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One of the Buddha's most central ideas is the importance of transcending “either/or” thinking to avoid the trap of extremist views. In Beyond the Self Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that we can find tranquility by embracing all aspects of life, instead of focusing on what we like and dislike. The book contains Nhat Hanh's original translation of the Sutra on the Middle Way, as well as his commentary on how we can use this teaching to better understand how to navigate our difficulties and find peace of mind. By changing how we see the world, Beyond the Self helps us transform ourselves.

Encouraging readers to be intelligent and skillful in their practice, this new collection by Thich Nhat Hanh outlines the essential steps by which we can all obtain real and lasting happiness. Each day, we perform the tasks of everyday life without thought or awareness — walking, sitting, working, eating, driving, and much more. But Hanh points out that if we remain truly aware of our actions, no matter the task we’re performing, we can stay engaged in our lives and better our outlook through mindfulness. This key practice is the foundation for this accessible, easy-to-understand volume, and an invaluable tool for change for both seasoned Buddhist practitioners and lay readers interested in bettering their lives through full awareness.

In order to understand why people pray, The Energy of Prayer examines the applications and effectiveness of prayer in Buddhist and other spiritual traditions. Arguing that prayer is not about asking some external force for what we need, but about creating an internal environment in which it is easier to get what we want, the book introduces several methods of prayer. These methods are meditative in nature and reenvision prayer as an inclusive, accessible practice that is not tied to a particular religious or spiritual affiliation, but rather that can help anyone create a healthy life through the power of awareness and intention.

This book is written on the notes Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote for at retreat in France with focus on Anatta. The book draws on passages from the Pali Canon and on the writings and talks of the ajaans, or teachers, of the Thai forest tradition, in which Thanissaro Bhikkhu was trained.

In his speeches and writings Gülen envisions a twenty-first century in which we shall witness the birth of a spiritual dynamic that will revitalize long-dormant moral values; an age of tolerance, understanding, and international cooperation that will ultimately lead through intercultural dialogue and a sharing of values, to a single, inclusive civilization. In the field of education, he has spearheaded the establishment of many charitable organizations to work for the welfare of the community, both within and without Turkey.

From the intro: “The concept of Allah in Islam is not written for those who deliberately misrepresent the Islamic faith, for these will never see anything except through their own tinted glasses, and there is no cure for their blindness. Rather, it is written for open-minded and fair non-Muslims who sincerely wish to know how Muslims conceive their Creator.”

Chapter One
1. The Buddha in the Pali Canon
Renunciation, Self-Mortification & Enlightenment
The Buddha’s Mission
Salient Features of the Theravada Concept of the Buddha

Chapter Two
2. Impermanence as a Basic Fact of Existence
Arguments Adduced in the Anattalakkhaõa-sutta
Empirical Observation of Facts
Etymological & Doctrinal Meaning of the Term ‘anicca’
Impermanence: the Nature of all Component Things
Is Consciousness Soul?

Chapter Three
3. The Concept of Dukkha in Early Buddhist Teaching
The Etymological Definition & the Exegesis

Since its appearance in China in the third century, the Lotus Sutra has been regarded as one of the most illustrious scriptures in the Mahayana Buddhist canon. The object of intense veneration among generations of Buddhists in China, Korea, Japan, and other parts of East Asia, it has attracted more commentary than any other Buddhist scripture and has had a profound impact on the great works of Japanese and Chinese literature. Conceived as a drama of colossal proportions, the text takes on new meaning in Burton Watson's translation.

Rinzai Gigen, father of the line or school of Rinzai Zen, died January 10th, 866 A.D. His date of birth is unknown, but it is generally taken that his teaching career was not much longer than a decade. The Rinzai Line is one of the Five Houses of Zen, best thought of as teaching styles that developed within the Zen school, following a great master. It was brought to Japan in the 13th century. The historical development of the Zen School is well documented. A bibliography is appended. Rinzai's "Record" was written by his disciples. It contains his teachings, episodes from his training, and from his teaching career.

