Critical Terms For The Study Of Buddhism

Author : Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226493237
Total Pages : 722 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism written by Donald S. Lopez Jr. and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-11-15 with total page 722 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past century, Buddhism has come to be seen as a world religion, exceeding Christianity in longevity and, according to many, philosophical wisdom. Buddhism has also increasingly been described as strongly ethical, devoted to nonviolence, and dedicated to bringing an end to human suffering. And because it places such a strong emphasis on rational analysis, Buddhism is considered more compatible with science than the other great religions. As such, Buddhism has been embraced in the West, both as an alternative religion and as an alternative to religion. This volume provides a unique introduction to Buddhism by examining categories essential for a nuanced understanding of its traditions. Each of the fifteen essays here shows students how a fundamental term—from art to word—illuminates the practice of Buddhism, both in traditional Buddhist societies and in the realms of modernity. Apart from Buddha, the list of terms in this collection deliberately includes none that are intrinsic to the religion. Instead, the contributors explore terms that are important for many fields and that invite interdisciplinary reflection. Through incisive discussions of topics ranging from practice, power, and pedagogy to ritual, history, sex, and death, the authors offer new directions for the understanding of Buddhism, taking constructive and sometimes polemical positions in an effort both to demonstrate the shortcomings of assumptions about the religion and the potential power of revisionary approaches. Following the tradition of Critical Terms for Religious Studies, this volume is not only an invaluable resource for the classroom but one that belongs on the short list of essential books for anyone seriously interested in Buddhism and Asian religions.

Author : Mark C. Taylor
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226791734
Total Pages : 431 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Critical Terms for Religious Studies written by Mark C. Taylor and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-07-09 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A century that began with modernism sweeping across Europe is ending with a remarkable resurgence of religious beliefs and practices throughout the world. Wherever one looks today, from headlines about political turmoil in the Middle East to pop music and videos, one cannot escape the pivotal role of religious beliefs and practices in shaping selves, societies, and cultures. Following in the very successful tradition of Critical Terms for Literary Studies and Critical Terms for Art History, this book attempts to provide a revitalized, self-aware vocabulary with which this bewildering religious diversity can be accurately described and responsibly discussed. Leading scholars working in a variety of traditions demonstrate through their incisive discussions that even our most basic terms for understanding religion are not neutral but carry specific historical and conceptual freight. These essays adopt the approach that has won this book's predecessors such widespread acclaim: each provides a concise history of a critical term, explores the issues raised by the term, and puts the term to use in an analysis of a religious work, practice, or event. Moving across Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Native American and Mayan religions, contributors explore terms ranging from experience, territory, and image, to God, sacrifice, and transgression. The result is an essential reference that will reshape the field of religious studies and transform the way in which religion is understood by scholars from all disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, gender studies, and literary studies.

Author : Rita Langer
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134158734
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Buddhist Rituals of Death and Rebirth written by Rita Langer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-08-07 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on early Vedic sutras and Pali texts as well as archaeological and epigraphical material, this book provides a thorough analysis of the rituals and social customs surrounding death in the Theravada tradition of Sri Lanka.

Author : Julie Gifford
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136817956
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Buddhist Practice and Visual Culture written by Julie Gifford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-03-16 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing an overall interpretation of the Buddhist monument Borobudur in Indonesia, this book looks at Mahayana Buddhist religious ideas and practices that could have informed Borobudur, including both the narrative reliefs and the Buddha images. The author explores a version of the classical Mahayana that foregrounds the importance of the visual in relation to Buddhist philosophy, meditation, devotion, and ritual. The book goes on to show that the architects of Borobudur designed a visual world in which the Buddha appeared in a variety of forms and could be interpreted in three ways: by realizing the true nature of his teaching, through visionary experience, and by encountering his numinous presence in images. Furthermore, the book analyses a particularly comprehensive and programmatic expression of Mahayana Buddhist visual culture so as to enrich the theoretical discussion of the monument. It argues that the relief panels of Borobudur do not passively illustrate, but rather creatively "picture" selected passages from texts. Presenting new material, the book contributes immensely to a new and better understanding of the significance of the Borobudur for the field of Buddhist and Religious Studies.

