Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Buddhism - Rituals & Practice

Buddhist monks perform funeral rituals rooted in the embodied practices of Khmer rice farmers and the...

In 1952 a twenty-six-year-old man living in a village in Central Burma was possessed by weikza--humans with extraordinary powers, including immortality. Key figures in Burmese Buddhism, weikza do not die but live on in an invisible realm. From there they re-enter the world through possession to care for people's temporal and spiritual needs while protecting and propagating Buddhism. A cult quickly formed around the young peasant, the chosen medium for four weikza ranging in age from 150 to 1000 years. In addition, these weikza appeared regularly in the flesh. The Immortals plunges us into...

In 1952 a twenty-six-year-old man living in a village in Central Burma was possessed by weikza--humans with extraordinary powers, including immortality. Key figures in Burmese Buddhism, weikza do not die but live on in an invisible realm. From there they re-enter the world through possession to care for people's temporal and spiritual needs while protecting and propagating Buddhism. A cult quickly formed around the young peasant, the chosen medium for four weikza ranging in age from 150 to 1000 years. In addition, these weikza appeared regularly in the flesh. The Immortals plunges us into...

Cyber Zen ethnographically explores Buddhist practices in the online virtual world of Second Life. Does typing at a keyboard and moving avatars around the screen, however, count as real Buddhism? If authentic practices must mimic the actual world, then Second Life Buddhism does not. In fact, a critical investigation reveals that online Buddhist practices have at best only a family resemblance to canonical Asian traditions and owe much of their methods to the late twentieth-century field of cybernetics. If, however, they are judged existentially, by how they enable users to respond...

Cyber Zen ethnographically explores Buddhist practices in the online virtual world of Second Life. Does typing at a keyboard and moving avatars around the screen, however, count as real Buddhism? If authentic practices must mimic the actual world, then Second Life Buddhism does not. In fact, a critical investigation reveals that online Buddhist practices have at best only a family resemblance to canonical Asian traditions and owe much of their methods to the late twentieth-century field of cybernetics. If, however, they are judged existentially, by how they enable users to respond...

Behind the stereotype of a solitary meditator closing his eyes to the world, meditation always takes place in close interaction with the surrounding culture. Meditation and Culture: The Interplay of Practice and Context explores cases in which the relation between meditative practice and cultural context is particularly complex.

The internationally-renowned contributors discuss practices that travel from one culture to another, or are surrounded by competing cultures. They explore cultures that bring together competing practices, or that are themselves mosaics of elements of...

In Living Buddhism, Julia Cassaniti explores Buddhist ideas of impermanence, nonattachment, and intention as they are translated into everyday practice in contemporary Thailand. Although most lay people find these philosophical concepts difficult to grasp, Cassaniti shows that people do in fact make an effort to comprehend them and integrate them as guides for their everyday lives. In doing so, she makes a convincing case that complex philosophical concepts are not the sole property of religious specialists and that ordinary lay Buddhists find in them a means for dealing with...

In Living Buddhism, Julia Cassaniti explores Buddhist ideas of impermanence, nonattachment, and intention as they are translated into everyday practice in contemporary Thailand. Although most lay people find these philosophical concepts difficult to grasp, Cassaniti shows that people do in fact make an effort to comprehend them and integrate them as guides for their everyday lives. In doing so, she makes a convincing case that complex philosophical concepts are not the sole property of religious specialists and that ordinary lay Buddhists find in them a means for dealing with...

The greatest athletes in the world today are not the Olympic champions or the stars of professional sports, but the "marathon monks" of Japan's sacred Mount Hiei. Over a seven-year training period, these "running buddhas" figuratively circle the globe on foot. During one incredible 100-day stretch, they cover 52.5 miles daily--twice the length of an Olympic marathon. And the prize they seek to capture is the greatest thing a human being can achieve: enlightenment in the here and now.

This book is about these amazing men, the magic mountain on which they train, and the philosophy of...

Since Trungpa Rinpoche's death in 1987, many people have talked about the need for a book of photographs of his life. Now, finally, it's here: a book of 240 black-and-white photographs taken from 1972 to 1982 at Karme-Choling, Vermont, and Boulder, Colorado. Thank you, Bob Of the many great photographic images of Trungpa Rinpoche, Del Tredici's black-and-whites stand out. Some are iconic shots that we all know and love. Others have rarely been seen. TRUNGPA PHOTOGRAPHS is a fulsome collation of Del Tredici's work, a feast for the eyes, for Trungpa's students, and for the world at large....

This book Great Treasury of Merit, is an extensive commentary to the profound traditional Guru yoga practice, Offering to the Spiritual Guide, an indispensable practice for those wishing to begin or deepen their Buddhist meditation practice in general or their Tantric practice in particular.