as Buddhist theory and philosophy.

The aim of this book is to address the relevance of Wilfrid Sellars' philosophy to understanding topics in Buddhist philosophy. While contemporary scholars of Buddhism often take Sellars as a touchstone for philosophical analysis, and while many take Sellars' corpus as their entree into current philosophical discourse, fewer contemporary philosophers have crossed the bridge in the other direction, using Sellarsian ideas as a way of entering into Buddhist philosophy. The essays in this volume, written by both philosophers and Buddhist Studies scholars, are divided into two sections organized around two of Sellars' essays that have been particularly influential in Buddhist Studies: "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man" and "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind." The chapters in Part I generally address questions concerning the two truths, while those in Part II concern issues in epistemology and philosophy of mind. The volume will be of interest to Sellars scholars, to scholars interested in the contemporary interaction of Buddhist philosophy and Western philosophy and to scholars of Buddhist Studies.

2020 American Board & Academy of Psychoanalysis (ABAPsa) book award winner! If, when a patient enters therapy, there is an underlying yearning to discover a deeper sense of meaning or purpose, how might a therapist rise to such a challenge? As both Carl Jung and Wilfred Bion observed, the patient may be seeking something that has a spiritual as well as psychotherapeutic dimension. Presented in two parts, The Search for Meaning in Psychotherapy is a profound inquiry into the contemplative, mystical and apophatic dimensions of psychoanalysis. What are some of the qualities that may inspire processes of growth, healing and transformation in a patient? Part One, The Listening Cure: Psychotherapy as Spiritual Practice, considers the confluence between psychotherapy, spirituality, mysticism, meditation and contemplation. The book explores qualities such as presence, awareness, attention, mindfulness, calm abiding, reverie, patience, compassion, insight and wisdom, as well as showing how they may be enhanced by meditative and spiritual practice. Part Two, A Ray of Divine Darkness: Psychotherapy and the Apophatic Way, explores the relevance of apophatic mysticism to psychoanalysis, particularly showing its inspiration through the work of Wilfred Bion. Paradoxically using language to unsay itself, the apophatic points towards absolute reality as ineffable and unnameable. So too, Bion observed, psychoanalysis requires the ability to dwell in mystery awaiting intimations of ultimate truth, O, which cannot be known, only realised. Pickering reflects on the works of key apophatic mystics including Dionysius, Meister Eckhart and St John of the Cross; Buddhist teachings on meditation; Sunyata and Dzogchen; and Levinas' ethics of alterity. The Search for Meaning in Psychotherapy will be of great interest to both trainees and accomplished practitioners in psychoanalysis, analytical psychology, psychotherapy and counselling, as well as scholars of religious studies, those in religious orders, spiritual directors, priests and meditation teachers.

Scholars of Daoism in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) have paid particular attention to the interaction between the court and certain Daoist priests and to the political results of such interaction; the focus has been on either emperors or Daoist masters. Yet in the Ming era a special group of people patronized Daoism and Daoist establishments: these were the members of the imperial clan, who were enfeoffed as princes. In addition to personal belief and self-cultivation, a prince had other reasons to patronize Daoism. As the regional overlords, the Ming princes like other local elites saw financing and organizing temple affairs and rituals, patronizing Daoist priests, or collecting and producing Daoist books as a chance to maintain their influence and show off their power. The prosperity of Daoist institutions, which attracted many worshippers, also demonstrated the princes' political success. Locally the Ming princes played an important cultural role as well by promoting the development of local religions. This book is the first to explore the interaction between Ming princes as religious patrons and local Daoism. Barred by imperial law from any serious political or military engagement, the Ming princes were ex officio managers of state rituals at the local level, with Daoist priests as key performers, and for this reason they became very closely involved in Daoist clerical and liturgical life. By illuminating the role the Ming princes played in local religion, Richard Wang demonstrates in The Ming Prince and Daoism that the princedom served to mediate between official religious policy and the commoners' interests.

This book, first published in 1980, comprises separate sections on Taoist and Buddhist contemplative yogas, each divided into a theory part (summarising their fundamental principles and outlook) and a practice part (detailing their various practices).

For several years Mouni Sadhu steeped himself in the teachings of the foremost Hindu ascetic, Sri Ramana Maharshi. This book, first published in 1957, is the best attempt by a European to describe without technicalities what such teachings entail, what meditation is about, and why Indians worship their gurus. Mouni Sadhu's rare facility for describing his own mental and spiritual states enables him to pass on to the reader his knowledge and enthusiasm. It is an authentic account of life with an inspired Hindu yogi and spiritual teacher.

The talks presented in this volume, first published in 1977, were originally delivered during a retreat in New York, in which speakers from a variety of spiritual traditions were represented. It aims to show the value of yoga in everyday life, and its relation to many other religions and philosophies.

This book, first published in 1922, examines the science of Raja Yoga. All the orthodox systems of Indian philosophy point to one goal, the liberation of the soul through perfection - and the method to attain this is through Yoga. This book presents lectures on Yoga, delivered to a western audience view to explaining Indian philosophy; the lectures are accompanied by the Sutras (aphorisms) of Patanjali, along with an explanatory commentary.

