Discerning Buddhas

Discerning Buddhas
Author: Kevin Buckelew
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2024-11-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0231560265

In Song-period China (960–1279 CE), masters in the Chan (Japanese Zen) school of Buddhism were presented as sources of religious authority on par with the Buddha, an almost unthinkably lofty status before the rise of Chan. This claim carried great rhetorical power, facilitating Chan’s appeal to Buddhist monastics and powerful patrons alike. But it also raised a challenging question for Chan Buddhists, who insisted that buddhahood properly transcends all worldly marks: By what signs could one recognize a Chan master as a buddha? Discerning Buddhas argues that Chan Buddhists wove together tropes of sovereignty, hospitality, and martial heroism drawn from both Buddhist tradition and China’s cultural heritage to develop a distinctive vision of what it meant for a Chan master to be a buddha in Song-period China. Kevin Buckelew analyzes the ways Chan Buddhists deployed such tropes in ritual, literature, and visual culture in order to stage the comparison of Chan mastery with buddhahood. He examines how they used the concept of buddhahood to work through questions about the ideal Chan master’s authority, agency, and masculinity, in the process rendering buddhahood in terms highly legible to elite Chinese society. Chan Buddhists, Buckelew shows, developed their own “signature” of buddhahood, according to which enlightened Chan masters who truly deserved comparison to the Buddha were supposed to be distinguished from everyone else. By exploring the resulting Chan culture of discernment, which raised fundamental questions about Buddhist authority at a pivotal inflection point in Chinese history, this book offers fresh insight into the place of Buddhism in Chinese society.

The Truth Taught by All the Buddhas

The Truth Taught by All the Buddhas
Author: Bhikkhu Revata
Publisher: Pa-Auk Meditation Centre (Singapore)
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2016-12-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

"The Buddha of this era and the Buddhas of past eras have all taught only two kinds of truths, and nothing more than these. ‘I have taught the Dhamma that I myself have directly penetrated. All the Dhamma I taught between the day I became enlightened and the day I took final Nibbāna – all the Dhamma I have taught are true. There is nothing I have taught which is untrue.’ ‘I have not taught a Dhamma which you cannot practise. Sañjaya Belatthiputta replied, ‘All the wise will go to the Buddha. The fools will come to me. Do not worry.’ A person can poison others, but the Dhamma will never poison anyone. Depend on the Dhamma, then, and not on the person. Mentality does not originate in the brain. In fact, there is not the slightest trace of mentality in the brain."

Behold the Buddha

Behold the Buddha
Author: James C. Dobbins
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2020-03-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0824879996

Images of the Buddha are everywhere—not just in temples but also in museums and homes and online—but what these images mean largely depends on the background and circumstance of those viewing them. In Behold the Buddha, James Dobbins invites readers to imagine how premodern Japanese Buddhists understood and experienced icons in temple settings long before the advent of museums and the internet. Although widely portrayed in the last century as visual emblems of great religious truths or as exquisite works of Asian art, Buddhist images were traditionally treated as the very embodiment of the Buddha, his palpable presence among people. Hence, Buddhists approached them as living entities in their own right—that is, as awakened icons with whom they could interact religiously. Dobbins begins by reflecting on art museums, where many non-Buddhists first encounter images of the Buddha, before outlining the complex Western response to them in previous centuries. He next elucidates images as visual representations of the story of the Buddha’s life followed by an overview of the physical attributes and symbolic gestures found in Buddhist iconography. A variety of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and other divinities commonly depicted in Japanese Buddhism is introduced, and their “living” quality discussed in the context of traditional temples and Buddhist rituals. Finally, other religious objects in Japanese Buddhism—relics, scriptures, inscriptions, portraits of masters, and sacred sites—are explained using the Buddhist icon as a model. Dobbins concludes by contemplating art museums further as potential sites for discerning the religious character of Buddhist images. Those interested in Buddhism generally who would like to learn more about its rich iconography—whether encountered in temples or museums—will find much in this concise, well-illustrated volume to help them “behold the Buddha.”

The Way to Buddhahood

The Way to Buddhahood
Author: Yin-shun
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2012-06-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0861716876

The Way to Buddhahood is a compendium of two thousand years of Chinese practice in assimilating and understanding the Buddhist experience of enlightenment. It is the first in-depth explanation of Chinese Buddhism by Yin-shun, the greatest living master of the Chinese scholar-monk tradition. The master's broad scope not only includes the traditional Chinese experience but also ideas from the Tibetan monastic tradition. This is one of those rare classic books that authentically captures an entire Buddhist tradition between its covers.

