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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philosophy of the Buddha is a philosophical introduction to the teaching of the Buddha. It carefully guides readers through the basic ideas and practices of the Buddha, including kamma (karma), rebirth, the not-self doctrine, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, ethics, meditation, nonattachment, and Nibbâna (Nirvana).

The book includes an account of the life of the Buddha as well as comparisons of his teaching with practical and theoretical aspects of some Western philosophical outlooks, both ancient and modern. Most distinctively, Philosophy of the Buddha explores how Buddhist enlightenment could enable us to overcome suffering in our lives and reach our full potential for compassion and tranquillity.

This is one of the first books to introduce the philosophy of the Buddha to students of Western philosophy. Christopher W. Gowans' style is exceptionally clear and appropriate for anyone looking for a comprehensive introduction to this growing area of interest.

Contents:
Part I - The Background and Context of the Ãlaya-vijñana
1. The Early Buddhist Background
2. The Three Marks of Existence
3. The Formula of Dependent Arising
4. Causation and continuity without a self
5. Viññana in the Formula of Dependent Arising
6. Viññana as Consciousness
7. Karmic Formations and Craving increase Viññana and Perpetuate Samsara
8. Consciousness and the Potential for Karmic Fruition
9. Viññana as Cognitive Awareness
10. Cognitive Processes and the Production of Karma
11. The Underlying Tendencies (anusaya)
12. The Underlying Tendency "I am" and Conceptual Proliferation
13. The Debate over Latent and Manifest
14. Reciprocal Causality Between the Two Aspects of Viññana
Part II - The Abhidharma Context
15. The Abhidharma Project and its Problematic
16. Background of the Abhidharma
17. The Aim and Methods of Abhidharma: Dharma as Irreducible Unit of Experience
18. The Basic Problematic: Two Levels of Discourse Two Dimensions of Mind
19. Analysis of Mind and its Mental Factors
20. The Initial Formulation of the Problematic in its Synchronic Dimension: The Accumulation of Karmic Potential, the Presence of the Underlying Tendencies and their Gradual Purification in the Kathavatthu
21. The Problematic in its Diachronic Dimension: Immediate Succession vs the Continuity of Karmic Potential
22. The Persistence of Traditonal Continuities: Karma and Klesa in the AbhiDharma-Kosa
23. AbhiDharmic Responses to the Problematic
24. The Sarvastivadin Theory of Possession
25. The Sautrantika Theory of Seeds in the Mental Stream
26. Questions Raised by Consciousness, Seeds and the Mental Stream
27. The Theravadin Theory of Life Constituent Mind
28. Conclusion
Part III - The Alaya-vijñana in the Yogacara Tradition, The Alaya-vijñana in the Early Tradition
29. The Origins of the Alaya-vijñana
30. The New Model of Mind in the Samdhinirmocana Sutra
31. The Alaya-Vijñana as Mental Stream
32. The Alaya Treatise of the Yogacarabhumi
33. The Proof Portion
34. The Alaya Treatise, Pravrtti Portion: Analysing the Alaya-Vijñana in Avhidharmic Terms
35. Its subliminal objective supports and cognitive processes
36. Its mutual and simulataneous relationship with manifest cognitive awareness
37. Manifest Cognitive Processes Produce Karma and Increase the Alaya-vijñana
38. Its Simultaneous Arising with Afflictive Mentation
39. The Alaya treatise, Nivrtti Portion: Equating the Alaya-Vijñana with Samsaric Continuity
40. Conclusion
Part IV - The Alaya-Vijñana in the Mahayana-samgraha I : Bringing It All Back Home
41. Appropriating the Traditional Buddhist Framework
42. Synonyms of the Alaya-vijñana in the Disciple's Vehicle
43. The Two Vijnanas and the Two Dependent Arisings
44. Seeding the Alaya-vijñana: The Karmic Process as Simultaneous Intrapsychic Causality
45. Resolving the Abhidharmic problematic
46. Karma, Rebirth and the Alaya-vijñana
47. The continuity of the Afflictions
48. Afflicitve Mentation in the Mahayana-samgraha
49. The Path of Purification:Mundane and SupraMundane
50. Beyond Abhidharma: Adventitious Defilements, Pure Seeds and Luminous Minds
Part V - The Alaya-vijñana in the Mahayana-samgraha II: Looking Beyond
51. The Predispositions of Speech, Self View and the Life Constituents
52. Common Experience, Common Embodiment: Language, the Alaya-vijñana and the Arising of the World

