This accessible volume covers both the teachings of the Buddha and the integration of Buddhism into daily life. What are the distinctive features of Buddhism? What or who is the Buddha, and what are his teachings? How has Buddhist thought developed over the centuries, and how can contemporary dilemmas be faced from a Buddhist perspective? Words such as "karma" and "nirvana" have entered our vocabulary, but what do they really mean? Keown has taught Buddhism at an introductory level for many years, and in this book he provides a lively, challenging response to these frequently asked questions.
Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism is the first book-length study of the theory and practice of "abandoning the body"(self-immolation) in Chinese Buddhism. Although largely ignored by conventional scholarship, the acts of self-immolators (which included not only burning the body, but also being devoured by wild animals, drowning oneself, and self-mummification, among others) form an enduring part of the religious tradition and provide a new perspective on the multifarious dimensions of Buddhist practice in China from the early medieval period to the present time. This book examines the hagiographical accounts of all those who made offerings of their own bodies and places them in historical, social, cultural, and doctrinal context.
Rather than privilege the doctrinal and exegetical interpretations of the tradition, which assume the central importance of the mind and its cultivation, James Benn focuses on the ways in which the heroic ideals of the bodhisattva present in scriptural materials such as the Lotus Sutra played out in the realm of religious practice on the ground. His investigation leads him beyond traditional boundaries between Buddhist studies and sinology and draws on a wide range of canonical, historical, and polemical sources, many of them translated and analyzed for the first time in any language. Focusing on an aspect of religious practice that was seen as both extreme and heroic, Benn brings to the surface a number of deep and unresolved tensions within the religion itself and reveals some hitherto unsuspected aspects of the constantly shifting negotiations between the Buddhist community and the state.
Self-immolation in Chinese Buddhism was controversial, and Burning for the Buddha gives weight to the criticism and defense of the practice both within the Buddhist tradition and without. It places self-immolation in the context of Chinese Mahayana thought and explores its multiple religious, social, and historical roles. These new perspectives on an important mode of Buddhist practice as it was experienced and recorded in traditional China contribute to not only the study of Buddhism, but also the study of religion and the body.
Crazy Cloud is the pen name assumed by Ikkyu who was a Zen poet, calligrapher and wandering teacher. The name itself is a pun on the Japanese word denoting the Buddhist monk whose detachment from wordly life has him drifting like a cloud over water. The "Crazy Clouds" of this book are those innovative, nonconformist Zen masters, the wandering seekers and sages often disguised as beggars, nomadic preachers and "madmen", whose singular Zen way has profoundly traditional practices of meditation, daily life and spiritual, social and political attitude in Zen Buddhism. Spanning a period from 8th-century China to 20th-century America, the book portrays the lives and teachings of Zen masters like the fierce Rinzai, the easy-going layman P'ang, the renegade Ikkyu, and the lay monk Nyogen Senzaki all of whose interpretations of even the most radical forms of practice proved too enigmatic and avant garde for their contemporaries, but which remain invaluable guidelines for practitioners in today's Western Zen world of feminists, anarchists, ecologists and spiritual activists. The Crazy Clouds invite us to walk with them on the razor's edge of essential freedom and moral responsibility.
The now classic Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism is the record of two series of lectures given by Trungpa Rinpoche in 1970-71. "First discussed are the various ways in which people involve themselves in spiritual materialism, the many forms of self-deception into which aspirants may fall. After this tour of the sidetracks along the way, the broad outlines of the true spiritual path are discussed. The approach presented is a classical Buddhist one—not in a formal sense, but in the sense of presenting the heart of the Buddhist approach to spirituality. Although the Buddhist way is not theistic, it does not contradict the theistic disciplines. Rather the differences between the ways are a matter of emphasis and method. The basic problems of spiritual materialism are common to all spiritual disciplines.
From Buddhism in Afghanistan to Zen Buddhism, this book offers an in-depth overview of this fascinating religion.In approximately 700 A-to-Z entries, "Encyclopedia of Buddhism" provides easy access to the terms, concepts, personalities, historical events, institutions, and movements that helped shape the history of Buddhism and the way it is practiced today. Although the primary focus of the encyclopedia is clearly on Buddhism in all its forms, this easy-to-use resource also provides introductions to Daoism, Shinto, Confucianism, and other religious practices in East and Southeast Asia.The entries include: Anatman; Asoka; Bodhi tree; Buddhism in the United States; Pema Chodron; Christian-Buddhist relations; Dalai Lama; Daoism in China-Taiwan; Eightfold Path; Falun Gong; Feng shui; Hermann Hesse; Japan Buddhist Federation; Karma; Mandala; Nirvana; Questions of King Milinda; Schools of Chinese Buddhism; Stupa; Tea ceremony; Traditional Buddhist ethics; War and violence; and, Zen Buddhism.