Bodhidharma, its first patriarch, reputedly said that Zen Buddhism represents "a special transmission outside the teaching/Without reliance on words and letters." This saying, along with the often perplexing use of language (and silence) by Zen masters, gave rise to the notion that Zen is a "lived religion" based strictly on practice. This collection of previously unpublished essays argues that Zen actually has a rich and varied literary heritage. Among the most significant texts are hagiographic accounts and recorded sayings of individual Zen masters, koan collections and commentaries, and rules for monastic life. This volume offers learned yet accessible studies of some of the most important classical Zen texts, including some that have received little scholarly attention (and many that are accessible only to specialists). Each essay provides historical, literary, and philosophical commentary on a particular text or genre.

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.

The Great Perfection (rDzogs chen in Tibetan) is a philosophical and meditative teaching. Its inception is attributed to Vairocana, one of the first seven Tibetan Buddhist monks ordained at Samye in the eight century A.D. The doctrine is regarded among Buddhists as the core of the teachings adhered to by the Nyingmapa school whilst similarly it is held to be the fundamental teaching among the Bonpos, the non-Buddhist school in Tibet.

This book explores an important concept within the Buddhist Mahayana tradition, bodhicitta. This term appears frequently in Sanskrit literature relating to the spiritual practices of the bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism and has been variously translated as "thought of enlightenment" or "desire of enlightenment". Francis Brassard offers a contextual analysis of bodhicitta based on the presuppositions underlying the spiritual practice of the bodhisattva. Since the understanding that emerges involves how one ought to view the process of spiritual transformation, this work contributes to Buddhist psychology and soteriology in particular, and to comparative religions in general. The book surveys the various interpretations of the concept of bodhicitta, analyzes its possible functions in the context of the spiritual path of the aspirant to enlightenment, and discusses an understanding of bodhicitta in the context of the Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara.

This highly original work explores the concept of self-awareness or self-consciousness in Buddhist thought. Its central thesis is that the Buddhist theory of self-cognition originated in a soteriological discussion of omniscience among the Mahasamghikas, and then evolved into a topic of epistemological inquiry among the Yogacarins. To illustrate this central theme, this book explores a large body of primary sources in Chinese, Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan, most of which are presented to an English readership for the first time. It makes available important resources for the study of the Buddhist philosophy of mind.

This beautifully written work sheds new light on the origins and nature of Mahayana Buddhism with close readings of four well-known texts--the Lotus Sutra, Diamond Sutra, Tathagatagarbha Sutra, and Vimalakirtinirdesa. Treating these sutras as literary works rather than as straightforward philosophic or doctrinal treatises, Alan Cole argues that these writings were carefully sculpted to undermine traditional monastic Buddhism and to gain legitimacy and authority for Mahayana Buddhism as it was veering away from Buddhism's older oral and institutional forms. His sophisticated and sustained analysis of the narrative structures and seductive literary strategies used in these sutras suggests that they were specifically written to encourage devotion to the written word instead of other forms of authority, be they human, institutional, or iconic.

As more and more westerners study and practice Buddhism, reliable modern translations of the Buddha's teachings are increasingly in demand. One of the main sources for knowledge of the Buddhadharma is the four Pali Nikayas or "collections" of his sayings. Written in Pali, an ancient Indian language closely related to Sanskrit, the Nikayas are among the oldest Buddhist texts and consist of more than one and a half million words. This new translation offers a selection of the Buddha's most important sayings, reflecting the full variety of material contained in the Nikayas: the central themes of the Buddha's teaching (his biography, philosophical discourse, instruction on morality, meditation, and the spiritual life) and the range of literary style (myth, dialogue, narrative, short sayings, verse). This edition is the most critically up-to-date and For anyone seeking a more direct encounter with the Buddha's words and teaching, this new translation will prove to be essential reading, rewarding scholars and practitioners alike.

This book demonstrates how popular ritual texts and story narratives have shaped the religious life and culture of the only surviving South Asian Mahayana Buddhist society, the Newars of Kathmandu. It begins with an account of the Newar Buddhist community's history and its place within the religious environment of Nepal and proceeds to build around five popular translations, several of which were known across Asia: the Srngabheri Avadana, the Simhalasarthabahu Avadana, the Tara, the Mahakala Vratas, and the Pancaraksa.

