Modern Tantric Buddhism

Modern Tantric Buddhism
Author: Justin von Bujdoss
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2019-10-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1623173957

This essential guide to socially engaged Tantric Buddhism reveals how modern practitioners can use the wisdom of the Vajrayana to confront systems of power and abuse. Today, a new generation of Buddhists searches for ways to adopt Vajrayana while staying true to its historical legacy. Modern Tantric Buddhism unpacks the principles and applications of this esoteric practice in an accessible and meaningful manner, connecting its roots to a socially engaged, modern-day dharma. Taking a traditional Tibetan pedagogical approach, Lama Justin von Bujdoss divides the book into 3 thematic sections: • Body, as it applies to physicality and embodiment • Speech, or ethical action • Mind, the context of awakening Von Bujdoss challenges assumptions about what it means to be a socially engaged Buddhist, and presents Tantra as an ideal vehicle for critically examining today’s most pressing social issues while confronting the structural inequities of patriarchy, sexism, colonialism, and racism within Buddhist institutions.

Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism

Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism
Author: Christian K. Wedemeyer
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2014-05-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0231162413

Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were “marginal” or primitive and situating them instead—both ideologically and institutionally—within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of modern historical narratives—that depict Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism—he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential Guhyasamaja Tantra underscore the text’s overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight—issues shared by all Indic religions—and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these “radical” communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism.

Modern Buddhism

Modern Buddhism
Author: Kelsang Gyatso
Publisher: Tharpa Publications US
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2011
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1616060069

Based on teachings from the Kadampa Buddhist Tradition, Modern Buddhism is a special presentation that communicates the essence of the entire path to liberation and enlightenment in a way that is easy to understand and put into practice.

Creative Symbols of Tantric Buddhism

Creative Symbols of Tantric Buddhism
Author: Sangharakshita
Publisher: Windhorse Publications
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2013-10-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1909314269

Tantric Buddhism is concerned with the direct experience of who we are and what we can become. Its sole aim is to help us realize our potential for profound wisdom and unbounded compassion by transforming the energy locked in by old habits, fears and narrow views. For the Tantra this experience is beyond words and thought. But it can be evoked with the help of symbols. Without the help of a reliable guide one could easily get lost or overwhelmed in this unfamiliar world of symbols. Sangharakshita is such a guide.

Tantric Buddhism in East Asia

Tantric Buddhism in East Asia
Author: Richard K. Payne
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2006
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0861714873

Although Indian and Tibetan versions of tantric Buddhism are increasingly recognized, the East Asian variations on this practice remain largely overlooked. The only book to present the entire breadth of tantric Buddhism in East Asia, this collection remedies that situation with 12 key essays drawn from rare sources. Organized into four sections--China and Korea, Japan, Deities and Practices, and Influences on Japanese Religion--the book brings together a "critical mass" of scholarship, with the potential to create a sea change in the understanding of this subject

Love Letters from Golok

Love Letters from Golok
Author: Holly Gayley
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 415
Release: 2016-12-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0231542755

Love Letters from Golok chronicles the courtship between two Buddhist tantric masters, Tāre Lhamo (1938–2002) and Namtrul Rinpoche (1944–2011), and their passion for reinvigorating Buddhism in eastern Tibet during the post-Mao era. In fifty-six letters exchanged from 1978 to 1980, Tāre Lhamo and Namtrul Rinpoche envisioned a shared destiny to "heal the damage" done to Buddhism during the years leading up to and including the Cultural Revolution. Holly Gayley retrieves the personal and prophetic dimensions of their courtship and its consummation in a twenty-year religious career that informs issues of gender and agency in Buddhism, cultural preservation among Tibetan communities, and alternative histories for minorities in China. The correspondence between Tare Lhamo and Namtrul Rinpoche is the first collection of "love letters" to come to light in Tibetan literature. Blending tantric imagery with poetic and folk song styles, their letters have a fresh vernacular tone comparable to the love songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama, but with an eastern Tibetan flavor. Gayley reads these letters against hagiographic writings about the couple, supplemented by field research, to illuminate representational strategies that serve to narrate cultural trauma in a redemptive key, quite unlike Chinese scar literature or the testimonials of exile Tibetans. With special attention to Tare Lhamo's role as a tantric heroine and her hagiographic fusion with Namtrul Rinpoche, Gayley vividly shows how Buddhist masters have adapted Tibetan literary genres to share private intimacies and address contemporary social concerns.