Koans and stories of the deaths of Masters are scattered throughout the sacred texts of the East. This book is remarkable in that it brings those many stories together in one place. By focusing a book on the theme of "death stories", the stories illumine each other, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The stories reveal a wonderfully refreshing way to think about death (and hence, to think about Life!) Many are solemn, but some are quite humorous. In each, we see the presence of someone who embraces all of human experience, who says "Yes!" to all of Life, including death. Many of the Masters give one final gem of wisdom, summarizing their life's teaching, as their last word. The many photographs of the Masters are heart-warming. For anyone ready to think about death and mortality in terms of their spritual meaning, this book is ideal. Ironically, through looking at how the Masters die, we can implicitly understand their teaching on how to be ever more fully alive.
Green Dharma is a clarion call to Buddhist teachers and practitioners to translate the Buddhist wisdom teachings into a viable green lifestyle, which treats both the inner and outer environment with reverence. This book is must-reading for anyone seeking to practice the Buddha Dharma or indeed any other spiritual tradition in a meaningful and responsible manner at a time of worldwide environmental crisis.
Orgyan Chokyi (1675-1729) spent her life in Dolpo, the highest inhabited region of the Nepal Himalayas. Illiterate and expressly forbidden by her master to write her own life story, Orgyan Chokyi received divine inspiration to compose one of the most forthright and engaging spiritual autobiographies of the Tibetan literary tradition. Her life story is the oldest of only four Tibetan autobiographies authored by women. It is also a rare example of writing by a pre-modern Buddhist woman, and thus holds a unique place in Buddhist literature as a whole. Translator Kurtis Schaeffer prefaces the text with an illuminating study of the life and times of Orgyan Chokyi and an extended analysis of the hermitess's view of the relation between gender, suffering, and liberation. Based almost entirely on primary Tibetan documents never before translated, this fascinating book will be of interest to those studying Buddhism, gender and religion, and the culture of the Tibetan world.
In this clearly written undergraduate textbook, Stephen Laumakis explains the origin and development of Buddhist ideas and concepts, focusing on the philosophical ideas and arguments presented and defended by selected thinkers and sutras from various traditions. He starts with a sketch of the Buddha and the Dharma, and highlights the origins of Buddhism in India. He then considers specific details of the Dharma with special attention to Buddhist metaphysics and epistemology, and examines the development of Buddhism in China, Japan, and Tibet, concluding with the ideas of the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh. In each chapter he includes explanations of key terms and teachings, excerpts from primary source materials, and presentations of the arguments for each position. His book will be an invaluable guide for all who are interested in this rich and vibrant philosophy.
Koans are enigmatic spiritual formulas used for religious training in the Zen Buddhist tradition. Arguing that our understanding of the koan tradition has been extremely limited, contributors to this collection examine previously unrecognized factors in the formation of this tradition, and highlight the rich complexity and diversity of koan practice and literature. Those with a serious interest in the history of Zen Buddhism will find the essays collected here an invaluable resource. The koan, often subject of unwarranted mystification, is examined in a series of eleven substantial essays by an international group of scholars.
A third-century Mahayana text, this is used and revered in several traditions. It contains the essential teachings of Mahayana, stressing the doctrine of the transcendental nature of the Buddha, the ideal of the Boddhisattva, and the possibility of universal liberation.
Mae Chee Kaew (1901-1991) was a countrywoman, who lived a simple village life in the northeastern region of Thailand and overcame enormous difficulties in her attempt to leave home and follow the Buddha’s noble path. Blessed with the good fortune to meet the most renowned meditation masters of her era, Mae Chee Kaew took their teachings on meditation to heart, diligently cultivating a mind of clear and spontaneous awareness. Her per- sistence, courage, and intuitive wisdom enabled her to transcend conventional boundaries—both those imposed upon her by the world and those limiting her mind from within—and thereby find release from birth, ageing, sick- ness and death. Mae Chee Kaew is one of the few known female arahants of the modern era and testimony to all beings that regardless of race, gender or class, the Buddha’s goal of supreme enlightenment is still possible.
