Many of us dream of exchanging our day-to-day responsibilities for a heartfelt life full of purpose, but few of us ever get around to doing something about it. The women featured in Dakini Power are contemporary teachers of Tibetan Buddhism, both Westerners and Asians, who teach in the West and are the exception. These twelve women followed their intuition against all odds, made dramatic and unusual decisions, and sometimes had to fight for their survival in order to lead the lives they envisioned. All were criticized for being too conservative or too rebellious, too feminist or not feminist enough, yet they pulled through with immense determination and bravery. Today all are recognized as accomplished practitioners and brilliant teachers. What can we learn from these women? How do they handle the cultural differences? How do they deal with the more controversial aspects of Buddhism? The Westerners among them risked alienating their families and closest friends by immersing their lives in a completely foreign culture. Often, this necessitated radical life changes. What did they find on their journey? Was the price they paid worth it to them?

Asi que crees ser budista? Veamos, reflexiona. El maestro de budismo tibetano Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, uno de los Lamas mas creativos e innovadores de hoy en dia, arroja el guante al mundo budista, desafiando los conceptos erroneos, estereotipos y fantasias mas comunes. Con ingenio e ironia Khyentse incita a los lectores a ir mas alla de los adornos superficiales del budismo, mas alla del romance con las cuentas del rosario, el incienso o los habitos exoticos, y a entrar derecho en el corazon de lo que el Buda enseno.
So you think you're a Buddhist? Think again. Tibetan Buddhist master Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, one of the most creative and innovative lamas teaching today, throws down the gauntlet to the Buddhist world, challenging common misconceptions, stereotypes, and fantasies. With wit and irony, Khyentse urges readers to move beyond the superficial trappings of Buddhism--beyond the romance with beads, incense, or exotic robes--straight to the heart of what the Buddha taught.

This volume marks the beginning of a series of Sanskrit Texts From the Tibetan Autonomous Region (STTAR) jointly published by the publishing houses of the China Tibetology Research Center, Beijing, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, on the basis of a General Agreement on Cooperative Studies of Copies of Sanskrit Texts and their Joint Publication" signed January 9, 2004. It is also the first result of a cooperation between the Chinese Tibetology Research Center and the Institute for Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences with the aim of making these unique jewels of philosophical and religious texts from the Buddhist past which are preserved in their original Sanskrit language in the TAR available in scholarly editions for the first time. This volume consists of two parts. The critically edited Sanskrit text of Jinendrabuddhi's Pramanasamuccayatika, chapter 1 (on perception) is accompanied by a diplomatic edition of the text. The editions are based on photocopies of a palm-leaf manuscript kept in Lhasa which, to our present knowledge, is the only one extent. Jinendrabuddhi's commentary of the second half of the eighth century CE is, moreover, the only commentary known to have been written on that work which marks the very beginning of the Buddhist tradition of epistemology and logic in the first half of the sixth century: Dignaga's Pramanasamuccayatika. The linguistic and interpretational value of Jinendrabuddhi's text is particularly great in view of the fact that Dignaga's seminal work has not yet been discovered in the original Sanskrit, and that his various polemical treatises on other epistemological authors and schools of his time are unlikely to have been transmitted very long. Moreover, Jinendrabuddhi provides us with numerous quotations from works before Dignaga which belong to all the traditions of brahmanical classical Indian philosophy, but have been irretrievably lost. The great import of Jinendrabuddhi's work has long been well-known through its Tibetan translation. Thus, the publication of its Sanskrit original will have far-reaching consequences for the knowledge and interpretation of the Indian philosophical traditions in their classical Gupta period expressions. (Austrian Academy of Sciences 2005)

The exact circumstances of the emergence of what are now known as the rNying ma traditions of Tibetan Buddhism remain among the least clearly defined areas of Tibetan history for modern scholarship. What has made the early history of rNying ma tantrism so opaque is the dearth of reliable historical sources. In response to such uncertainty, Cantwell and Mayer have turned to the Dunhuang cache in search of further evidence. Their specific focus has been the Dunhuang texts on Phur pa, many of which have never been read before. This focus was chosen because from comparatively early times, the Phur pa tradition developed enormously within Tibet itself, and always remained a particularly rNying ma practice. Phur pa's early and enduring popularity might therefore to some extent coincide with or reflect the emergence of rNying ma as a distinct tradition. This volume addresses an important question that has not so far been approached: how exactly do the Dunhuang tantric texts compare with those of the received rNying ma tradition? The authors review, transliterate, translate, and analyse all Dunhuang texts on Phur pa so far identified, discovering an unexpectedly close relationship to the received tradition. There is also an essay exploring reasons for Phur pa's popularity in post-Imperial Tibet. Thanks to the generosity of the British Library, a CD is included with digital images of over 100 pages of the original manuscripts.