Author : Bodhi
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0861714911
Total Pages : 512 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book In the Buddha's Words written by Bodhi and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2005-07-28 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This landmark collection is the definitive introduction to the Buddha's teachings in his own words. The American scholar monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, whose voluminous translations have won widespread acclaim, here presents selected discourses of the Buddha from the Pali Canon, the earliest record of what the Buddha taught. Divided into ten thematic chapters, In the Buddha's Words reveals the full scope of the Buddha's discourses, from family life and marriage to renunciation and the path of insight. A concise informative introduction precedes each chapter, guiding the reader toward a deeper understanding of the texts that follow." "In the Buddha's Words allows even readers unacquainted with Buddhism to grasp the significance of the Buddha's contributions to our world heritage. Taken as a whole, these texts bear eloquent testimony to the breadth and intelligence of the Buddha's teachings, and point the way to an ancient yet ever vital path. Students and seekers alike will find this systematic presentation indispensable."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : William S Waldron
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134428855
Total Pages : 548 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Buddhist Unconscious written by William S Waldron and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-12-08 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of fifth century CE India, when the Yogacarin Buddhists tested the awareness of unawareness, and became aware of human unawareness to an extraordinary degree. They not only explicitly differentiated this dimension of mental processes from conscious cognitive processes, but also offered reasoned arguments on behalf of this dimension of mind. This is the concept of the 'Buddhist unconscious', which arose just as philosophical discourse in other circles was fiercely debating the limits of conscious awareness, and these ideas in turn had developed as a systematisation of teachings from the Buddha himself. For us in the twenty-first century, these teachings connect in fascinating ways to the Western conceptions of the 'cognitive unconscious' which have been elaborated in the work of Jung and Freud. This important study reveals how the Buddhist unconscious illuminates and draws out aspects of current western thinking on the unconscious mind. One of the most intriguing connections is the idea that there is in fact no substantial 'self' underlying all mental activity; 'the thoughts themselves are the thinker'. William S. Waldron considers the implications of this radical notion, which, despite only recently gaining plausibility, was in fact first posited 2,500 years ago.

Author : Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226493245
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Buddhism and Science written by Donald S. Lopez Jr. and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-05-15 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning in the nineteenth century and continuing to the present day, both Buddhists and admirers of Buddhism have proclaimed the compatibility of Buddhism and science. Their assertions have ranged from modest claims about the efficacy of meditation for mental health to grander declarations that the Buddha himself anticipated the theories of relativity, quantum physics and the big bang more than two millennia ago. In Buddhism and Science, Donald S. Lopez Jr. is less interested in evaluating the accuracy of such claims than in exploring how and why these two seemingly disparate modes of understanding the inner and outer universe have been so persistently linked. Lopez opens with an account of the rise and fall of Mount Meru, the great peak that stands at the center of the flat earth of Buddhist cosmography—and which was interpreted anew once it proved incompatible with modern geography. From there, he analyzes the way in which Buddhist concepts of spiritual nobility were enlisted to support the notorious science of race in the nineteenth century. Bringing the story to the present, Lopez explores the Dalai Lama’s interest in scientific discoveries, as well as the implications of research on meditation for neuroscience. Lopez argues that by presenting an ancient Asian tradition as compatible with—and even anticipating—scientific discoveries, European enthusiasts and Asian elites have sidestepped the debates on the relevance of religion in the modern world that began in the nineteenth century and still flare today. As new discoveries continue to reshape our understanding of mind and matter, Buddhism and Science will be indispensable reading for those fascinated by religion, science, and their often vexed relation.

Author : Thupten Jinpa
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135024499
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.99/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Self, Reality and Reason in Tibetan Philosophy written by Thupten Jinpa and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-22 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The work explores the historical and intellectual context of Tsongkhapa's philosophy and addresses the critical issues related to questions of development and originality in Tsongkhapa's thought. It also deals extensively with one of Tsongkhapa's primary concerns, namely his attempts to demonstrate that the Middle Way philosophy's deconstructive analysis does not negate the reality of the everyday world. The study's central focus, however, is the question of the existence and the nature of self. This is explored both in terms of Tsongkhapa's deconstruction of the self and his reconstruction of person. Finally, the work explores the concept of reality that emerges in Tsongkhapa's philosophy, and deals with his understanding of the relationship between critical reasoning, no-self, and religious experience.

Author : Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022651790X
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.02/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Hyecho's Journey written by Donald S. Lopez Jr. and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-12-21 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is an introduction to Buddhism told as the story of the Korean pilgrim Hyecho, who traveled through the Buddhist world during its eighth-century golden age. Lopez tells the story of Hyecho's journey, along the way introducing key elements of Buddhism--its basic doctrines, monastic institutions, relationship to Islam, and importance of pilgrimage.

Author : Noa Ronkin
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134283121
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Early Buddhist Metaphysics written by Noa Ronkin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-02-28 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a philosophical account of the major doctrinal shift in the history of early Theravada tradition in India: the transition from the earliest stratum of Buddhist thought to the systematic of the Pali Abhidhamma movement.