Radical Dharma

Radical Dharma
Author: Rev. angel Kyodo williams
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2016-06-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1623170990

Igniting a long-overdue dialogue about how the legacy of racial injustice and white supremacy plays out in society at large and Buddhist communities in particular, this urgent call to action outlines a new dharma that takes into account the ways that racism and privilege prevent our collective awakening. The authors traveled around the country to spark an open conversation that brings together the Black prophetic tradition and the wisdom of the Dharma. Bridging the world of spirit and activism, they urge a compassionate response to the systemic, state-sanctioned violence and oppression that has persisted against black people since the slave era. With national attention focused on the recent killings of unarmed black citizens and the response of the Black-centered liberation groups such as Black Lives Matter, Radical Dharma demonstrates how social transformation and personal, spiritual liberation must be articulated and inextricably linked. Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, and Jasmine Syedullah represent a new voice in American Buddhism. Offering their own histories and experiences as illustrations of the types of challenges facing dharma practitioners and teachers who are different from those of the past five decades, they ask how teachings that transcend color, class, and caste are hindered by discrimination and the dynamics of power, shame, and ignorance. Their illuminating argument goes beyond a demand for the equality and inclusion of diverse populations to advancing a new dharma that deconstructs rather than amplifies systems of suffering and prepares us to weigh the shortcomings not only of our own minds but also of our communities. They forge a path toward reconciliation and self-liberation that rests on radical honesty, a common ground where we can drop our need for perfection and propriety and speak as souls. In a society where profit rules, people's value is determined by the color of their skin, and many voices—including queer voices—are silenced, Radical Dharma recasts the concepts of engaged spirituality, social transformation, inclusiveness, and healing.

The Making of Buddhist Modernism

The Making of Buddhist Modernism
Author: David L. McMahan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2008-11-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199884781

A great deal of Buddhist literature and scholarly writing about Buddhism of the past 150 years reflects, and indeed constructs, a historically unique modern Buddhism, even while purporting to represent ancient tradition, timeless teaching, or the "essentials" of Buddhism. This literature, Asian as well as Western, weaves together the strands of different traditions to create a novel hybrid that brings Buddhism into alignment with many of the ideologies and sensibilities of the post-Enlightenment West. In this book, David McMahan charts the development of this "Buddhist modernism." McMahan examines and analyzes a wide range of popular and scholarly writings produced by Buddhists around the globe. He focuses on ideological and imaginative encounters between Buddhism and modernity, for example in the realms of science, mythology, literature, art, psychology, and religious pluralism. He shows how certain themes cut across cultural and geographical contexts, and how this form of Buddhism has been created by multiple agents in a variety of times and places. His position is critical but empathetic: while he presents Buddhist modernism as a construction of numerous parties with varying interests, he does not reduce it to a mistake, a misrepresentation, or fabrication. Rather, he presents it as a complex historical process constituted by a variety of responses -- sometimes trivial, often profound -- to some of the most important concerns of the modern era.

Tara

Tara
Author: Rachael Wooten, Ph.D.
Publisher: Sounds True
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2020-04-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1683643895

A practical guide for invoking the power and blessings of Tara, the beloved female buddha of Tibet Known as "the female Buddha" in Tibet and India, Tara connects us to the archetypal Divine Feminine—an energetic force that exists within us and all around us, and has been available to all humans since our earliest origin. While there are many books on Tara, this practical guide shows us how those of any tradition can directly access her, through clear instruction and authentic Tibetan Buddhist teachings. Jungian analyst, scholar, and spiritual practitioner Dr. Rachael Wooten combines the ancient Tara tradition with depth psychology to help us connect with each of Tara's manifestations and access her blessings within ourselves and in the external world. In her myriad forms, Tara has the power to protect us from inner and outer negativity, illuminate our self-sabotaging habits, cleanse mental and physical poisons, address emotional trauma, open us to abundance, give us strength and peace, help us fulfill our life purposes, and more. Here, you will explore all 22 manifestations of Tara. Each chapter begins with an epigraph that captures the spiritual and psychological essence of the emanation, explains her purpose, and teaches you specific visualizations, praises, mantra chants, and other ways of invoking her presence in yourself and the world. "If ever the voice of wisdom and compassion was needed in the form of an awakened female figure such as Tara," writes Dr. Wooten, "that time is now." This book illuminates the way to her healing, blessings, and aid.

Spacious Passion [paperback]

Spacious Passion [paperback]
Author: Ngakma Nor'dzin
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2009
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1898185077

2009 revised edition. A Buddhist book exploring the sutric teaching of 'The Four Thoughts that turn the Mind to Practice' as vividly relevant to our everyday lives: the extraordinarily precious opportunity to live as an honourable human being; the experience of impermanence that pervades our existence as an opportunity to awaken; the emotional and psychological patterning which dominates our lives (karma); and the seemingly endless cycle of dissatisfaction in which we imprison ourselves. Each chapter ends with a series of questions and answers which are both pragmatic and inspirational. Ngakma Nor'dzin has been a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism for more than twenty years. ISBN: 978-1-898185-07-9 Spacious Passion website