Sakya or Buddhist Origins by Mrs. Rhys Davids is as relevant today as it was in 1928, the year of its first publication. Time has added to its value. The remarkable progress in the realm of Science has not abated man's yearning for the call of the quest. As the title implies, its aim is to unravel the genuine message of Gotama, the Buddha, from the accretions in the Pali scriptures, by adopting the techniques of archaeologist. It is divided into two parts. Part one treats of the discovery , the reconstruction, the rehabilitation of that which, at its birth, was a new and true word from very man to very man, true always and everywhere. Part two tells how this gospel came to be dressed to suit a monastic set of ideals. An appendix dealing with Pali Pitakas is added. Over the years, in spite of a large number of books, the horizons of knowledge about Buddhism have remained stationary. This book takes a further step in widening that knowledge and thus provides an impetus for further research.

The volume introduces the central themes in and the main figures of Japanese Buddhist philosophy. It will have two sections, one that discusses general topics relevant to Japanese Buddhist philosophy and one that reads the work of the main Japanese Buddhist philosophers in the context of comparative philosophy. It combines basic information with cutting edge scholarship considering recent publications in Japanese, Chinese, English, and other European languages. As such, it will be an invaluable tool for professors teaching courses in Asian and global philosophy, undergraduate and graduate students, as well as the people generally interested in philosophy and/or Buddhism.

In Integrative Spirituality, Patrick J. Mahaffey elucidates spirituality as a developmental process that is enhanced by integrating the teachings and practices of multiple religious traditions, Jungian depth psychology, and contemplative yoga. In the postmodern world of religious pluralism, Mahaffey compellingly argues that each of us must fashion a unique path to wholeness which integrates aspects of life and of the self that have become disconnected and disowned. Integrative Spirituality uniquely conjoins four components: exemplary religious pluralists from three traditions, individuation, the forms of contemplative Hindu yoga that have been successfully transmitted to the West, and a presentation of two models for integrating psychological growth and spiritual awakening. The book presents pioneering practitioners in each field who exemplify how we may fashion our own approach to integrating both spiritual awakening and psychological development and delineates an array of spiritual practices that integrate the somatic, psychological, interpersonal, and spiritual aspects of life. Ultimately, Mahaffey contends that integrative spirituality is a mode of being that fully embraces the divinity inherent in each of us and in the world. Integrative Spirituality will be essential reading for academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian studies, transpersonal and Jungian psychology, and religious studies and contemplative education. It will also be of interest to analytical and depth psychologists in practice and in training, and to anyone seeking a greater understanding of spirituality, psychological growth, religious traditions, individuation, and contemplative yoga.

Buddhism is not a way of harmony and cosmic unity, as Westerners tend to think. Although Buddhism is a rapidly rising religion in the West, few Westerners know what Buddhism is like from the inside. Steve, who made the journey from Buddhism to Christ, explains the Buddhist mind-set and worldview, and makes useful points of comparison. He sets out the concerns, fears, and stresses that Buddhists experience, and helps Christians understand what they truly have to offer.

Studded with stories, parables, and illuminating observations, this book is remarkably easy to read and told by an engaging and original guide.

"A groundbreaking book . . . I was challenged afresh and stirred in my heart to confidently take the next step in reaching Buddhists with the Gospel."
--from the foreword by Dr. Wayne Cordeiro, Pacific Rim Bible College, Hawaii

This book offers a new interpretation of the relationship between 'insight practice' (satipatthana) and the attainment of the four jhanas (i.e., right samadhi), a key problem in the study of Buddhist meditation. The author challenges the traditional Buddhist understanding of the four jhanas as states of absorption, and shows how these states are the actualization and embodiment of insight (vipassana). It proposes that the four jhanas and what we call 'vipassana' are integral dimensions of a single process that leads to awakening. Current literature on the phenomenology of the four jhanas and their relationship with the 'practice of insight' has mostly repeated traditional Theravada interpretations. No one to date has offered a comprehensive analysis of the fourfold jhana model independently from traditional interpretations. This book offers such an analysis. It presents a model which speaks in the Nikayas' distinct voice. It demonstrates that the distinction between the 'practice of serenity' (samatha-bhavana) and the 'practice of insight' (vipassana-bhavana) - a fundamental distinction in Buddhist meditation theory - is not applicable to early Buddhist understanding of the meditative path. It seeks to show that the common interpretation of the jhanas as 'altered states of consciousness', absorptions that do not reveal anything about the nature of phenomena, is incompatible with the teachings of the Pali Nikayas. By carefully analyzing the descriptions of the four jhanas in the early Buddhist texts in Pali, their contexts, associations and meanings within the conceptual framework of early Buddhism, the relationship between this central element in the Buddhist path and 'insight meditation' becomes revealed in all its power. Early Buddhist Meditation will be of interest to scholars of Buddhist studies, Asian philosophies and religions, as well as Buddhist practitioners with a serious interest in the process of insight meditation.

