GLOSSARY OF BUDDHISM

GLOSSARY OF BUDDHISM
Author: Various Authors
Publisher: Fivestar
Total Pages: 994
Release: 2024-05-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

This is a revised and expanded edition of The Seeker’s Glossary of Buddhism, which first appeared a year ago. The text is a compendium of excerpts and quotations from some 350 works by monks, nuns, professors, scholars and other laypersons from nine different countries, in their own words or in translation. The editors have merely organized the material, adding a few connecting thoughts of their own for ease in reading.

Buddhism in Practice

Buddhism in Practice
Author: Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 481
Release: 2015-11-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1400880076

This anthology, first published in 1995, illustrates the vast scope of Buddhist practice in Asia, past and present. Re-released now in a slimmer but still extensive edition, Buddhism in Practice presents a selection of thirty-five translated texts--each preceded by a substantial introduction by its translator. These unusual sources provides the reader with a sense of the remarkable diversity of the practices of persons who over the course of 2,500 years have been identified, by themselves or by others, as Buddhists. Demonstrating the many continuities among the practices of Buddhist cultures widely separated by both history and geography, Buddhism in Practice continues to provide an ideal introduction to Buddhism and a source of new insights for scholars.

Living Buddha, Living Christ 20th Anniversary Edition

Living Buddha, Living Christ 20th Anniversary Edition
Author: Thich Nhat Hanh
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2007-03-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1101007214

"[Thich Nhat Hanh] shows us the connection between personal, inner peace and peace on earth." --His Holiness The Dalai Lama Nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for a Nobel Peace Prize, Thich Nhat Hanh is one of today’s leading sources of wisdom, peace, compassion and comfort. The 20th anniversary edition of the classic text, updated, revised, and featuring a Mindful Living Journal. Buddha and Christ, perhaps the two most pivotal figures in the history of humankind, each left behind a legacy of teachings and practices that have shaped the lives of billions of people over two millennia. If they were to meet on the road today, what would each think of the other's spiritual views and practices? Thich Nhat Hanh has been part of a decades-long dialogue between two great contemplatice traditions, and brings to Christianity an appreciation of its beauty that could be conveyed only by an outsider. IN lucid, meditative prose, he explores the crossroads of compassion and holiness at which the two traditions meet, and he reawakens our understanding of both. "On the altar in my hermitage," he says, "are images of Buddha and Jesus, and I touch both of them as my spiritual ancestors."

Living Buddha, Living Christ

Living Buddha, Living Christ
Author: Thich Nhat Hanh
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2007-03-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781594482397

"[Thich Nhat Hanh] shows us the connection between personal, inner peace and peace on earth." --His Holiness The Dalai Lama Nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for a Nobel Peace Prize, Thich Nhat Hanh is one of today’s leading sources of wisdom, peace, compassion and comfort. The 20th anniversary edition of the classic text, updated, revised, and featuring a Mindful Living Journal. Buddha and Christ, perhaps the two most pivotal figures in the history of humankind, each left behind a legacy of teachings and practices that have shaped the lives of billions of people over two millennia. If they were to meet on the road today, what would each think of the other's spiritual views and practices? Thich Nhat Hanh has been part of a decades-long dialogue between two great contemplatice traditions, and brings to Christianity an appreciation of its beauty that could be conveyed only by an outsider. IN lucid, meditative prose, he explores the crossroads of compassion and holiness at which the two traditions meet, and he reawakens our understanding of both. "On the altar in my hermitage," he says, "are images of Buddha and Jesus, and I touch both of them as my spiritual ancestors."

Shinran's Kyogyoshinsho

Shinran's Kyogyoshinsho
Author: Shinran
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2012-10-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199863105

This annotated translation by Daisetz Suzuki (1870-1966) comprises the first four of six chapters of the Kyogyoshinsho, the definitive doctrinal work of Shinran (1173-1262). Shinran founded the Jodo Shin sect of Pure Land Buddhism, now the largest religious organization in Japan. Writing in Classical Chinese, Shinran began this, his magnum opus, while in exile and spent the better part of thirty years after his return to Kyoto revising the text. Although unfinished, Suzuki's translation conveys the text's core religious message, showing how Shinran offered a new understanding of faith through studying teachings before engaging in praxis, rather than the more common and far more limited view of faith in Buddhism as relevant to one just beginning their pursuit of Buddhist truth. Although Suzuki is best known for his scholarship on Zen Buddhism, he took a lifelong interest in Pure Land Buddhism. Suzuki's own religious perspective is evident in his translation of gyo as ''True Living'' rather than the expected ''Practice,'' and of sho as ''True Realizing of the Pure Land'' rather than the expected ''Enlightenment'' or ''Confirmation.'' This book contains the second edition of Suzuki's translation. It includes a number of corrections to the original 1973 edition, long out of print, as well as Suzuki's unfinished preface in its original form for the first time.