In this book, Vasubandhu's classic work Refutation of the Theory of a Self is translated and provided with an introduction and commentary. The translation, the first into a modern Western language from the Sanskrit text, is intended for use by those who wish to begin a careful philosophical study of Indian Buddhist theories of persons. Special features of the introduction and commentary are their extensive explanations of the arguments for the theories of persons of Vasubandhu and the Pudgalavâdines, the Buddhist philosophers whose theory is the central target of Vasubandhu's refutation of the theory of a self.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203607643

Philosophy of the Buddha is a philosophical introduction to the teaching of the Buddha. It carefully guides readers through the basic ideas and practices of the Buddha, including kamma (karma), rebirth, the not-self doctrine, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, ethics, meditation, nonattachment, and Nibbâna (Nirvana).

The book includes an account of the life of the Buddha as well as comparisons of his teaching with practical and theoretical aspects of some Western philosophical outlooks, both ancient and modern. Most distinctively, Philosophy of the Buddha explores how Buddhist enlightenment could enable us to overcome suffering in our lives and reach our full potential for compassion and tranquillity.

This is one of the first books to introduce the philosophy of the Buddha to students of Western philosophy. Christopher Gowans' style is exceptionally clear and appropriate for anyone looking for a comprehensive introduction to this growing area of interest.

The first complete translation into English of this Tibetan text, together with the informative commentary by the 8th century master Buddhaguhya. This text is of seminal importance for the history of Buddhist Tantra, especially as very little has been published concerning the origins of Tantra in India.

Why did people in North India from the 5th century BC choose to leave the world and join the sect of the Buddha? This is the first book to apply the insights of social psychology in order to understand the religious motivation of the people who constituted the early Buddhist community. It also addresses the more general and theoretically controversial question of how world religions come into being, by focusing on the conversion process of the individual believer.

Why did people in North India from the 5th century BC choose to leave the world and join the sect of the Buddha? This is the first book to apply the insights of social psychology in order to understand the religious motivation of the people who constituted the early Buddhist community. It also addresses the more general and theoretically controversial question of how world religions come into being, by focusing on the conversion process of the individual believer.

A richly complex study of the Yogacara tradition of Buddhism, divided into five parts: the first on Buddhism and phenomenology, the second on the four basic models of Indian Buddhist thought, the third on karma, meditation and epistemology, the fourth on the Trimsika and its translations, and finally the fifth on the Ch'eng Wei-shih Lun and Yogacara in China.

Visual metaphors in a number of Mahayana sutras construct a discourse in which visual perception serves as a model for knowledge and enlightenment. In the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) and other Mahayana literature, immediate access to reality is symbolized by vision and set in opposition to language and conceptual thinking, which are construed as obscuring reality. In addition to its philosophical manifestations, the tension between vision and language also functioned as a strategy of legitimation in the struggle of the early heterodox Mahayana movement for authority and legitimacy. This emphasis on vision also served as a resource for the abundant mythical imagery in Mahayana sutras, imagery that is ritualized in Vajrayana visualization practices. McMahan brings a wide range of literature to bear on this issue, Including a rare analysis of the lavish imagery of the Gandavyuha Sutra in its Indian context. He concludes with a discussion of Indian approaches to visuality in the light of some recent discussions of "ocularcentrism" in the west, inviting scholars to expand the current discussion of vision and its roles in constructing epistemic systems and cultural practices beyond its exclusively European and American focus.

The highest teachings on the nature of mind are like a diamond, transparent and indestructible, also reflecting the color of the society into which they are introduced. Originating in India, Buddhism migrated to Tibet, and is today taking a style more appropriate to educated and independent minds in the West. Lama Ole, one of the few qualified western lamas of the Karma Kagyu tradition, is a major driving force in this process, providing here a fresh, exciting summary of Buddha's timeless wisdom. This seminal work offers the liberating and powerful methods of Diamond Way (Vajrayana) Buddhism for readers seeking to incorporate Buddhist practice into their daily lives. In language that is witty, easy to understand, and without compromising on the essentials, Ole answers the questions that Westerners ask. How do Buddha's teachings utilize the potential of our full being in today's world? Through which practices may we experience mind as limitless space and bliss? How can one use the daily joys and difficulties in one's job, family, or partnerships for spiritual growth? And what is spiritual growth and how does one recognize it? "The Way Things Are" answers these questions and provides practical methods for developing mind, and makes the timeless wisdom of Buddhism accessible to an intrigued western audience, itself increasingly drawn to Tibetan Buddhism. This is a revised, much expanded (three times the length) and up-to-date edition of the original book published in 1997.