The publication of Paul Williams’ Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations in 1989 was a milestone in the development of Buddhist Studies, being the first truly comprehensive and authoritative attempt to chart the doctrinal landscape of Mahayana Buddhism in its entirety. Previous scholars like Edward Conze and Etienne Lamotte had set themselves this daunting task, but it had proved beyond them. Williams not only succeeded in finishing the job, but did it so well that his book has remained the primary work on the subject, and the textbook of choice for teachers of university courses on Buddhism, for 20 years. It is still unrivalled. This makes a second edition all the more welcome. Williams has extensively revised and updated the book in the light of the considerable scholarship published in this area since 1989, at the same time enlarging many of his thoughtful discussions of Mahayana Buddhist philosophical issues. The result is a tour de force of breadth and depth combined. I confidently expect that Williams’ richly detailed map of this field will remain for decades to come an indispensable guide to all those who venture into it.
Here are the famous sutras, or sermons, of the Buddha; the gathas, or hymns; the intriguing philosophical puzzles known as koan; and the dharanis, or invocations to expel evil spirits. Included also are the recorded conversations of the great Buddhist monks — intimate dialogues on subjects of momentous importance. In addition to the written selections, all of them translated by Dr. Suzuki, there are reproductions of many Buddhist drawings and paintings, including religious statues found in Zen temples, each with an explanation of its significance, and the great series of allegorical paintings “The Ten Oxherding Pictures."
In this book, Venerable Geshe Gyelsten does indeed help us establish a correct view of emptiness, the ultimate mode of being of all phenomena, which we have to do if we are ever to escape from our beginningless suffering and find the perfect peace and happiness we seek. Basing his explanation of emptiness on The Heart Sutra, the essence of the Buddha's perfection of wisdom teachings, and the emptiness section of a classic Tibetan thought transformation text, Namkha Pel's Mind Training Like the Rays of the Sun, Geshe-la compassionately helps us cut through our inability to see reality and sets us firmly on the path to liberation and enlightenment.
The Mystique of Transmission is a close reading of a late-eighth-century Chan/Zen Buddhist hagiographical work, the Lidai fabao ji ( Record of the Dharma-Jewel Through the Generations), and is its first English translation. The text is the only remaining relic of the little-known Bao Tang Chan school of Sichuan, and combines a sectarian history of Buddhism and Chan in China with an account of the eighth-century Chan master Wuzhu in Sichuan.
Chinese religions scholar Wendi Adamek compares the Lidai fabao ji with other sources from the fourth through eighth centuries, chronicling changes in the doctrines and practices involved in transmitting medieval Chinese Buddhist teachings. While Adamek is concerned with familiar Chan themes like patriarchal genealogies and the ideology of sudden enlightenment, she also highlights topics that make Lidai fabao ji distinctive: formless practice, the inclusion of female practitioners, the influence of Daoist metaphysics, and connections with early Tibetan Buddhism.
The Lidai fabao ji was unearthed in the early twentieth century in the Mogao caves at the Silk Road oasis of Dunhuang in northwestern China. Discovery of the Dunhuang manuscripts has been compared with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, as these documents have radically changed our understanding of medieval China and Buddhism. A crucial volume for students and scholars, The Mystique of Transmission offers a rare glimpse of a lost world and fills an important gap in the timeline of Chinese and Buddhist history.
If you can imagine Zen Existentialism, Not Always So is it. Part instruction manual for Zen practice and part philosophical meditation, Shunryu Suzuki's teachings emphasize being-in-the-world. He does not point toward a singular enlightenment-event as a burst into higher consciousness. Rather, he suggests a more experiential enlightenment that finds meaning in a full awareness of the present. For example: "If you go to the rest room, there is a chance for enlightenment. When you cook, there is a chance for enlightenment. When you clean the floor, there is a chance to attain enlightenment."
The book is comprised of a series of talks from Joko and some questions from her students. Joko is an American and so the message couched in the familiar language of our culture. IT is not like reading Dogen, and is more accessible. These are concise dharma talks. Zen is pretty new to the US, and many of the traditional Zen stories have to do with monks having exotic experiences. It is easy to get caught in these dreams of 13th century Japan. Joko brings us back from our dreams of a far away practice to doing our dishes while the kids yell in our house in Denver. She offers a sober message of being just here. You wont find a heartwarming Hallmark message here. Joko is as direct and harsh as reality. It is no fun to follow the teachings back to our drab old smelly life, so don't look for the book to be a fun escape. It is the opposite -- which is why it is so good.
