Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Buddhism - History

In the years after World War II, Westerners and Japanese alike elevated Zen to the quintessence of spirituality in Japan. Pursuing the sources of Zen as a Japanese ideal, Shoji Yamada uncovers the surprising role of two cultural touchstones: Eugen Herrigel s "Zen in the Art of Archery" and the Ryoanji dry-landscape rock garden. Yamada shows how both became facile conduits for exporting and importing Japanese culture.

First published in German in 1948 and translated into Japanese in 1956, Herrigel s book popularized ideas of Zen both in the West and in Japan. Yamada traces the prewar...

In Search of the Christian Buddha is set against the backdrop of the trade along the Silk Road, the Christian settlement of Palestine, the spread of Islam, and the Crusades. It traces the path of the Buddha's tale from India and shows how it...

Karma has become a household word in the modern world, where it is associated with the belief in rebirth determined by one's deeds in earlier lives. This belief was and is widespread in the Indian subcontinent as is the word "karma" itself. In lucid and accessible prose, this book presents karma in its historical, cultural, and religious context.

Initially, karma manifested itself in a number of religious movements--most notably Jainism and Buddhism--and was subsequently absorbed into Brahmanism in spite of opposition until the end of the first millennium C.E. Philosophers of all...

The anthology begins with selections that...

Plotting the Prince traces the development of conceptual maps of the world created through the telling of stories about Prince Shotoku (573?-622?), an eminent statesman who is credited with founding Buddhism in Japan. It analyzes his place in the sacred landscape and the material relics of the cult of personality dedicated to him, focusing on the art created from the tenth to fourteenth centuries. The book asks not only who Shotoku was, but also how images of his life served the needs of devotees in early medieval Japan.

Even today Shotoku evokes images of a half-real, half-mythical...

Each generation of believers faces numerous challenges to the mission of the church.

While the church does not have control over the large issues of each generation, its response to them is a matter of Kingdom stewardship.

J. D. Payne gets to the heart of the twelve most important problems we face today. In Pressure Points J. D. helps us see how we can prevent these global issues from pushing the church off its biblical moorings, so we can absorb the pressures while responding in a way that remains faithful to the church's calling...