Although it is generally believed that the Manchus controlled the Mongols through their patronage of Tibetan Buddhism, scant attention has been paid to the Mongol view of the Qing imperial project. In contrast to other accounts of Manchu rule, Our Great Qing focuses not only on what images the metropole wished to project into Mongolia, but also on what images the Mongols acknowledged themselves. Rather than accepting the Manchu’s use of Buddhism, Johan Elverskog begins by questioning the static, unhistorical, and hegemonic view of political life implicit in the Buddhist explanation. By stressing instead the fluidity of identity and Buddhist practice as processes continually developing in relation to state formations, this work explores how Qing policies were understood by Mongols and how they came to see themselves as Qing subjects.

The idea of nirvana (Pali: nibbana) is alluring but elusive for non-specialists and specialists alike. Offering his own interpretation of key texts, Steven Collins explains the idea in a new, accessible way - as a concept, as an image (metaphor) and as an element in the process of narrating both linear and cyclical time. Exploring nirvana from literary and philosophical perspectives, he argues that it has a specific role: to provide `the sense of an ending' in both the systematic and the narrative thought of the Pali imaginaire.

Being mindful can help people feel calmer and more fully alive. Mindfulness and Mental Health examines other effects it can also have and presents a significant new model of how mindful awareness may influence different forms of mental suffering. The book assesses current understandings of what mindfulness is, what it leads to, and how and when it can help. It looks at the roots and significance of mindfulness in Buddhist psychology and at the strengths and limitations of recent scientific investigations.

There have been many studies that focus on aspects of the history of Japanese Buddhism. Until now, none have addressed important questions of organization and practice in contemporary Buddhism, questions such as how Japanese Buddhism came to seen as a religion of funeral practices; how Buddhist institutions envision the role of the laity; and how a married clergy has affected life at temples and the image of priests. This volume is the first to address fully contemporary Buddhist life and institutions - topics often overlooked in the conflict between the rhetoric of renunciation and the practices of clerical marriage and householding that characterize much of Buddhism in today’s Japan. Informed by years of field research and his own experiences training to be a Tendai priest, Stephen Covell skillfully refutes this "corruption paradigm" while revealing the many (often contradictory) facets of contemporary institutional Buddhism, or as Covell terms it, Temple Buddhism.

This book explores the Buddhist view of death and its implications for contemporary bioethics. Writing primarily from within the Tibetan tradition, author Karma Lekshe Tsomo discusses Buddhist notions of human consciousness and personal identity and how these figure in the Buddhist view of death. Beliefs about death and enlightenment and states between life and death are also discussed. Tsomo goes on to examine such hot-button topics as cloning, abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia, organ donation, genetic engineering, and stem-cell research within a Buddhist context, introducing new ways of thinking about these highly controversial issues.

Early European histories of India frequently reflected colonialist agendas. The idea that Indian society had declined from an earlier Golden Age helped justify the colonial presence. It was said, for example, that modern Buddhism had fallen away from its original identity as a purely rational philosophy that arose in the mythical 5th-century BCE Golden Age unsullied by the religious and cultural practices that surrounded it. In this book Robert DeCaroli seeks to place the formation of Buddhism in its appropriate social and political contexts.

Enlightenment in Dispute is the first comprehensive study of the revival of Chan Buddhism in seventeenth-century China. Focusing on the evolution of a series of controversies about Chan enlightenment, Jiang Wu describes the process by which Chan reemerged as the most prominent Buddhist establishment of the time. He investigates the development of Chan Buddhism in the seventeenth century, focusing on controversies involving issues such as correct practice and lines of lineage. In this way, he shows how the Chan revival reshaped Chinese Buddhism in late imperial China. Situating these controversies alongside major events of the fateful Ming-Qing transition, Wu shows how the rise and fall of Chan Buddhism was conditioned by social changes in the seventeenth century.

"Early Buddhist Metaphysics" provides a philosophical account of the major doctrinal shift in the history of early Theravada tradition in India: the transition from the earliest stratum of Buddhist thought to the systematic and allegedly scholastic philosophy of the Pali Abhidhamma movement. Entwining comparative philosophy and Buddhology, the author probes the Abhidhamma's metaphysical transition in terms of the Aristotelian tradition and vis-a-vis modern philosophy, and exploits Western philosophical literature from Plato to contemporary texts in the fields of philosophy of mind and cultural criticism.

