One of the elements of the Eightfold Path the Buddha taught is Right Concentration: the one-pointedness of mind that, together with ethics, livelihood, meditation, and so forth, leads to the ultimate freedom from suffering. The Jhanas are the method the Buddha himself taught for achieving Right Concentration. They are a series of eight successive states, beginning with bliss and moving on toward radically nonconceptual states. The fact that they can usually be achieved only during prolonged meditation retreat tends to keep them shrouded in mystery. Leigh Brasington is here to unshroud them. He takes away the mystique and gives instructions for them in plain, accessible language, noting the various pitfalls to avoid along the way, and then providing a wealth of material on the theory of jhana practice--all geared toward the practitioner rather than the scholar.

Professor Walens shows that the Kwakiutl visualize the world as a place of mouths and stomachs, of eaters and eaten. His analyses of the social rituals of meals, native ideas of the ethology of predation, a key Kwakiutl myth, and the Hamatsa dance, the most dramatic of their ceremonials, demonstrate the ways in which oral, assimilative metaphors encapsulate Kwakiutl ideas of man's role in the cosmos. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book explores the way in which singing can foster experiences of belonging through ritual performance. Based on more than two decades of ethnographic, pedagogical and musical research, it is set against the backdrop of "the new Ireland" of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Charting Ireland's growing multiculturalism, changing patterns of migration, the diminished influence of Catholicism, and synergies between indigenous and global forms of cultural expression, it explores rights and rites of belonging in contemporary Ireland. Helen Phelan examines a range of religious, educational, civic and community-based rituals including religious rituals of new migrant communities in "borrowed" rituals spaces; baptismal rituals in the context of the Irish citizenship referendum; rituals that mythologize the core values of an educational institution; a ritual laboratory for students of singing; and community-based festivals and performances. Her investigation peels back the physiological, emotional and cultural layers of singing to illuminate how it functions as a potential agent of belonging. Each chapter engages theoretically with one of five core characteristic of singing (resonance, somatics, performance, temporality, and tacitness) in the context of particular performed rituals. Phelan offers a persuasive proposal for ritually-framed singing as a valuable and potent tool in the creation of inclusive, creative and integrated communities of belonging.

Winner, Association of American Publishers' Professional and Scholarly Publishing Award in Theology and Religious StudiesWinner, 2006 Salo Baron Prize for the Best First Book in Judaic Studies, American Academy of Jewish Research

This provocative study of Jerusalem's Temple Mount unravels popular scholarly paradigms about the origins of this contested sacred site and its significance in Jewish and Christian traditions. In God's Mountain, Yaron Z. Eliav reconstructs the early story of the Temple Mount, exploring the way the site was developed as a physical entity, religious concept, and cultural image. He traces the Temple Mount's origins and investigates its history, explicating the factors that shaped it both physically and conceptually.

Eliav refutes the popular tradition that situates the Temple Mount as a unique sacred space from the earliest days of the history of Israel and the Jewish people. Instead, he asserts that the Temple Mount emerged as a sacred space in Jewish and early Christian consciousness hundreds of years later. This new chronology provides the framework for a fresh consideration of the literary and archeological evidence, as well as new understandings of the religious and social dynamics that shaped the image of the Temple Mount as a sacred space for Jews and Christians.

"Eliav uses his impressive knowledge of Talmud, the Bible, archeology, languages, rabbinic texts, the classics and patristic literature to debunk the notion that the Temple Mount was a sacred space for ancient Jews and Christians. According to him, it did not achieve this status until long after the Second Temple was destroyed. In a dazzling display of erudition, he supports his thesis byproviding new readings of familiar sources and by citing many little-known references." -- Publishers Weekly

"All readers will be rewarded by Eliav's judicious insights, his nuanced reinterpretations, and his wide-ranging scholarship." -- Choice

"This book means to awaken an important scholarly debate and it deserves to succeed." -- Shofar

Yaron Z. Eliav is the Jean and Samuel Frankel Associate Professor for Rabbinic Literature at the University of Michigan.

