We have come to admire Buddhism for being profound but accessible, as much a lifestyle as a religion. The credit for creating Buddhism goes to the Buddha, a figure widely respected across the Western world for his philosophical insight, his teachings of nonviolence, and his practice of meditation. But who was this Buddha, and how did he become the Buddha we know and love today? Leading historian of Buddhism Donald S. Lopez Jr. tells the story of how various idols carved in stone--variously named Beddou, Codam, Xaca, and Fo--became the man of flesh and blood that we know simply as the Buddha....
We have come to admire Buddhism for being profound but accessible, as much a lifestyle as a religion. The credit for creating Buddhism goes to the Bud...
"Religious Bodies Politic" examines the complex relationship between transnational religion and politics through the lens of one cosmopolitan community in Siberia: Buryats, who live in a semiautonomous republic within Russia with a large Buddhist population. Looking at religious transformation among Buryats across changing political economies, Anya Bernstein argues that under conditions of rapid social change such as those that accompanied the Russian Revolution, the Cold War, and the fall of the Soviet Union Buryats have used Buddhist body politics to articulate their relationship not only...
"Religious Bodies Politic" examines the complex relationship between transnational religion and politics through the lens of one cosmopolitan communit...
Insight meditation, which claims to offer practitioners a chance to escape all suffering by perceiving the true nature of reality, is one of the most popular forms of meditation today. The Theravada Buddhist cultures of South and Southeast Asia often see it as the Buddha s most important gift to humanity. In the first book to examine how this practice came to play such a dominant and relatively recent role in Buddhism, Erik Braun takes readers to Burma, revealing that Burmese Buddhists in the colonial period were pioneers in making insight meditation indispensable to modern Buddhism....
Insight meditation, which claims to offer practitioners a chance to escape all suffering by perceiving the true nature of reality, is one of the most ...
In 1941, philosopher and poet Gendun Chopel (1903 51) sent a large manuscript by ship, train, and yak across mountains and deserts to his homeland in the northeastern corner of Tibet. He would follow it five years later, returning to his native land after twelve years in India and Sri Lanka. But he did not receive the welcome he imagined: he was arrested by the government of the regent of the young Dalai Lama on trumped-up charges of treason. He emerged from prison three years later a broken man and died soon after.Gendun Chopel was a prolific writer during his short life. Yet he considered...
In 1941, philosopher and poet Gendun Chopel (1903 51) sent a large manuscript by ship, train, and yak across mountains and deserts to his homeland in ...
The most influential work on Buddhism to be published in the nineteenth century, Introduction a l'histoire du Buddhisme indien, by the great French scholar of Sanskrit Eugene Burnouf, set the course for the academic study of Buddhism--and Indian Buddhism in particular--for the next hundred years. First published in 1844, the masterwork was read by some of the most important thinkers of the time, including Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in Germany and Emerson and Thoreau in America. Katia Buffetrille and Donald S. Lopez Jr.'s expert English translation, Introduction to the History...
The most influential work on Buddhism to be published in the nineteenth century, Introduction a l'histoire du Buddhisme indien, by the great...
Since its arrival in Japan in the sixth century, Buddhism has played a central role in Japanese culture. But the historical figure of the Buddha, the prince of ancient Indian descent who abandoned his wealth and power to become an awakened being, has repeatedly disappeared and reappeared, emerging each time in a different form and to different ends. A Storied Sage traces this transformation of concepts of the Buddha, from Japan's ancient period in the eighth century to the end of the Meiji period in the early twentieth century. Micah L. Auerback follows the changing fortune of the...
Since its arrival in Japan in the sixth century, Buddhism has played a central role in Japanese culture. But the historical figure of the Buddha, the ...
The Passion Book is the most famous work of erotica in the vast literature of Tibetan Buddhism, written by the legendary scholar and poet Gendun Chopel (19031951).
The Passion Book is the most famous work of erotica in the vast literature of Tibetan Buddhism, written by the legendary scholar and poet Gendun Chope...
