Esoteric Theravada

Esoteric Theravada PDF Author: Kate Crosby
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 1611807948
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
A groundbreaking exploration of a practice tradition that was nearly lost to history. Theravada Buddhism, often understood as the school that most carefully preserved the practices taught by the Buddha, has undergone tremendous change over time. Prior to Western colonialism in Asia—which brought Western and modernist intellectual concerns, such as the separation of science and religion, to bear on Buddhism—there existed a tradition of embodied, esoteric, and culturally regional Theravada meditation practices. This once-dominant traditional meditation system, known as borān kammatthāna, is related to—yet remarkably distinct from—Vipassana and other Buddhist and secular mindfulness practices that would become the hallmark of Theravada Buddhism in the twentieth century. Drawing on a quarter century of research, scholar Kate Crosby offers the first holistic discussion of borān kammatthāna, illuminating the historical events and cultural processes by which the practice has been marginalized in the modern era.

Esoteric Theravada

Esoteric Theravada PDF Author: Kate Crosby
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 1611807948
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book

Book Description
A groundbreaking exploration of a practice tradition that was nearly lost to history. Theravada Buddhism, often understood as the school that most carefully preserved the practices taught by the Buddha, has undergone tremendous change over time. Prior to Western colonialism in Asia—which brought Western and modernist intellectual concerns, such as the separation of science and religion, to bear on Buddhism—there existed a tradition of embodied, esoteric, and culturally regional Theravada meditation practices. This once-dominant traditional meditation system, known as borān kammatthāna, is related to—yet remarkably distinct from—Vipassana and other Buddhist and secular mindfulness practices that would become the hallmark of Theravada Buddhism in the twentieth century. Drawing on a quarter century of research, scholar Kate Crosby offers the first holistic discussion of borān kammatthāna, illuminating the historical events and cultural processes by which the practice has been marginalized in the modern era.

The Practices of Esoteric Theravada

The Practices of Esoteric Theravada PDF Author: Kate Crosby
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781611808599
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
"Discover the esoteric branch of Theravada meditation in the first English-language exploration of a practice tradition nearly lost to history. In this groundbreaking book, scholar Kate Crosby illuminates the once-dominant traditional Theravada meditation system known as boråan kamahåana. Theravadan Buddhism, though often understood as the school that most carefully preserved the practices originally taught by the Buddha, has in fact undergone tremendous change over time. Prior to Western concerns with the separation of science and religion that influenced Asian Buddhist modernizers, there existed a tradition of embodied, esoteric, and culturally regional Theravadan meditation practices. These meditation systems differ radically from the reformed, text-based meditations that are now taught in Theravada Buddhism, including Vipassana and Insight Meditation, as well as Buddhist and secular mindfulness. Drawing on a quarter century of research, Crosby offers the first holistic discussion of boråan kamahåana in the context of historical events and cultural processes by which the practice has been marginalized in the modern era. Readers of Esoteric Theravada will never see Theravada Buddhism in the same light again"--

Shingon

Shingon PDF Author: Taikō Yamasaki
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description


The Essence of Chan

The Essence of Chan PDF Author: Guo Gu
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834843080
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
Clear and illuminating commentary on one of Bodhidharma’s most important texts—designed to help Chan practitioners apply timeless and essential advice to their practice Legend has it that more than a thousand years ago an Indian Buddhist monk named Bodhidharma arrived in China. His approach to teaching was unlike that of any of the Buddhist missionaries who had come to China before him. He confounded the emperor with cryptic dialogues, traveled the country, lived in a cave in the mountains, and eventually paved the way for a unique and illuminating approach to Buddhist teachings that would later spread across the whole of East Asia in the form of Chan—later to be known as Seon in Korean, Thien in Vietnamese, and Zen in Japanese. This book, a translation and commentary on one of Bodhidharma’s most important texts, explores Bodhidharma’s revolutionary teachings in English. Guo Gu weaves his commentary through modern and relatable contexts, showing that this centuries-old wisdom is just as crucial for life now as it was when it first came to be. Masterfully translated and accompanied by helpful insights to supplement daily practice, The Essence of Chan is the perfect guide for those new to Chan, those returning, or those who have been practicing for years.

Champions of Buddhism

Champions of Buddhism PDF Author: Kate Crosby
Publisher: NUS Press
ISBN: 9971697807
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Hidden at the margins of Burmese Buddhism and culture, the cults of the weikza shape Burmese culture by bringing together practices of supernatural power and a mission to protect Buddhism. This exciting new research on an often hidden aspect of Burmese religion places weikza in relation to the Vipassana insight meditation movement and conventional Buddhist practices, as well as the contemporary rise of Buddhist fundamentalism. Featuring research based on fieldwork only possible in recent years, paired with reflective essays by senior Buddhist studies scholars, this book situates the weikza cult in relation to broader Buddhist and Southeast Asian contexts, offering interpretations and investigations as rich and diverse as the Burmese expressions of the weikza cults themselves. Champions of Buddhism opens the field to new questions, new problems, and new connections with the study of religion and Southeast Asia in general.