The Jing Si Dharma Essence of the Wondrous Lotus Sutra Chapter 1: Introductory Chapter

The Jing Si Dharma Essence of the Wondrous Lotus Sutra Chapter 1: Introductory Chapter
Author: Shih Cheng Yen
Publisher: Jing Si Publishing Co., Ltd.
Total Pages: 563
Release: 2023-05-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 6267235270

Introduction (內容簡介) The Wondrous Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra teaches the Bodhisattva Way, which is the original intent of all buddhas in opening the provisional to reveal the true. It is the Middle Way where matters and principles are in harmony; it is the perfect teaching of wondrous existence in true emptiness. It is the king of all sutras, the ultimate reality of the One Vehicle, and the one teaching that leads to buddhahood. The Lotus Sutra consists of Twenty-Eight Chapters, divided into three parts: Preface, Main Teachings, and Transmission. The Introductory Chapter is the Preface. The Jing Si Dharma Essence of the Wondrous Lotus Sutra combines the wondrous meanings of the sutra text with Dharma Master Cheng Yen’s notes as she explains the Dharma. The two parts connect and complement each other, skillfully explaining the Dharma in subtle and wondrous detail and revealing the wondrous state of the extremely profound true Dharma. 《妙法蓮華經》旨在教菩薩法,乃開權顯實之諸佛本懷,是事理圓融之中道,是真空妙有之圓教,為諸經之王,一乘實相,成佛唯一之教。 《法華經》共二十八品,入文為三︰初序分,二正宗分,三流通分。本書〈序品第一〉為序分。 《靜思法髓妙蓮華》融會經文妙義與證嚴法師之講法手札,此兩部分相連貫、互呼應,宛轉委曲、微妙細膩,顯示法華經真實甚深法藏之奧祕境界。

Criteria of Discernment in Interreligious Dialogue

Criteria of Discernment in Interreligious Dialogue
Author: Catherine Cornille
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2009-08-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1630874418

CONTRIBUTORS: Mustafa Abu-Sway, Al-Quds University, Jerusalem Asma Afsaruddin, Indiana University Reinhold Bernhardt, Basel Univeristy David Burrell, CSC, University of Notre Dame Catherine Cornille, Boston College Gavin D'Costa, University of Bristol David M. Elcott, New York University Joseph Lumbard, Brandeis University Jonathan Magonet, Louis Baeck Institute, London John Makransky, Boston College Anantanand Rambachan, St. Olaf College Deepak Sarma, Case Western University Judith Simmer-Brown, Naropa University Mark Unno, University of Oregon

Buddha's Words for Tough Times

Buddha's Words for Tough Times
Author: Peter Skilling
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 556
Release: 2024-02-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1614298890

Twenty translations from the vast corpus of Buddhist literature come alive in this full-color anthology of ancient wisdom for turbulent times, as a master scholar uncovers their sources and significance. Change and loss have always been part of the human condition, but in today’s world, the pace and intensity of uncertainty has reached new extremes. The Buddha observed the truth of impermanence more than 2,500 years ago and diagnosed the source of the anxiety it engenders so incisively that his prescription still resonates and heals here and now. In Buddha’s Words for Tough Times, Peter Skilling, one of the world’s foremost authorities on Buddhist scripture, brings the reader face to face with the wealth of Buddhist literature, from a teaching in a single word, to a seminal collection of verses on impermanence, to narrations of the Buddha’s teaching journeys across the Gangetic Plain. Translating from sources in Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Pali, he uncovers the complex history of the vast writings of the Buddhist canons, and his skill in revealing the meaning of twenty gems from within those riches brings them alive for English readers. We could have no better guide for this exploration, an exploration whose value is more urgent than ever.

The Lost Key of the Buddha

The Lost Key of the Buddha
Author: Joseph J. Dewey
Publisher: Great AD-Ventures
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2003
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780966505337

For thousands of years it has been assumed that the core teaching of the Buddha - the Middle Way - has been understood - But has it? In this book an Immortal who was the beloved disciple of Siddhartha reveals otherwise - that there is a lost key to restore the teaching of the master.

Buddha Taught Nonviolence, Not Pacifism

Buddha Taught Nonviolence, Not Pacifism
Author: Paul R. Fleischman
Publisher: Pariyatti Publishing
Total Pages: 59
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1928706223

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, this thought-provoking essay explores the Buddha's teaching to find one prescription: not war, not pacifism but nonviolence.