Spreading the Dhamma

Spreading the Dhamma PDF Author: Daniel Veidlinger
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824830245
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
How did early Buddhists actually encounter the seminal texts of their religion? What were the attitudes held by monks and laypeople toward the written and oral Pali traditions? In this pioneering work, Daniel Veidlinger explores these questions in the context of the northern Thai kingdom of Lan Na. Drawing on a vast array of sources, including indigenous chronicles, reports by foreign visitors, inscriptions, and palm-leaf manuscripts, he traces the role of written Buddhist texts in the predominantly oral milieu of northern Thailand from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Veidlinger examines how the written word was assimilated into existing Buddhist and monastic practice in the region, considering the use of manuscripts for textual study and recitation as well as the place of writing in the cultic and ritual life of the faithful. He shows how manuscripts fit into the economy, describes how they were made and stored, and highlights the understudied issue of the "cult of the book" in Theravâda Buddhism. Looking at the wider Theravâda world, Veidlinger argues that manuscripts in Burma and Sri Lanka played a more central role in the preservation and dissemination of Buddhist texts. By offering a detailed examination of the motivations driving those who sponsored manuscript production, this study draws attention to the vital role played by forest-dwelling monastic orders introduced from Sri Lanka in the development of Lan Na’s written Pali heritage. It also considers the rivalry between those monks who wished to preserve the older oral tradition and monks, rulers, and laypeople who supported the expansion of the new medium of writing.

Spreading the Dhamma

Spreading the Dhamma PDF Author: Daniel Veidlinger
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824830245
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Get Book Here

Book Description
How did early Buddhists actually encounter the seminal texts of their religion? What were the attitudes held by monks and laypeople toward the written and oral Pali traditions? In this pioneering work, Daniel Veidlinger explores these questions in the context of the northern Thai kingdom of Lan Na. Drawing on a vast array of sources, including indigenous chronicles, reports by foreign visitors, inscriptions, and palm-leaf manuscripts, he traces the role of written Buddhist texts in the predominantly oral milieu of northern Thailand from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Veidlinger examines how the written word was assimilated into existing Buddhist and monastic practice in the region, considering the use of manuscripts for textual study and recitation as well as the place of writing in the cultic and ritual life of the faithful. He shows how manuscripts fit into the economy, describes how they were made and stored, and highlights the understudied issue of the "cult of the book" in Theravâda Buddhism. Looking at the wider Theravâda world, Veidlinger argues that manuscripts in Burma and Sri Lanka played a more central role in the preservation and dissemination of Buddhist texts. By offering a detailed examination of the motivations driving those who sponsored manuscript production, this study draws attention to the vital role played by forest-dwelling monastic orders introduced from Sri Lanka in the development of Lan Na’s written Pali heritage. It also considers the rivalry between those monks who wished to preserve the older oral tradition and monks, rulers, and laypeople who supported the expansion of the new medium of writing.

Buddha Taught Nonviolence, Not Pacifism

Buddha Taught Nonviolence, Not Pacifism PDF Author: Paul R. Fleischman
Publisher: Pariyatti Publishing
ISBN: 1928706223
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 59

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Book Description
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.

Buddhism

Buddhism PDF Author: Dalai Lama
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1614293929
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Now in Paperback! Explore with the Dalai Lama the common ground underlying the diverse traditions of Buddhism. Buddhism is practiced by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, from Tibetan caves to Tokyo temples to redwood retreats. To an outside viewer, it might be hard to see what they all have in common. In Buddhism, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and American Buddhist nun Thubten Chodron map out with clarity the convergences and the divergences between the two major strains of Buddhism—the Sanskrit traditions of Tibet and East Asia and the Pali traditions of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Especially deep consideration is given to the foundational Indian traditions and their respective treatment of such central tenets as the four noble truths the practice of meditation the meaning of nirvana enlightenment. The authors seek harmony and greater understanding among Buddhist traditions worldwide, illuminating the rich benefits of respectful dialogue and the many ways that Buddhists of all stripes share a common heritage and common goals.