Buddhist Practice on Western Ground

Buddhist Practice on Western Ground PDF Author: Harvey Aronson
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 9780834823525
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
This is the first book to offer Buddhist meditators a comprehensive and sympathetic examination of the differences between Asian and Western cultural and spiritual values. Harvey B. Aronson presents a constructive and practical assessment of common conflicts experienced by Westerners who look to Eastern spiritual traditions for guidance and support—and find themselves confused or disappointed. Issues addressed include: • Our cultural belief that anger should not be suppressed versus the Buddhist teaching to counter anger and hatred • Our psychotherapists' advice that attachment is the basis for healthy personal development and supportive relationships versus the Buddhist condemnation of attachments as the source of suffering • Our culture's emphasis on individuality versus the Asian emphasis on interdependence and fulfillment of duties, and the Buddhist teachings on no-self, or egolessness

The Life of Buddhism

The Life of Buddhism PDF Author: Frank Reynolds
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520223370
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Bringing together 15 essays by international Buddhist scholars, this book offers a distinctive portrayal of the life of Buddhism. The contributors focus on a range of religious practices across the Buddhist world, from New York to Tibet.

Esoteric Buddhism

Esoteric Buddhism PDF Author: Alfred Percy Sinnett
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Buddha (The concept)
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
This theory recognizes the evolution of the soul as a process that is quite continuous in itself, though carried out partly through the instrumentality of a great series of dissociated forms. Putting aside for the moment of profound metaphysics of the theory which trace the principle of life from the original first cause of the cosmos, we find the soul as an entity emerging from the animal kingdom, and passing into the earliest human forms, without being at that time ripe for the higher intellectual life with which the present state of humanity renders us familiar. But through successive incarnations in forms whose physical improvement, under the Darwinian law, is constantly fitting them to be its habitation at each return to objective life, it gradually gathers that enormous range of experience which is summed up in its higher development. In the intervals between its physical incarnations it prolongs and works out, and finally exhausts or transmutes into so much abstract development, the personal experiences of each life. This is the clue to the true explanation of that apparent difficulty which besets the cruder form of the theory of reincarnation which independent speculation has sometimes thrown out. Each man is unconscious of having led previous lives, therefore he contends that subsequent lives can afford him no compensation for this one. He overlooks the enormous importance of the intervening spiritual condition, in which he by no means forgets the personal adventures and emotions he has just passed through, and in the course of which he distills these into so much cosmic progress. In the following pages the elucidation of this profoundly interesting mystery is attempted, and it will be seen that the view of events now afforded us is not only a solution of the problems of life and death, but of many very perplexing experiences on the borderland between those conditions - or rather between physical and spiritual life - which have engaged attention and speculation so widely of recent years in most civilized countries.

The Lamp for Integrating the Practices (Caryamelapakapradipa)

The Lamp for Integrating the Practices (Caryamelapakapradipa) PDF Author: Aryadeva
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1949163199
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
An essential tantric text on the practice of advanced yoga in tantric Buddhism. The Lamp for Integrating the Practices (Caryamelapakapradipa) is a systematic and comprehensive exposition of the most advanced yogas of the Esoteric Community Tantra (Guhyasamaja-tantra) as espoused by the Noble (Nagarjuna) tradition, an influential school of interpretation within the Mahayoga traditions of Indian Buddhist mysticism. Equal in authority to Nagarjuna's famous Five Stages (Pañcakrama), Aryadeva’s work is perhaps the earliest prose example of the “stages of the mantra path” genre in Sanskrit. Its systematic path exerted immense influence on later Indian and Tibetan traditions, and it is widely cited by masters from all four major lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. This volume presents the Lamp in a thoroughly annotated English translation. It includes an introductory study discussing the history of the Guhyasamaja and its exegetical traditions, surveying the scriptural and commentarial sources of the Nagarjuna tradition, and analyzing in detail the contents of the Lamp. The book also features a detailed, trilingual glossary. Simultaneously presented online for scholars are a version of its Sanskrit original, critically edited from recently identified manuscripts, and a critical edition of the eleventh-century Tibetan translation by Rinchen Zangpo, including notes on readings found in “lost,” alternative translations.

Inner Christianity

Inner Christianity PDF Author: Richard Smoley
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 1570628106
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
An eye-opening introduction to the complex world of esoteric Christianity—perfect for the general reader This guide to mystical and esoteric Christianity speaks from a nonsectarian point of view, unearthing insights from the whole of the Christian tradition, orthodox and heretical, famous and obscure. The esoteric tradition has traditionally searched for meanings that would yield a deeper inner knowledge of the divine. While traditional Christianity draws a timeline from Adam's Fall to the Day of Judgment, the esoteric often sees time as folding in on itself, bringing every point to the here and now. While the Church fought bitterly over dogma, the esoteric borrowed freely from other traditions—Kabbalah, astrology, and alchemy—in their search for metaphors of inner truth. Rather than basing his book around exponents of esoteric doctrine, scholar Richard Smoley concentrates on the questions that are of interest to every searching Christian. How can one attain direct spiritual experience? What does "the Fall" really tell us about coming to terms with the world we live in? Can we find salvation in everyday life? How can we ascend, spiritually, through the various levels of existence? What was Christ's true message to humankind? From the Gospel of Thomas to A Course in Miracles, from the Jesus Prayer to alchemy and Tarot, from Origen to Dante to Jung, Richard Smoley sheds the light of an alternative Christianity on these issues and more.