Imaging Wisdom

Imaging Wisdom
Author: Jacob N. Kinnard
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2001
Genre: Buddhism in art
ISBN: 9788120817937

On its broadest level, this book contributes to an ongoing expansion of both the history of religions and Buddhist studies by focusing on what is a far too frequently ignored aspect of religious experience: visual images. This is a study that is intended to speak to, and be relevant for, not only those interested specifically in Buddhism, but also scholars and students in the field of religion at large who are interested in the dialectical ways abstract, abstruse and even rarified textual discourses interact with devotional practices 'on the ground'. The specific focus of this book is on the Buddhist visual practices surrounding the visual representation of a single, central concept, prajna, or wisdom, in medieval north India. Prajna, however, was not only an intellectual state and spiritual goal to which to aspire. Rather, wisdom also becomes a quality to be visually represented and ritually responded to, and even an active presence to be venerated in much the same manner as the Buddha himself. This book explores the ways in which the production and use of artistic images involving prajna constituted a central, if not the central, component of Buddhist religious practice in Medieval India.

Embodying the Dharma

Embodying the Dharma
Author: David Germano
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0791484408

Embodying the Dharma explores the centrality of relic veneration in Asian Buddhist cultures. Long disregarded by Western scholars as a superstitious practice reflecting the popularization of "original" Buddhism, relic veneration has emerged as a topic of vital interest in the last two decades with the increased attention to Buddhist ritual practice and material culture. This volume includes studies of relic traditions in India, Japan, Tibet, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, as well as broader comparative analyses, including comparisons of Buddhist and Christian relic veneration.

The Pratyutpanna Samadhi Sutra

The Pratyutpanna Samadhi Sutra
Author:
Publisher: BDK America
Total Pages: 266
Release: 1998-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

There are two titles in this volume. The Pratyutpanna Samadhi Sutra is one of the earliest Mahayana sutras and influenced the development of Prajnaparamita, Pure Land, and Yogacara philosophies. It propounds a particular samadhi, or meditation, called the "meditation in which one is brought face to face with the Buddhas of the present" or "the meditation of direct encounter with the Buddhas of the present." This meditation is a developed form of the earlier practice of buddhanusmrti or "calling the Buddha to mind." It also attempts to reconcile the vision of the Buddhas and Buddha-fields of the prsent with the insights of the Perfection of Wisdom school, or the Sunyavada (theory of emptiness) tendency in Mahayana Buddhism. The Surangama Samadhi Sutra expounds the essentials of this meditative practice as the key to attaining Buddhahood. It is written in narrative form, beginning with a grad assembly on Vulture Peak, where the Buddha is surrounded by great numbers of bhiksus, Bodhisattvas, and other beings. The dialogue begins with a question by a Bodhisattva named Resolute Mind, then proceeds involving a number of participants, including Bodhisattvas, Sravakas, gods, and goddesses. It also uses several different supernatural manifestations, such as the simultaneous offering of innumerable elaborate chairs for the Buddha by all the most highly ranked gods present. The grad climax is the Buddha's manifestation of all the innumerable Buddhas of the ten directions. This magnificent epiphany is presented as part of a dramatic hesitation toward the end of the dialogue, when some of the Bodhisattvas in Sakyamuni's assembly become discouraged by the apparent difficulty of the path of Buddhahood being described. Finally, there is the charge to Ananda to preach the Sutra, which is also carried up by one of the many Indra kings who appear in the text. Themes covered in this text include the question of how to account for the apparently dismal spiritual fates of Hinayanist practitioners, the Sravakas, Pratyekabuddhas, and Arhats, the description of innumerable other Buddha lands, the bestowal of the prediction of future Buddhahood and the spiritual identity and fate of women.

Luminous Bliss

Luminous Bliss
Author: Georgios T. Halkias
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2012-09-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0824837746

With an annotated English translation and critical analysis of the Orgyan-gling gold manuscript of the short Sukhāvativyūha-sūtra Pure Land Buddhism as a whole has received comparatively little attention in Western studies on Buddhism despite the importance of “buddha-fields” (pure lands) for the growth and expression of Mahāyāna Buddhism. In this first religious history of Tibetan Pure Land literature, Georgios Halkias delves into a rich collection of literary, historical, and archaeological sources to highlight important aspects of this neglected pan-Asian Buddhist tradition. He clarifies many of the misconceptions concerning the interpretation of “other-world” soteriology in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and provides translations of original Tibetan sources from the ninth century to the present that represent exoteric and esoteric doctrines that continue to be cherished by Tibetan Buddhists for their joyful descriptions of the Buddhist path. The book is informed by interviews with Tibetan scholars and Buddhist practitioners and by Halkias’ own participant-observation in Tibetan Pure Land rituals and teachings conducted in Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Divided into three sections, Luminous Bliss shows that Tibetan Pure Land literature exemplifies a synthesis of Mahāyāna sutra-based conceptions with a Vajrayana world-view that fits progressive and sudden approaches to the realization of Pure Land teachings. Part I covers the origins and development of Pure Land in India and the historical circumstances of its adaptation in Tibet and Central Asia. Part II offers an English translation of the short Sukhāvatīvyūha-sūtra (imported from India during the Tibetan Empire) and contains a survey of original Tibetan Pure Land scriptures and meditative techniques from the dGe-lugs-pa, bKa’-brgyud, rNying-ma, and Sa-skya schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Part III introduces some of the most innovative and popular mortuary cycles and practices related to the Tantric cult of Buddha Amitābha and his Pure Land from the Treasure traditions in the bKa’-brgyud and rNying-ma schools. Luminous Bliss locates Pure Land Buddhism at the core of Tibet’s religious heritage and demonstrates how this tradition constitutes an integral part of both Tibetan and East Asian Buddhism.