The Trouble With Buddhism

Author : Robert M. Ellis
Publisher : Lulu.com
ISBN 13 : 1447516788
Total Pages : 307 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Trouble with Buddhism written by Robert M. Ellis and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2011-03-13 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a critique of Buddhism by a philosopher with about 20 years' experience of practising Buddhism. It attempts to judge Buddhism by the standards of its own key insight of the Middle Way. This book argues that Buddhism has often abandoned the Middle Way and allowed dogmatic metaphysical assumptions to take its place. The Buddha criticised appeals to metaphysics, yet many of the trappings of traditional Buddhism are built on it - whether these are karma and rebirth, the revelations of the enlightened and their scriptures, dependent origination, the interpretation of the Four Noble Truths, alienated idealisations of love, or rituals that celebrate metaphysics rather than insight. This is not a purely negative book, but an attempt at a balanced appraisal of Buddhism with praise as well as criticism. In the West we have an opportunity to evaluate Buddhism anew and reform it so that it best applies its own insights.

Author : Stephen T. Asma
Publisher : Hampton Roads Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1612830412
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why I Am a Buddhist written by Stephen T. Asma and published by Hampton Roads Publishing. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Profound and amusing, this book provides a viable approach to answering the perennial questions: Who am I? Why am I here? How can I live a meaningful life? For Asma, the answers are to be found in Buddhism. There have been a lot of books that have made the case for Buddhism. What makes this book fresh and exciting is Asma’s iconoclasm, irreverence, and hardheaded approach to the subject. He is distressed that much of what passes for Buddhism is really little more than “New Age mush.” He asserts that it is time to “take the California out of Buddhism.” He presents a spiritual practice that does not require a belief in creeds or dogma. It is a practice that is psychologically sound, intellectually credible, and esthetically appealing. It is a practice that does not require a diet of brown rice, burning incense, and putting both your mind and your culture in deep storage. In seven chapters, Asma builds the case for a spiritual practice that is authentic, and inclusive. This is Buddhism for everyone, especially for people who are uncomfortable with religion but yearn for a spiritual practice.

Author : Kevin Griffin
Publisher : Rodale Books
ISBN 13 : 1635651816
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book One Breath at a Time written by Kevin Griffin and published by Rodale Books. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Merging Buddhist mindfulness practices with the Twelve Step program, this updated edition of the bestselling recovery guide One Breath at a Time will inspire and enlighten you to live a better, healthier life. Many in recovery turn to the Twelve Steps to overcome their addictions, but struggle with the spiritual program. But what they might not realize is that Buddhist teachings are intrinsically intertwined with the lessons of the Twelve Steps, and offer time-tested methods for addressing the challenges of sobriety. In what is considered the cornerstone of the most significant recovery movement of the 21st century, Kevin Griffin shares his own extraordinary journey to sobriety and how he integrated the Twelve Steps of recovery with Buddhist mindfulness practices. With a new foreword by William Alexander, the author of Ordinary Recovery, One Breath at a Time takes you on a journey through the Steps, examining critical ideas like Powerlessness, Higher Power, and Moral Inventory through the lens of the core concepts of Buddhism—the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, mindfulness, loving-kindness, and more. The result is a book that presents techniques and meditations for finding clarity and awareness in your life, just as it has for thousands of addicts and alcoholics.

Author : Robert Wright
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439195471
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why Buddhism is True written by Robert Wright and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of America’s most brilliant writers, a New York Times bestselling journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness. At the heart of Buddhism is a simple claim: The reason we suffer—and the reason we make other people suffer—is that we don’t see the world clearly. At the heart of Buddhist meditative practice is a radical promise: We can learn to see the world, including ourselves, more clearly and so gain a deep and morally valid happiness. In this “sublime” (The New Yorker), pathbreaking book, Robert Wright shows how taking this promise seriously can change your life—how it can loosen the grip of anxiety, regret, and hatred, and how it can deepen your appreciation of beauty and of other people. He also shows why this transformation works, drawing on the latest in neuroscience and psychology, and armed with an acute understanding of human evolution. This book is the culmination of a personal journey that began with Wright’s landmark book on evolutionary psychology, The Moral Animal, and deepened as he immersed himself in meditative practice and conversed with some of the world’s most skilled meditators. The result is a story that is “provocative, informative and...deeply rewarding” (The New York Times Book Review), and as entertaining as it is illuminating. Written with the wit, clarity, and grace for which Wright is famous, Why Buddhism Is True lays the foundation for a spiritual life in a secular age and shows how, in a time of technological distraction and social division, we can save ourselves from ourselves, both as individuals and as a species.