Santideva's eighth-century work, the Guide to Bodhisattva Practice (Bodhicaryavatara), is known for its eminently practical instructions and its psychologically vivid articulations of the Mahayana path. It is a powerful, succinct poem into which are woven diverse Buddhist traditions of moral transformation, meditative cultivation, and philosophical insight. Since its composition, it has seen continuous use as a ritual, contemplative, and philosophical manual, making it one of the crucial texts of the Buddhist ethical and philosophical tradition. This book serves as a companion to this Indian Buddhist classic. The fifteen essays contained here illuminate the Guide's many philosophical, literary, ritual, and ethical dimensions. Distinguished scholars discuss the historical significance of the text as an innovative piece of Indian literature, illuminate the important roles it played in shaping Buddhism in Tibet, and bring to light its contemporary significance for philosophy and psychology. Whether experienced or first-time students of Buddhist literature, readers will find compelling new approaches to this resonant masterpiece.

Teachings from the Buddhist tradition on opening the heart and deepening relationships, written with unusual clarity, simplicity, and warmth--for readers of any background.
This short, practical, and inspiring book presents Buddhist wisdom on love, relationships, and finding true contentment in life. Buddhist teacher Moh Hardin has a wonderfully direct and warm-hearted teaching style that will resonate with readers of books by Pema Chodron and Thich Nhat Hanh.
The book begins with a discussion about making friends with ourselves as the basis for loving others, including a simple Buddhist practice for developing greater self-acceptance and self-compassion. The book goes on to offer insights and practices for deepening our intimate relationships and becoming more loving parents.
Next, Hardin discusses love on a bigger scale, introducing the idea of becoming a "bodhisattva warrior," or a person who seeks to live open-heartedly and ease suffering in the world.

Kelly Besecke offers an examination of reflexive spirituality, a spirituality that draws equally on religions traditions and traditions of reason in the pursuit of transcendent meaning. People who practice reflexive spirituality prefer metaphor to literalism, spiritual experience to doctrinal belief, religious pluralism to religious exclusivism or inclusivism, and ongoing inquiry to ''final answers.'' Reflexive spirituality is aligned with liberal theologies in a variety of religious traditions and among the spiritual-but-not-religious. You Can't Put God in a Box draws on original qualitative data to describe how people practiced reflexive spirituality in an urban United Methodist church, an interfaith adult education center, and a variety of secular settings. The theoretical argument focuses on two kinds of rationality that are both part of the Enlightenment legacy. Technological rationality focuses our attention on finding the most efficient means to a particular end. Reflexive spiritualists reject forms of religiosity and secularity that rely on the biases of technological rationality-they see these as just so many versions of ''fundamentalism'' that are standing in the way of compelling spiritual meaning. Intellectual rationality, on the other hand, offers tools for analysis, interpretation, and synthesis of religious ideas. Reflexive spiritualists embrace intellectual rationality as a way of making religious traditions more meaningful for modern ears. Besecke provides a window into the progressive theological thinking of educated spiritual seekers and religious liberals. Grounded in participant observation, her book uses concrete examples of reflexive spirituality in practice to speak to the classical sociological problem of modern meaninglessness.

The notion that rituals, like natural languages, are governed by implicit, rigorous rules led scholars in the last century, harking back to the early Indian grammarian Patanjali, to speak of a "grammar", or "syntax", of ritual, particularly sacrificial ritual. Despite insightful examples of ritual complexes that follow hierarchical rules akin to syntactic structures in natural languages, and ambitious attempts to imagine a Universal Grammar of sacrificial ritual, no single, comprehensive "grammar" of any ritual system has yet been composed. This book offers the first such "grammar." Centering on -the idealized sacrificial system represented in the Priestly laws in the Pentateuch-it demonstrates that a ritual system is describable in terms of a set of concise, unconsciously internalized, generative rules, analogous to the grammar of a natural language. Despite far-reaching diachronic developments, reflected in Second Temple and rabbinic literature, the ancient Israelite sacrificial system retained a highly unchangeable "grammar," which is abstracted and analysed in a formulaic manner. The limits of the analogy to linguistics are stressed: rather than categories borrowed from linguistics, such as syntax and morphology, the operative categories of are abstracted inductively from the ritual texts: zoemics-the study of the classes of animals used in ritual sacrifice; jugation-the rules governing the joining of animal and non-animal materials; hierarchics-the tiered structuring of sacrificial sequences; and praxemics-the analysis of the physical activity comprising sacrificial procedures. Finally, the problem of meaning in non-linguistic ritual systems is addressed.