Sanskrit Debate: Vasubandhu's 'Vimsatika' versus Kumarila's 'Niralambanavada' illustrates the rules and regulations of classical Indian debate literature (pramanasastra) by introducing new translations of two Sanskrit texts composed in antithesis to each other's tradition of thought and practice. In the third century CE, Vasubandhu, a Buddhist philosopher-monk, proposed that the entire world of lived experience is a matter of mind only through his Vimsatika (Twenty Verses). In the seventh century CE, Kumarila, a Hindu philosopher-priest, composed Niralambanavada (Non-Sensory Limit Debate) to establish the objective reality of objects by refuting Vasubandhu's claim that objects experienced in waking life are not different from objects experienced in dreams. Kumarila rigorously employs formal rules and regulations of Indian logic and debate to demonstrate that Vasubandhu's assertion is totally irrational and incoherent. Vimsatika ranks among the world's most misunderstood texts but Kumarila's historic refutation allows Vimsatika to be read in its own text-historical context. This compelling, radically revolutionary re-reading of Vimsatika delineates a hermeneutic of humor indispensable to discerning its medicinal message. In Vimsatika, Vasubandhu employs the form of professional Sanskrit logic and debate as a guise and a ruse to ridicule the entire enterprise of Indian philosophy. Vasubandhu critiques all Indian theories of epistemology and ontology and claims that both how we know and what we know are acts of the imagination.

James B. Apple examines one of the formative subjects in traditional Buddhist studies, the Twenty Varieties of the Sa gha. The Sa gha (community) is one of the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sa gha) universally revered by all Buddhists. While the Sa gha is generally understood as the community of Buddhist ordained monks and nuns, along with lay adherents, the Twenty Varieties of the Sa gha concerns an exemplary community of the twenty types of Noble Beings ( rya-pudgala) who embody the Buddha s teachings. Focusing on the interpretation of the Sa gha given by the fourteenth-century Tibetan scholar Tsong kha pa, Apple provides a comprehensive typology and analysis of the stages through which Noble Beings pass in their progress toward enlightenment through multiple lifetimes in various cosmological realms. He explains the cosmographic formations and complex structures of Buddhist spiritual cultivation, illustrating how Tibetan and Indian Buddhists conceptualize all possible states on the path to enlightenment.

First published in 1952. The Real Tripitaka gives an account of the seventh century pilgrim's adventures, spiritual and material, both in India and after his return to China. In addition the book contains an account of a Japanese pilgrim's visit to China in the ninth century, which describes the Wu-t'ai Shan, China's great place of Pilgrimage, and an eye-witness's account of the great persecution of Buddhism in 842-845 A.D.

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.

'An invitation to embrace ourselves with all our pain, fear and anxieties, and to step lightly yet firmly on the path of understanding and compassion' Thich Nhat Hanh Feelings of self-doubt and insecurity are what hold us back in life and cause true suffering. In her landmark book Radical Acceptance, renowned meditation and mindfulness teacher Tara Brach offers us all a path to freedom. Drawing on personal stories, Buddhist teachings and guided meditations Tara leads us to trust our innate goodness. She reveals how we can develop the balance of clear-sightedness and compassion, heal fear and shame and build loving, authentic relationships.

This systematic introduction to Buddhist ethics is aimed at anyone interested in Buddhism, including students, scholars and general readers. Peter Harvey is the author of the acclaimed Introduction to Buddhism (Cambridge, 1990), and his new book is written in a clear style, assuming no prior knowledge. At the same time it develops a careful, probing analysis of the nature and practical dynamics of Buddhist ethics in both its unifying themes and in the particularities of different Buddhist traditions. The book applies Buddhist ethics to a range of issues of contemporary concern: humanity’s relationship with the rest of nature; economics; war and peace; euthanasia; abortion; the status of women; and homosexuality. Professor Harvey draws on texts of the main Buddhist traditions, and on historical and contemporary accounts of the behaviour of Buddhists, to describe existing Buddhist ethics, to assess different views within it, and to extend its application into new areas.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, most of the Theravada world of Southeast Asia came under the colonial domination of European powers. While this has long been seen as a central event in the development of modern forms of Theravada Buddhism, most discussions have focused on specific Buddhist communities or nations, and particularly their resistance to colonialism. The chapters in this book examine the many different colonial contexts and regimes that Theravada Buddhists experienced, not just those of European powers such as the British, French, but also the internal colonialism of China and Thailand. They show that while many Buddhists resisted colonialism, other Buddhists shared agendas with colonial powers, such as for the reform of the monastic community. They also show that in some places, such as Singapore and Malaysia, colonialism enabled the creation of Theravada Buddhist communities. The book demonstrates the importance of thinking about colonialism both locally and regionally. Providing a new understanding of the breadth of experiences of Theravada and colonialism across Asia., this book will be of interest to scholars in the field of Buddhist Studies, Asian History, Comparative World History, Southeast Asian Studies and Religious Studies.