Author : Glenn Wallis
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1474283578
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Critique of Western Buddhism written by Glenn Wallis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. What are we to make of Western Buddhism? Glenn Wallis argues that in aligning their tradition with the contemporary wellness industry, Western Buddhists evade the consequences of Buddhist thought. This book shows that with concepts such as vanishing, nihility, extinction, contingency, and no-self, Buddhism, like all potent systems of thought, articulates a notion of the “real.” Raw, unflinching acceptance of this real is held by Buddhism to be at the very core of human “awakening.” Yet these preeminent human truths are universally shored up against in contemporary Buddhist practice, contravening the very heart of Buddhism. The author's critique of Western Buddhism is threefold. It is immanent, in emerging out of Buddhist thought but taking it beyond what it itself publicly concedes; negative, in employing the “democratizing” deconstructive methods of François Laruelle's non-philosophy; and re-descriptive, in applying Laruelle's concept of philofiction. Through applying resources of Continental philosophy to Western Buddhism, A Critique of Western Buddhism suggests a possible practice for our time, an "anthropotechnic", or religion transposed from its seductive, but misguiding, idealist haven.

Author : Andrew Skilton
Publisher : Windhorse Publications
ISBN 13 : 1909314129
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Concise History of Buddhism written by Andrew Skilton and published by Windhorse Publications. This book was released on 2013-06-14 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ideal introduction to the history of Buddhism. Andrew Skilton - a writer on and practitioner of Buddhism - explains the development of the basic concepts of Buddhism during its 2,500 years of history and describes its varied developments in India, Buddhism's homeland, as well as its spread across Asia, from Mongolia to Sri Lanka and from Japan to the Middle East. A fascinating insight into the historical progress of one of the world's great religions.

Author : Alan Cole
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520254856
Total Pages : 363 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Fathering Your Father written by Alan Cole and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-02-09 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fathering Your Father is indubitably an important, timely work. In this incisive re-reading of the sources for the early history of Chinese Chan Buddhism, Cole conveys a new understanding of material familiar to scholars that might well make students engage with these sources more imaginatively. Hitherto scholars have pored over the five or six key sources; now we are invited to read them as successive literary inventions. In short, this study has no competition and is bound to provoke debate."—T. H. Barrett, Professor of East Asian History, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and author of The Woman Who Discovered Printing

Author : Mark Epstein, M.D.
Publisher : Harmony
ISBN 13 : 0307830098
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart written by Mark Epstein, M.D. and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intimate guide to self-acceptance and discovery that offers a Buddhist perspective on wholeness within the framework of a Western understanding of self. For decades, Western psychology has promised fulfillment through building and strengthening the ego. We are taught that the ideal is a strong, individuated self, constructed and reinforced over a lifetime. But Buddhist psychiatrist Mark Epstein has found a different way. Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart shows us that happiness doesn't come from any kind of acquisitiveness, be it material or psychological. Happiness comes from letting go. Weaving together the accumulated wisdom of his two worlds--Buddhism and Western psychotherapy—Epstein shows how "the happiness that we seek depends on our ability to balance the ego's need to do with our inherent capacity to be." He encourages us to relax the ever-vigilant mind in order to experience the freedom that comes only from relinquishing control. Drawing on events in his own life and stories from his patients, Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart teaches us that only by letting go can we start on the path to a more peaceful and spiritually satisfying life.

Author : Karuna Cayton
Publisher : New World Library
ISBN 13 : 1577319427
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Misleading Mind written by Karuna Cayton and published by New World Library. This book was released on 2012 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through exercises and real-world examples, the author, drawing from Buddhist psychology, shows readers how to step onto the path of self-understanding to transform suffering into happiness.

Author : Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400880076
Total Pages : 481 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Buddhism in Practice written by Donald S. Lopez, Jr. and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-24 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology, first published in 1995, illustrates the vast scope of Buddhist practice in Asia, past and present. Re-released now in a slimmer but still extensive edition, Buddhism in Practice presents a selection of thirty-five translated texts--each preceded by a substantial introduction by its translator. These unusual sources provides the reader with a sense of the remarkable diversity of the practices of persons who over the course of 2,500 years have been identified, by themselves or by others, as Buddhists. Demonstrating the many continuities among the practices of Buddhist cultures widely separated by both history and geography, Buddhism in Practice continues to provide an ideal introduction to Buddhism and a source of new insights for scholars.