This book is the first comprehensive history of an important, but mostly overlooked, element of the World War II Patrol Torpedo (PT) boats: the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons Training Center (MTBSTC) in Melville, Rhode Island. While not every sailor who served on PT boats went through the training at MTBSTC, every PT sailor was affected by what went on there. The MTBSTC created the PT boats' operational policies and tactics, as well as weapons and equipment experimentation and development. Even the orders the men received for their PT boat assignment were dictated by the MTBSTC. Most of the books written about PT boats have only a passing reference to the MTBSTC. This lack of detailed information on the Training Center has left a large hole in the overall printed history of PT boats. This book fills that gap.

This book documents the Training Center from its beginnings when the land was undeveloped swampland, through its growing pains during construction and expansion during the war. It traces the problems of developing a training curriculum from scratch, the struggles to keep the training current, up through the point when the training reached its peak of proficiency just as the war ended. It provides insight into what life was like for the sailors that spent two to three months going through the training program and of those who were stationed at the Training Center as instructors or staff personnel. This book also details the Training Center's post-war career and its current development as a thriving marina and boat building enterprise.

This book is culled from the MTBSTC's wartime correspondence files and other deck logs, published and unpublished books, articles, and reports; and interviews with PT boat veterans who underwent the training at the MTBSTC. It is lavishly illustrated with archival, private, and public photographs, most of which have never been published before.

This book completes the written history of the PT boats in World War II.

In this book, Charles B. Jones provides the first English language translation of one of the most important texts of modern Chinese Buddhism: monk-reformer Taixu's 'On the Establishment of the Pure Land in the Human Realm'. The essay, written in 1926 as part of Taixu's attempt to revive Chinese Buddhism with a Humanistic Buddhist approach, incorporates Western thought into a reconstruction of the idea of the 'Pure Land in the human realm'. In his commentary on the text, Jones argues that it has been widely misunderstood and mischaracterized. Jones demonstrates that, besides laying out the very modern idea of the Pure Land in the human realm as a slogan for Buddhist engagement with the problems of the modern world, the essay does not, as commonly assumed, discourage practices leading to rebirth in the Pure Land. He also shows that the 'human realm' can mean anywhere in Buddhist cosmology that humans reside, and that the essay's attempts to reconcile Buddhism with modern science is tentative and incomplete. Jones reveals that the essay promotes visions of both paradises and utopias, and that Taixu supports his ideas with many lengthy sutra quotations. The book concludes with an examination of how Taixu's followers developed the idea of the Pure Land in the human realm into a more coherent and modernized ideal.

This diverse anthology of original Buddhist texts in translation provides a historical and conceptual framework that will transform contemporary scholarship on Pure Land Buddhism and instigate its recognition as an essential field of Buddhist studies. Traditional and contemporary primary sources carefully selected from Buddhist cultures across historical, geopolitical, and literary boundaries are organized by genre rather than chronologically, geographically, or by religious lineage-a novel juxtaposition that reveals their wider importance in fresh contexts. Together these fundamental texts from different Asian traditions, expertly translated by eminent and up-and-coming scholars, illustrate that the Buddhism of pure lands is not just an East Asian cult or a marginal type of Buddhism, but a pan-Asian and deeply entrenched religious phenomenon. The volume is organized into six parts: Ritual Practices, Contemplative Visualizations, Doctrinal Expositions, Life Writing and Poetry, Ethical and Aesthetic Explications, and Worlds beyond Sukhavati. Each part is introduced and summarized, and each translated piece is prefaced by its translator to supply historical and sectarian context as well as insight into the significance of the work. Common and less-common issues of practice, doctrine, and intra-religious transfer are explored, and deeper understandings of the meaning of "pure lands" are gained through the study of the celestial, cosmological, internal, and earthly pure lands associated with various buddhas, bodhisattvas, and devotional figures. The introduction by the volume editors ties the diverse themes of the book together and provides a historical background to Pure Land Buddhist studies. Scholars of Buddhism and Asian religion, including graduate and post-graduate students, as well as Buddhist practitioners, will appreciate the range of translated materials and accompanied discussions made accessible in one essential collection, the first of its kind to center on the formerly-neglected topic of Buddhist pure lands.

Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice is the first book in any western language to provide a comprehensive overview of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism. Even though Pure Land Buddhism was born in China and currently constitutes the dominant form of Buddhist practice there, it has previously received very little attention from western scholars. In this book, Charles B. Jones examines the reasons for the lack of scholarly attention and why the few past treatments of the topic missed many of its distinctive features. He argues that the Chinese Pure Land tradition, with its characteristic promise of rebirth in the Pure Land to even non-elite or undeserving practitioners, should not be viewed from the perspective of the Japanese Pure Land tradition, which differs greatly. More accurately contextualizing Chinese Pure Land Buddhism within the landscape of Chinese Buddhism and the broader global Buddhist tradition, this work celebrates Chinese Pure Land, not as a school or sect, but as a unique and inherently valuable "tradition of practice." This volume is organized thematically, clearly presenting topics such as the nature of the Pure Land, the relationship between "self-power" and "other-power," the practice of nianfo (buddha-recollection), and the formation of the line of "patriarchs" that keep the tradition grounded. It guides us in understanding the vigorous debates that Chinese Pure Land Buddhism evoked and delves into the rich apologetic literature that it produced in its own defense. Drawing upon a wealth of previously unexamined primary source materials, as well as modern texts by contemporary Chinese Pure Land masters, the author provides lucid translations of resources previously unavailable in English. He also shares his lifetime of experience in this field, enlivening the narrative with personal anecdotes of his visits to sites of Pure Land practice in China and Taiwan. The straightforward and nontechnical prose makes this book a standby resource for anyone interested in pursuing research in this lively, sophisticated, and still-evolving religious tradition. Scholars-including undergraduates-specializing in East Asian Buddhism, as well as those interested in Buddhism or Chinese religion and history in general will find this book invaluable.

In this book, Charles B. Jones provides the first English language translation of one of the most important texts of modern Chinese Buddhism: monk-reformer Taixu's 'On the Establishment of the Pure Land in the Human Realm'. The essay, written in 1926 as part of Taixu's attempt to revive Chinese Buddhism with a Humanistic Buddhist approach, incorporates Western thought into a reconstruction of the idea of the 'Pure Land in the human realm'. In his commentary on the text, Jones argues that it has been widely misunderstood and mischaracterized. Jones demonstrates that, besides laying out the very modern idea of the Pure Land in the human realm as a slogan for Buddhist engagement with the problems of the modern world, the essay does not, as commonly assumed, discourage practices leading to rebirth in the Pure Land. He also shows that the 'human realm' can mean anywhere in Buddhist cosmology that humans reside, and that the essay's attempts to reconcile Buddhism with modern science is tentative and incomplete. Jones reveals that the essay promotes visions of both paradises and utopias, and that Taixu supports his ideas with many lengthy sutra quotations. The book concludes with an examination of how Taixu's followers developed the idea of the Pure Land in the human realm into a more coherent and modernized ideal.