At home and at work, we struggle every day with hope and fear- living in the past, anxious about the future. Is there an end to suffering? Dharma Moments captures the essence of Buddhist practice to help us thrive in the modern world. With sound advice about its relevance in today's busy world, Dharma Moments places the wisdom of the Dharma at the center of our lives, examining both personal and global challenges. This wide-ranging collection of deeply personal insights and real-life stories reveals the Buddha's most enduring principles.

This book provides a series of inspiring insights into the beliefs of someone who has devoted more than eight decades to the intensive practice of Dharma and who has little time for the many ways in which people fool themselves - while at the same time caring passionately about their development towards an enlightened state.

Chatral Rinpoche, the quintessential "hidden yogi," has been a legend in the Himalayan region for the past seventy years. Although he has never traveled to the West, his amazing story and teachings have gradually been infiltrating the Western Buddhist consciousness since Father Thomas Merton first met him in 1968 and famously remarked that he was "the greatest man I ever met."

This book elaborates and elucidates the concepts and characteristics of China's Buddhist culture with special emphasis on two aspects: (1) the historical evolution of Chinese Buddhism as well as related ancient books, records, basic doctrines, systems and protocols, and famous historical and cultural sites; and (2) the influence of Buddhism on such aspects of Chinese culture as politics, ethics, philosophy, literature and art, and folk customs, as well as the differences and similarities between Buddhism and both Confucianism and Taoism. This book further summarizes the structure, core beliefs, internal and external relations, root of evolution, and peculiarity of China's Buddhist culture system. This book aims to provide an in-depth understanding of the historical status of Buddhism and its important role in the evolution of Chinese culture.

Weber's claim that Buddhism is an otherworldly religion is only partially true. Early sources indicate that the Buddha was sometimes diverted from supramundane interests to dwell on a variety of politically-related matters. The significance of Asoka Maurya as a paradigm for later traditions of Buddhist kingship is also well-attested. However, there has been little scholarly effort to integrate findings on the extent to which Buddhism interacted with the political order in the classical and modern states of Theravada Asia into a wider, comparative study.

Christine Mollier reveals in this volume previously unexplored dimensions of the interaction between Buddhism and Taoism in medieval China. While scholars of Chinese religions have long recognized the mutual influences linking the two traditions, Mollier here brings to light their intense contest for hegemony in the domains of scripture and ritual. Drawing on a far-reaching investigation of canonical texts, together with manuscript sources from Dunhuang and the monastic libraries of Japan--many of them studied here for the first time--she demonstrates the competition and complementarity of the two great Chinese religions in their quest to address personal and collective fears of diverse ills, including sorcery, famine, and untimely death.

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.

We spend our lives protecting an elusive self - but does the self actually exist? Drawing on literature from Western philosophy, neuroscience and Buddhism (interpreted), the author argues that there is no self. The self - as unified owner and thinker of thoughts - is an illusion created by two tiers. A tier of naturally unified consciousness (notably absent in standard bundle-theory accounts) merges with a tier of desire-driven thoughts and emotions to yield the impression of a self. So while the self, if real, would think up the thoughts, the thoughts, in reality, think up the self.

Are there Buddhist conceptions of the unconscious? If so, are they more Freudian, Jungian, or something else? If not, can Buddhist conceptions be reconciled with the Freudian, Jungian, or other models. These are some of the questions that have motivated modern scholarship to approach alayavijnan, the storehouse consciousness, formulated in Yogacara Buddhism as a subliminal reservoir of tendencies, habits, and future possibilities.

What is the subtle relationship between mind and body? What can today's scientists learn about this relationship from masters of Buddhist thought? Is it possible that by combining Western and Eastern approaches, we can reach a new understanding of the nature of the mind, the human potential for growth, the possibilities for mental and physical health? MindScience explores these and other questions as it documents the beginning of an historic dialogue between modern science and Buddhism, based on a day-long Harvard Medical School symposium in which The Harvard Mind Science Symposium brought together the Dalai Lama and authorities from the fields of psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, and education. Here, they examine myriad questions concerning the nature of the mind and its relationship to the body.

