The Noble Eightfold Path

The Noble Eightfold Path
Author: Bhikkhu Bodhi
Publisher: Buddhist Publication Society
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2010-12-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 955240116X

The Buddha's teachings center around two basic principles. One is the Four Noble Truths, in which the Buddha diagnoses the problem of suffering and indicates the treatment necessary to remedy this problem. The other is the Noble Eightfold Path, the practical discipline he prescribes to uproot and eliminate the deep underlying causes of suffering. The present book offers, in simple and clear language, a concise yet thorough explanation of the Eightfold Path. Basing himself solidly upon the Buddha's own words, the author examines each factor of the path to determine exactly what it implies in the way of practical training. Finally, in the concluding chapter, he shows how all eight factors of the path function in unison to bring about the realization of the Buddhist goal: enlightenment and liberation.

Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition

Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition
Author: Rima Vesely-Flad
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2022-04-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1479810487

"This book illuminates distinct Buddhist practices amongst meditators of African descent. It includes interviews, dharma talks, and writings of more than sixty-five Black Buddhist teachers and long-term practitioners. In lifting up the distinctive voices and practices of Black Buddhists within American Buddhism, this book emphasizes the interpretations and practices of Black Buddhists. This book identifies specific causes and conditions for suffering, such as the transatlantic slave trade, the auction block, lynchings, migrations, and contemporary state violence, that have led Black Buddhist teachers to prioritize healing intergenerational trauma as a foundation for Black liberation. In pointing the horrific conditions manifested by patriarchy, misogyny, cisgender normativity, Black Buddhists assert that healing intergenerational trauma is foundational of psychological and spiritual liberation. Relatedly, this book delves into the importance that Black Buddhists place on honoring ancestors-biological and spiritual-as forebears who survived hostile and degrading conditions. Furthermore, this book illuminates the ways in which Black Buddhists privilege the body, even as it has been degraded, as a vehicle for liberation. Finally, this book argues that all of these distinct components of Black Buddhist practice fulfill the quest for psychological liberation evoked in the Black Radical Tradition"--

The Historical Buddha

The Historical Buddha
Author: Hans Wolfgang Schumann
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2004
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9788120818170

No man has had a greater inflience on the spiritual development of his people than Siddartha Gautama. Born in India in the sixth century BC into a nation hungry for spiritual experience, he developed a religious and moral teaching that, to this day, brings comfort and peace to all who practise it. This comprehensive biography examines the social, religious and political conditions that gave rise to Buddhism as we now know it.

The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture

The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture
Author: John Kieschnick
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2003-04-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780691096766

Buddhism had a profound effect not only on Chinese philosophy and ritual, but also on the material culture of China. Examining the impact of books, bridges, sugar, tea and the chair, amongst other things, this text looks at how attitudes to such novelties affected the history of Chinese Buddhism.

Setting Out on the Great Way

Setting Out on the Great Way
Author: Paul Maxwell Harrison
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Mahayana Buddhism
ISBN: 9781781790960

Setting Out on the Great Way brings together different perspectives on the origins and early history of Mahāyāna Buddhism and delves into selected aspects of its formative period. As the variety of the religion which conquered East Asia and also provided the matrix for the later development of Buddhist Tantra or Vajrayāna, Mahāyāna is regarded as one of the most significant forms of Buddhism, and its beginnings have long been the focus of intense scholarly attention and debate. The essays in this volume address the latest findings in the field, including contributions by younger researchers vigorously critiquing the reappraisal of the Mahāyāna carried out by scholars in the last decades of the 20th century and the different understanding of the movement which they produced. As the study of Buddhism as a whole reorients itself to embrace new methods and paradigms, while at the same time coming to terms with exciting new manuscript discoveries, our picture of the Mahāyāna continues to change. This volume presents the latest developments in this ongoing re-evaluation of one of Buddhism's most important historical expressions.

Tibetan Book of the Dead

Tibetan Book of the Dead
Author: W. Y. Evans-Wentz
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2020-11-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0486845370

Derived from a Buddhist funerary text, this famous volume's timeless wisdom includes instructions for attaining enlightenment, preparing for the process of dying, and moving through the various stages of rebirth.

Tibet and India

Tibet and India
Author: Kurt Behrendt
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2014-02-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1588395499

The Foundations of Buddhism

The Foundations of Buddhism
Author: Rupert Gethin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 352
Release: 1998-07-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0192892231

In this introduction to the foundations of Buddhism, Rupert Gethin concentrates on the ideas and practices which constitute the common heritage of the different traditions of Buddhism (Thervada, Tibetan and Eastern) which exist in the world today.

A Buddhist History of the West

A Buddhist History of the West
Author: David R. Loy
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0791489124

Buddhism teaches that to become happy, greed, ill-will, and delusion must be transformed into their positive counterparts: generosity, compassion, and wisdom. The history of the West, like all histories, has been plagued by the consequences of greed, ill-will, and delusion. A Buddhist History of the West investigates how individuals have tried to ground themselves to make themselves feel more real. To be self-conscious is to experience ungroundedness as a sense of lack, but what is lacking has been understood differently in different historical periods. Author David R. Loy examines how the understanding of lack changes at historical junctures and shows how those junctures were so crucial in the development of the West.