Storied Companions

Storied Companions PDF Author: Karen Derris
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1614295999
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
A professor, mother, and Buddhist practitioner helps readers discover new ways of facing and experiencing life, death, and impermanence. “With my diagnosis of grade IV brain cancer, I no longer observe the truth of impermanence from a critical, analytical distance. I am crashing into it, or it into me.” Facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, Karen Derris—professor, mother, and Buddhist practitioner—turned to books. By reading ancient Buddhist stories with new questions and a new purpose—finding a way to live with her dying body—she discovers new ways to make them immediate and real. For instance, reading with her terminal prognosis, she becomes one of the four omens (the four signs of impermanence and suffering) the young Siddhartha sees in his excursions from the palace. What would it mean for her to be in the crowd, straining to see the prince with her own sick and impermanent body—to be pushed aside and out of sight by the palace minders, just as our society so often tries to brush aside anything uncomfortable, but to nonetheless be seen by the young bodhisattva? Or reading as a mother, maybe she shares something akin to what Queen Maya may have felt, knowing she was dying, giving her newborn son over to her sister’s care? What will it mean for her own children to be motherless? She follows the knotted threads connecting Milarepa’s angry, vengeful mother to Karen’s own mother, who physically abused her throughout a traumatic childhood. By placing herself into these stories, she turns them from distant and static narratives into companions, and from companions into guides. Storied Companions interweaves Karen’s memoir of her life of trauma and illness with stories from Buddhist literary traditions, sharing with the reader how she found ways to live with the reality that she won’t live as long as she wants and needs to. Honest, powerful, and insightful, Storied Companions itself becomes an invaluable companion, guiding the reader to discover new ways of facing and experiencing life, death, and impermanence.

Dr Ambedkar and the Revival of Buddhism I

Dr Ambedkar and the Revival of Buddhism I PDF Author: Sangharakshita
Publisher: Windhorse Publications
ISBN: 1909314803
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 842

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Book Description
One of the most far-reaching of Sangharakshita's contributions to modern Buddhism was giving shape to the Buddhist conversion movement begun by the great Indian statesman and reformer, Dr B.R. Ambedkar. The first part tells the story of how Ambedkar overcame the suffering and struggle of his early years to become the shaper of the Indian constitution and the leader of his people to a new life. The second part is a collection of 36 talks from Sangharakshita's tour of the Buddhist communities in India in 1981-2.

Vipassana Meditation & Its Relevance to the World

Vipassana Meditation & Its Relevance to the World PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788174143341
Category : Vipaśyanā (Buddhism).
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description


The Pilgrimage of Buddhism and a Buddhist Pilgrimage

The Pilgrimage of Buddhism and a Buddhist Pilgrimage PDF Author: James Bissett Pratt
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Buddhist pilgrims and pilgrimages
Languages : en
Pages : 778

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Book Description


One Breath at a Time

One Breath at a Time PDF Author: Kevin Griffin
Publisher: Rodale Books
ISBN: 1635651816
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
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.

S. N. Goenka

S. N. Goenka PDF Author: Daniel M. Stuart
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834842955
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
In a life that saw him evolve from a staunchly religious Hindu to an ecumenical master of Buddhist insight meditation, Satyanārāyaṇ (S. N.) Goenka (1924–2013) emerged as a leader in the spread of lay mindfulness and insight meditation practice on a global scale. A second-generation Burmese of Indian origin, Goenka was a successful businessman before turning to Buddhist meditation for help with crippling migraines. Becoming first a close student and then assistant teacher under the innovative Burmese lay Buddhist teacher U Ba Khin, Goenka eventually felt the pull of karmic destiny to teach meditation in India and thereby repay the ancient debt that Burmese Buddhists owed to the original Indian Buddhist tradition. In the 1970s, as he became an integral part of the Indian Buddhist spiritual landscape, thousands of young people from the United States and Europe flocked to India to explore its spiritual possibilities. Out of this remarkable convergence was launched a global network of practitioners and meditation centers that would become Goenka’s legacy. Drawing heavily on Goenka’s own autobiographical writings and Dharma talks, Daniel Stuart draws the first comprehensive portrait of the master’s life and demonstrates that Goenka’s influences, teaching, and legacy are much more complex than has been commonly thought. Stuart incorporates a wide range of primary documents and newly translated material in Hindi and Burmese to offer readers an in-depth exploration of Goenka’s teachings and his practice lineage in Burma. Stuart further details the trials and tribulations Goenka faced in building a movement in India in the 1970s, developing a global network of meditation centers, and negotiating a range of relationships with students and religious leaders worldwide. This fascinating addition to the Lives of the Masters series reflects on Goenka’s role in the revival of Buddhism in postcolonial India and his emergence as one of the most influential meditation masters of the twentieth century.

The Gracious Flow of Dharma

The Gracious Flow of Dharma PDF Author: S. N. Goenka
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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Book Description