Selfless Persons: Imagery and Thought in Theravada Buddhism

ISBN-13: 9780521397261 / Angielski / Miękka / 1990 / 336 str.

Steven Collins

Opis

This book explains the Buddhist doctrine of annatta ("not-self"), which denies the existence of any self, soul, or enduring essence in man. The author relates this doctrine to its cultural and historical context, particularly to its Brahman background. He shows how the Theravada Buddhist tradition has constructed a philosophical and psychological account of personal identity on the apparently impossible basis of the denial of self. Although the emphasis of the book is firmly philosophical, Dr. Collins makes use of a number of academic disciplines, particularly those of anthropology, linguistics, sociology, and comparative religion, in an attempt to discover the "deep structure" of Buddhist culture and imagination, and to make these doctrines comprehensible in terms of the western history of ideas.

Recenzje

'In Selfless Persons, Steven Collins has produced a rare work; a book that, on the one hand, renders the fundamental tenets of Theravada Buddhism not only intelligible but interesting to the uninitiated, and on the other, is unlikely to disappoint the academic specialist, since Collins' approach lacks neither originality nor sound research. This is a valuable addition to the corpus of Buddhist commentary which the scholar of Buddhism or religious history would be unwise to ignore.' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

Spis treści

Preface; Introduction; Part I. The Cultural and Social Setting of Buddhist Thought: 1. The origins of rebirth; 2. Varieties of Buddhist discourse; Part II. The Doctrine of Not-Slef: 3. The denial of self as 'right view'; 4. Views, attachment, and 'emptiness'; Part III. Personality and Rebirth: 5. The individual of 'conventional truth'; 6. 'Neither the same nor different'; Part IV. Continuity: 7. Conditioning and consciousness; 8. Momentariness and the bhavanga-mind; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Glossary and index of Pali and Sanskrit terms; General index.