The beginning of Indian Philosophy takes us very far back to about the middle of the second millennium before Christ.The speculative activity begun so early was continued till a century or two ago, so that the history that is narrated in the following pages cover a period of over thirty centuries. During this long period Indian thought developed practically unaffected by outside influence and it has evolved several systems of philosophy. The present work is based upon the lectures by Prof. Hiriyanna.

Written by one of the world's top scholars in the field of Pali Buddhism, this new and updated edition of How Buddhism Began, discusses various important doctrines and themes in early Buddhism. It takes 'early Buddhism' to be that reflected in the Pali canon, and to some extent assumes that these doctrines reflect the teachings of the Buddha himself.

Of the many translators who carried the Buddhist doctrine to China, Paramärtha, a missionary-monk who arrived in China in A.D. 546, ranks as the translator par excellence of the sixth century. Introducing philosophical ideas that would subsequently excite the Chinese imagination to develop the great schools of Sui and Tang Buddhism, Paramartha's translations are almost exclusively of Yogacara Buddhist texts on the nature of the mind and consciousness.

Report for 1886 (T.W. Rhys Davids);
Någårjuna's "Friendly Epistle" (tr. H. Wenzel);
The Anagata-vaμsa (ed. Prof. Minayeff);
The Gandha-vaμsa (ed. Prof. Minayeff);
Index to Verses in the Divyåvadåna (H. Wenzel);
Notes and Queries (Dr. Morris); List of members of the Society; Accounts; Works
already published.

Report for 1884 (T.W. Rhys Davids);
Abhidhammattha-saˆgaha;
Tela-ka†åha-gåthå (ed. E.R. Gooneratne);
Notes and Queries (Dr. Morris);
Då†hå-vaμsa;
Pañca-gat¥-d¥påna (ed. Leon Feer);
List of members of the Society; Balance sheet, etc.; Works published and in progress.

Report of the Society for 1882 (T.W. Rhys Davids);
Lists of Members;
Letters from Theras in Ceylon;
List of Mss. in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (O. Frankfurter);
List of Mss. in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris (Leon Feer);
List of Mss. in the Oriental Library, Kandy (H.C.P. Bell);
List of Mss. in the India Office Library (H. Oldenberg).

The Shobogenzo is a collection of writings by the First Japanese Soto Zen Buddhist Ancestor, Great Master Eihei Dogen, based primarily on formal Dharma talks which he gave to his disciples at various times between 1233 and his death twenty years later at age fifty-three.

From the preface: "In my Introduction to Zen Buddhism (published 1934), an outline of Zen teaching is sketched, and in The Training of the Zen Monk (1934) a description of the Meditation Hall and its life is given. To complete a triptych the present Manual has been compiled. The object is to inform the reader of the various literary materials relating to the monastery life.

What Is Meditation? explains the Buddhist worldview and the age-old practice it perfected to unfold our innate qualities of compassion, self-acceptance, and inner peace. Rob Nairn gives step-by-step instructions for beginning your own meditation practice, including three simple exercises—"Bare Attention," "Remaining in the Present," and "Meditation Using Sound"—to help get you started.

Tradition places Chih-i as the third in the line of patriarchs in the T'ien-t'ai school, but in fact he founded the school and furnished most of its distinctive teachings himself, including (1) the T'ien-t'ai method of organizing and classifying scriptures and teachings known as p'an-chiao which gave the Lotus Sūtra the honoured place as the supreme scripture (see P'an-chiao); (2) the Three Truths that overcame the disconnection between the traditional Two Truths of Madhyamaka teaching; (3) the idea that the transcendent principle (Chinese, li) and phenomenal reality (Chinese, shih) mutuall

From the text: "When discussing on Chinese mind, Inada K. Kenneth agrees with Fung Yu-lan’s notion that the Chinese mind is one endowed with “a continental spirit” on which the unique Chinese culture or civilization was created (K. Inada, 1997, p.7). The term "continental" depicts a huge land mass, a vastness, an illimitable nature, and the term "spirit" is modified with the same nature, a spirit that is huge, large, extensive, holistic, totalistic and a grand unity.