Two treatises, Fundamentals of the Nyingma School and the History of the Nyingma School, are among the most widely read of all His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche's works. Composed during the years immediately following his arrival in India as a refugee, these treatises were intended to preserve the precise structure of the Nyingma philosophical view within its own historical and cultural context. The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, the first English translation of these treatises, constitutes the most complete work of its type in the West. Beautifully presented, this single-volume edition features illustrations in black and white and in color, plus maps, bibliographic information, and useful annotations. The book includes chronologies and glossaries that elucidate Buddhist doctrine, and provides fascinating insights into the Buddhist history of Tibet.
Om Manipadme Hum, perhaps the most well-known and most widely used of all Buddhist mantras, lies at the heart of the Tibetan system and is cherished by both laymen and lama alike. This book presents a new interpretation of the meaning of Om Manipadme Hum, and includes a detailed, annotated precis of Karandavyuha Sutra, opening up this important work to a wider audience. The earliest textual source is the Karandavyuha Sutra, which describes both the compassion of Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva whole power the mantra invokes, and the mythical tale of the search and discovery of the mantra. Through a detailed analysis of this sutra, Studholme explores the historical and doctrinal forces behind the appearance of Om Manipadme Hum in India at around the middle of the first millennium c.e. He argues that the Karandavyuha Sutra has close affinities to non-Buddhist puranic literature, and that the conception of Avalokitesvara and his six-syllable mantra is influenced by the conception of the Hindu deity Siva and his five-syllable mantra Namah Sivaya. The Karandavyuha Sutra reflects historical situation in which the Buddhist monastic establishment was coming into contact with Buddhist tantric practitioners, themselves influenced by Saivite practitioners.
This book presents annotated English translations of four essays by Dogen. Dogen was the 13th century Japanese Zen master who launched the Soto school of Zen Buddhism in Japan and penned Shobogenzo, a collection of nearly a hundred essays renowned for their power, clarity and poetic beauty. The intent is to provide an accessible introduction to Dogen’s writings for the English reader. This objective governed the selection of essays, the translation policy, and the nature of the commentary.
Gudo Nishijima and Mike (Chodo) Cross's four volume translation of the 13th century Zen master Eihei Dogen's masterpiece marked the first English language translation of the entire 95 chapter version of Shobogenzo - The True Dharma-Eye Treasury (excepting the nearly useless translation by Kosen Nishiyama and John Stevens). By opting for a more "literal" rather than "interpretive" rendition, the translators have realized a monumental achievement by furnishing English readers with a reliable text that is certain to be invaluable for generations. This set is also packed with a wide selection of reference material, or "Aids to the Reader", including a translation of The Heart Sutra, Dogen's Fukanzazengi, and a generous selection of passages from the Lotus Sutra, Glossaries, a variety of tables offering data on everything from The Works of Dogen, to equivalents of Chinese/Japanese/Sanskrit/English. The extensive footnotes, while occasionally offering some overly "interpretive" (read: sectarian), provide readers with a vast amount of supplemental information with lucid explanations concerning cultural context, alternate readings, sources for material quoted in the body of the text, biographical (historical and traditional) information on personages appearing in the text, and much more.
"Socially Engaged Buddhism" is an introduction to the contemporary movement of Buddhists, East and West, who actively engage with the problems of the world - social, political, economic, and environmental - on the basis of Buddhist ideas, values, and spirituality. Sallie B. King, one of North America's foremost experts on the subject, identifies in accessible language the philosophical and ethical thinking behind the movement and examines how key principles such as karma, the Four Noble Truths, interdependence, nonharmfulness, and nonjudgmentalism relate to social engagement.
"If we cannot carry our practice into sleep," Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche writes, "if we lose ourselves every night, what chance do we have to be aware when death comes? Look to your experience in dreams to know how you will fare in death. Look to your experience of sleep to discover whether or not you are truly awake." The yogas of dream and sleep are used in the Bon and Buddhist traditions of Tibet to attain liberation. Included are detailed instructions for the dream yoga including foundational practices done during the day. Dream practices are followed by sleep yoga, also known as the yoga of clear light. It is considered a more advanced practice to stay aware during deep sleep. Most Westerners do not even entertain this as a possibility.
