Contemplative Literature
Download Contemplative Literature full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online free Contemplative Literature ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!
| Author | : Louis Komjathy |
| Publisher | : SUNY Press |
| Total Pages | : 850 |
| Release | : 2015-08-31 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1438457057 |
An anthology of primary texts on meditation and contemplative prayer from a wide range of religious traditions. This is the first theoretically informed and historically accurate comparative anthology of primary texts on meditation and contemplative prayer. Written by international experts on the respective texts and corresponding traditions, Contemplative Literature provides introductions to and primary sources on contemplative practice from various religious traditions. The contributors explore classical Daoist apophatic meditation, Quaker silent prayer, Jewish Kabbalah, Southern Buddhist meditation, Sufi contemplation, Eastern Orthodox prayer, Pure Land Buddhist visualization, Hindu classical Yoga, Dominican Catholic prayer, Daoist internal alchemy, and modern therapeutic meditation. Each introduction to a contemplative text discusses its historical context, the associated religious tradition and literature, the method of contemplative practice, and the texts legacy and influence. Volume editor Louis Komjathy opens the work with a thoughtful consideration of interpretive issues in the emerging interdisciplinary field of contemplative studies. Readers will gain not only a nuanced understanding of important works of contemplative literature, but also resources for understanding contemplative practice and contemplative experience from a comparative and cross-cultural perspective. We have not seen anything this bold and this global since Friedrich Heiler wrote his classic study on the typology of prayer over eighty years ago. Komjathy and his essayists have vastly expanded the scope, depth, and sophistication of this project here. In the process, they have struggled with all of the critical questions around religious pluralism, tradition, and religious authority, and have emboldened the comparative project itself. Contemplation and comparison, it turns out, go very well together. Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of Comparing Religions: Coming to Terms Teachers and scholars, undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers interested in contemplative practice will cherish a book like this. Im happy that Louis Komjathy has done this great work. It will undoubtedly be hailed as a milestone. Ruben L. F. Habito, author of Healing Breath: Zen for Christians and Buddhists in a Wounded World
| Author | : Harold D. Roth |
| Publisher | : State University of New York Press |
| Total Pages | : 460 |
| Release | : 2021-05-01 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 1438482728 |
In The Contemplative Foundations of Classical Daoism, Harold D. Roth explores the origins and nature of the Daoist tradition, arguing that its creators and innovators were not abstract philosophers but, rather, mystics engaged in self-exploration and self-cultivation, which in turn provided the insights embodied in such famed works as the Daodejing and Zhuangzi. In this compilation of essays and chapters representing nearly thirty years of scholarship, Roth examines the historical and intellectual origins of Daoism and demonstrates how this distinctive philosophy emerged directly from practices that were essentially contemplative in nature. In the first part of the book, Roth applies text-critical methods to derive the hidden contemplative dimensions of classical Daoism. In the second part, he applies a "contemplative hermeneutic" to explore the relationship between contemplative practices and classical Daoist philosophy and, in so doing, brings early Daoist writings into conversation with contemporary contemplative studies. To this he adds an introduction in which he reflects on the arc and influence on the field of early Chinese thought of this rich vein of scholarship and an afterword in which he applies both interpretive methods to the vexing question of the authorship of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi. The Contemplative Foundations of Classical Daoism brings to fruition the cumulative investigations and observations of a leading figure in the emerging field of contemplative studies as they pertain to a core component of early Chinese thought.
| Author | : Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O. |
| Publisher | : A&C Black |
| Total Pages | : 417 |
| Release | : 2009-03-01 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 0826433545 |
This work brings together three prayer practices for each day of the year to enhance contemplative living.
| Author | : Donald Haggerty |
| Publisher | : Ignatius Press |
| Total Pages | : 144 |
| Release | : 2013-01-09 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1681491109 |
A great many religious people undertake, at least for a time, a serious dedication to prayer. They are moved by a longing for a deeper encounter with God, and the possibility of this beckons them as a distant light at night on the sea. Yet far fewer in number become true contemplative souls, for it is difficult to continue the quest for God in the face of many obstacles. For those who are spiritually courageous and full of desire for God, this book cannot but provoke them to begin or to persevere in this ultimate adventure in life-the more complete discovery of the living God. Thematically unified by the notion of God's ultimate transcendence to our limited human knowledge, Contemplative Provocations offers a rich profusion of insights on the life of prayer and the pursuit of God. A key to spiritual growth is the understanding that the hiddenness of God becomes a paradox in the experience of a soul seeking him wholeheartedly. Rather than enjoying a more intimate familiarity with God, the soul advancing in prayer is likely to experience more intensely, more provocatively, the concealment of God. This surprising truth undergirds true contemplative prayer. It is a reason why every contemplative soul, and every saint, is inflamed with a never satisfied thirst for God.