Giving to God examines the everyday practices of Islamic giving in post-revolutionary Egypt. From foods prepared in Sufi soup kitchens, to meals distributed by pious volunteers in slums, to almsgiving, these acts are ultimately about giving to God by giving to the poor. Surprisingly, many who practice such giving say that they do not care about the poor, instead framing their actions within a unique non-compassionate ethics of giving. At first, this form of giving may appear deeply selfish, but further consideration reveals that it avoids many of the problems associated with the idea of "charity." Using the Egyptian uprising in 2011 and its call for social justice as a backdrop, this beautifully crafted ethnography suggests that "giving a man a fish" might ultimately be more revolutionary than "teaching a man to fish."

La obra de Alfred Edersheim sobre El Templo es considerada como el mejor y mas detallado trabajo de investigacion realizado y disponible en nuestros dias sobre la naturaleza y funciones del culto judio. En palabras del autor: 'Mi intencion es viajar con el lector a la Jerusalen del pasado, recorrer juntos sus calles y mostrarle como eran cuando nuestro Senor las recorria; penetrar juntos en el Santuario donde ensenaba, y explicarle sus detalles, su ministerio y funciones'."

Die unsichtbaren Kami sind auch im modernen Japan allgegenwartig. Die vom Shinto verehrten Geistwesen der Natur pragen bis heute das Selbstverstandnis der Japaner. Die Autorin stellt heraus, dass sich die religioesen Muster des Shinto auf das ungewoehnliche Weltbild der alten Ainu-Jager zuruckfuhren lassen. Nicht zuletzt anhand ihrer Schoepfungsgesange, den Yukar, beleuchtet die Religionswissenschaftlerin die ursprungliche Lebenswelt der prahistorischen Jager. Schon die Ainu erklarten sich das Phanomen des Schoepferischen mit einer parallelen Welt, in der sich unsichtbare Kamui aus innerer Kraft in allen Formen der Natur materialisieren koennen. Auf der Grundlage dieses Weltbildes hat der Shinto ein organisiertes Ritualsystem entwickelt, das die Harmonie mit den Kami zum Wohle Japans sicherstellt.

This book presents a new and radical general theory of ritual by drawing on an ethnographically rich account of the ritual worship of the Jains of western India. The authors argue that ritual is not a logically separate type of activity, but rather a quality that can be attributed to a much wider range of everyday activity than is usually supposed.

“I want to believe, I want to have hope, but…” Pastor and bestselling author Craig Groeschel hears these words often and has asked them himself. We want to know God, feel his presence, and trust that he hears our prayers, but in the midst of great pain, we may wonder if he really cares about us. Even when we have both hope and hurt, sometimes it's the hurt that shouts the loudest. Can God be good when life is not

In Hope in the Dark, Groeschel explores the story of the father who brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus, saying, “I believe! Help my unbelief!” In the man's sincere plea, Jesus heard the tension in the man's battle-scarred heart. He healed not only the boy but the father too, driving out the hopelessness that had overtaken him. He can do the same for us today.

As Groeschel shares his pain surrounding the current health challenges of his daughter, he acknowledges the questions we may ask in our own deepest pain: “Where was God when I was being abused” “Why was my child born with a disability” “Why did the cancer come back” “Why are all my friends married and I'm alone” He invites us to wrestle with such questions as we ask God to honor our faith and heal our unbelief.

In the middle of your profound pain, you long for authentic words of understanding and hope. You long to know that even in overwhelming reality, you can still believe that God is good. Rediscover a faith in the character, power, and presence of God. Even in the questions. Even now.