In a life-and-death situation of being sword-tip to sword-tip with the enemy, where should the swordsman put his mind? This is the first question posed in the first of three essays written by a Zen master for the guidance of samurai swordsmen. Among the other questions that arise are the difference between the right mind and the confused mind, what makes life precious, the nature of right-mindedness, the Buddhist paradigm of form and consciousness, and what distinguishes the True Mind. So succinct are the author's insights that these writings have outlasted the dissolution of the samurai class to come down to the present as sources of guidance and inspiration for captains of business and industry, as well as those devoted to the practice of the martial arts in their modern forms. Takuan's meditations on the sword in the essays presented here are classics of Zen thinking.
A fully annotated, critical translation of Maitreyanatha's text, as transmitted to the 4th-century adept Asanga, along with a commentary by Vasubhandu. This text emphasizes the compassion side of Buddhist thought. Inlcudes introduction, bibliography, and detailed index.
Based on the fundamental Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud, a Bon text, the author presents the main points of Dzogchen, its relation to various systems within Bon, and some reflections on Dzogchen in the West. Although the Dzogchen teachings are principally familiar to Westerners through the teachings of the Nyingma school, they also survive in the ancient Bon religion of Tibet. In offering these teachings Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche provides the reader with a vivid and engaging portrait of Bon culture as he interweaves the teachings with his personal life story.
This is a companion volume to The Koan and The Zen Canon, by the same editors. The first volume collected original essays on koan collections, recorded sayings of individual masters, histories of major schools, and compilations of monastic regulations. The second focuses on the early history of Zen in China, providing overview assessments of many of the most important canonical texts that set the Zen tradition in motion throughout East Asia. Zen Classics will follow that historical movement, focusing primarily on texts from Korea and Japan that brought this Buddhist movement to fruition. Although enormously diverse in style and structure all of the texts and genres of texts considered here were fundamental to the unfolding of Zen in East Asia. The range of genres reveals the varieties of Zen practice, from rules of daily practice to sermons and meditation manuals. The all new essays in this volume will be contributed by an international team of distinguished scholars of Buddhism. It is aimed at broad audience including college students, Zen practitioners, and scholars of East Asian history, religion, and culture, as well as specialists in Buddhist history.
This first biography of the British expatriate turned Sixties counterculture guru, philosophical entertainer, and Zen popularizer is highly entertaining. Drawing on extensive interviews with surviving family members and making balanced use of Watts's amusing but selectively incomplete autobiography, Furlong paints a compelling portrait of a complex, brilliant man who wandered through three marriages and several careers while maintaining a lifelong involvement with Asian spirituality. Included are accounts of Watts's early education, his rise to prominence as an author, his experiments with psychedelic drugs, and his end as an exhausted alcoholic. Furlong successfully re-creates a colorful slice of recent American popular history through the life history of one of its famous protagonists.
A very short introduction to seated Zen meditation (zazen).
A respected Zen master in Japan and founder of the San Francisco Zen Center, Shunryu Suzuki has blazed a path in American Buddhism like few others. He is the master who climbs down from the pages of the koan books and answers your questions face to face. If not face to face, you can at least find the answers as recorded in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a transcription of juicy excerpts from his lectures. From diverse topics such as transience of the world, sudden enlightenment, and the nuts and bolts of meditation, Suzuki always returns to the idea of beginner's mind, a recognition that our original nature is our true nature. With beginner's mind, we dedicate ourselves to sincere practice, without the thought of gaining anything special. Day to day life becomes our Zen training, and we discover that "to study Buddhism is to study ourselves." And to know our true selves is to be enlightened.
Zen philosophy teaches that everything from washing dishes to sitting at the computer offers an opportunity to experience the essence of life and attain true wisdom and enlightenment. Zen Sex shows how this philosophy applies no less in the bedroom that in the meditation hall. In the first book to bring together Zen and sex, readers are guided through 'The Seven Ways of the Mind', 'The Seven Ways of the Body', and 'The Seven Ways of the Spirit'. Zen stories and simple steps show both men and women how to create loving relationships, and easy-to-do practices will enable lovers to enhance their sexual and spiritual lives. Philip Roshio Sudo reminds our sex-obsessed age how love-making can become a means to experience the sacredness of life and one another, and how 'Zen Sex is the best sex you can possibly have'.