| Author | : Maria R. Lichtmann |
| Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
| Total Pages | : 242 |
| Release | : 2014-07-14 |
| Genre | : Poetry |
| ISBN | : 1400859980 |
In 1989, the centenary of his death, Gerard Manley Hopkins continues to provoke fundamental questions among scholars: what major poetic strategy informs his work and how did his reflections on the nature of poetry affect his writing? While form meant a great deal to Hopkins, it was never mere form. Maria Lichtmann demonstrates that the poet, a student of Scripture all his life, adopted Scripture's predominant form--parallelism--as his own major poetic strategy. Hopkins saw that parallelism struck deep into the heart and soul, tapping into unconscious rhythms and bringing about a healing response that he identified as contemplation. Parallelism was to him the perfect statement of the integrity of outward form and inner meaning. Other critics have seen the parallelism in Hopkins's poems only on the auditory level of alliterations and assonances. Lichtmann, however, builds on the views held by Hopkins himself, who spoke of a parallelism of words and of thought engendered by the parallelism of sound. She distinguishes the integrating Parmenidean parallelisms of resemblance from the disintegrating Heraclitean parallelisms of antithesis. The tension between Parmenidean unity and Heraclitean variety is resolved only in the wordless communion of contemplation. This emphasis on contemplation offers a corrective to the overly emphasized Ignatian interpretation of Hopkins's poetry as meditative poetry. The book also makes clear that Hopkins's preference for contemplation sharply differentiates him from his Romantic predecessors as well as from the structuralists who now claim him. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
| Author | : Anonymous |
| Publisher | : Library of Alexandria |
| Total Pages | : 194 |
| Release | : |
| Genre | : Fiction |
| ISBN | : 1465541071 |
| Author | : B. Alan Wallace |
| Publisher | : Columbia University Press |
| Total Pages | : 228 |
| Release | : 2007 |
| Genre | : Medical |
| ISBN | : 9780231138352 |
Science has long treated religion as a set of personal beliefs that have little to do with a rational understanding of the mind and the universe. This work attempts to bridge this gap by launching an unbiased investigation into the history and practices of science and Buddhist contemplative disciplines.
| Author | : Thomas Keating |
| Publisher | : Crossroad Publishing |
| Total Pages | : 0 |
| Release | : 2009 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 9780824525293 |
Filled with insight and practical advice, this resource offers sound wisdom on the way that centering prayer can deepen one's intimacy with God.
| Author | : Eleanor Johnson |
| Publisher | : University of Chicago Press |
| Total Pages | : 263 |
| Release | : 2018-08-17 |
| Genre | : Literary Criticism |
| ISBN | : 022657217X |
What does it mean to contemplate? In the Middle Ages, more than merely thinking with intensity, it was a religious practice entailing utter receptiveness to the divine presence. Contemplation is widely considered by scholars today to have been the highest form of devotional prayer, a rarified means of experiencing God practiced only by the most devout of monks, nuns, and mystics. Yet, in this groundbreaking new book, Eleanor Johnson argues instead for the pervasiveness and accessibility of contemplative works to medieval audiences. By drawing together ostensibly diverse literary genres—devotional prose, allegorical poetry, cycle dramas, and morality plays—Staging Contemplation paints late Middle English contemplative writing as a broad genre that operated collectively and experientially as much as through radical individual disengagement from the world. Johnson further argues that the contemplative genre played a crucial role in the exploration of the English vernacular as a literary and theological language in the fifteenth century, tracing how these works engaged modes of disfluency—from strained syntax and aberrant grammar, to puns, slang, code-switching, and laughter—to explore the limits, norms, and potential of English as a devotional language. Full of virtuoso close readings, this book demonstrates a sustained interest in how poetic language can foster a participatory experience of likeness to God among lay and devotional audiences alike.
| Author | : Mark Verman |
| Publisher | : State University of New York Press |
| Total Pages | : 283 |
| Release | : 2012-02-01 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 1438422881 |
The earliest medieval Jewish mystical writings, or kabbalah, date from the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. This is the first book to focus on the most prodigious group active at that time—the 'Circle of Contemplation'. The 'Circle of Contemplation' generated a mystical theology that differs radically from mainstream kabbalistic theosophy. Two of this group's penetrating speculations on God and the origins of the universe are The Book of Contemplation and The Fountain of Wisdom. A meticulous and systematic study of these writings forms the core of this book. Verman discovered that the 'Circle of Contemplation' produced a series of distinct treatises, each entitled The Book of Contemplation and attributed to the same fictitious author. These treatises, embodying one of the most intriguing puzzles of medieval literature, are included here. The author concludes that these writings were a product of thirteenth-century Spain, not France, as claimed by Gershom Scholem. His conclusion engendered a critical evaluation of the premises of Scholem's historiography of early medieval Jewish mysticism.
