Tantric Treasures

Tantric Treasures PDF Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195166415
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
This book provides accurate, accessible translations of three classics of medieval Indian Buddhist mysticism. Since their composition around 1000 CE, these poems have exerted a powerful influence on spiritual life.

Tantric Treasures

Tantric Treasures PDF Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195166415
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book provides accurate, accessible translations of three classics of medieval Indian Buddhist mysticism. Since their composition around 1000 CE, these poems have exerted a powerful influence on spiritual life.

Women Who Fly

Women Who Fly PDF Author: Serinity Young
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019065970X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
From the beautiful apsaras of Hindu myth to the swan maidens of European fairy tales, stories of flying women-some carried by wings, others by clouds, rainbows, floating scarves, and flying horses-reveal the perennial fascination with and ambivalence about female power and sexuality. In Women Who Fly, Serinity Young examines the motif of the flying woman as it appears in a wide variety of cultures and historical periods, in legends, myths, rituals, sacred narratives, and artistic productions. She considers supernatural women like the Valkyries of Norse legend, who transport men to immortality; winged deities like the Greek goddesses Iris and Nike; figures of terror like the Furies, witches, and succubi; airborne Christian mystics; and wayward, dangerous women like Lilith and Morgan le Fay. Looking beyond the supernatural, Young examines the modern mythology surrounding twentieth-century female aviators like Amelia Earhart and Hanna Reitsch. Throughout, Young demonstrates that female power has always been inextricably linked with female sexuality and that the desire to control it is a pervasive theme in these stories. This is vividly depicted, for example, in the twelfth-century Niebelungenlied, in which the proud warrior-queen Brünnhilde loses her great physical strength when she is tricked into surrendering her virginity. Even in the twentieth-century the same idea is reflected in the exploits of the comic book and film character Wonder Woman who, Young suggests, retains her physical strength only because her love for fellow aviator Steve Trevor goes unrequited. The first book to systematically chronicle the figure of the flying woman in myth, literature, art, and pop culture, Women Who Fly offers a fresh look at the ways in which women have both influenced and been understood by society and religious traditions throughout the ages and around the world.

Tantra in Practice

Tantra in Practice PDF Author: David Gordon White
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691190453
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 661

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Book Description
As David White explains in the Introduction to Tantra in Practice, Tantra is an Asian body of beliefs and practices that seeks to channel the divine energy that grounds the universe, in creative and liberating ways. The subsequent chapters reflect the wide geographical and temporal scope of Tantra by examining thirty-six texts from China, India, Japan, Nepal, and Tibet, ranging from the seventh century to the present day, and representing the full range of Tantric experience--Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and even Islamic. Each text has been chosen and translated, often for the first time, by an international expert in the field who also provides detailed background material. Students of Asian religions and general readers alike will find the book rich and informative. The book includes plays, transcribed interviews, poetry, parodies, inscriptions, instructional texts, scriptures, philosophical conjectures, dreams, and astronomical speculations, each text illustrating one of the diverse traditions and practices of Tantra. Thus, the nineteenth-century Indian Buddhist Garland of Gems, a series of songs, warns against the illusion of appearance by referring to bees, yogurt, and the fire of Malaya Mountain; while fourteenth-century Chinese Buddhist manuscripts detail how to prosper through the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper by burning incense, making offerings to scriptures, and chanting incantations. In a transcribed conversation, a modern Hindu priest in Bengal candidly explains how he serves the black Goddess Kali and feeds temple skulls lentils, wine, or rice; a seventeenth-century Nepalese Hindu praise-poem hammered into the golden doors to the temple of the Goddess Taleju lists a king's faults and begs her forgiveness and grace. An introduction accompanies each text, identifying its period and genre, discussing the history and influence of the work, and identifying points of particular interest or difficulty. The first book to bring together texts from the entire range of Tantric phenomena, Tantra in Practice continues the Princeton Readings in Religions series. The breadth of work included, geographic areas spanned, and expert scholarship highlighting each piece serve to expand our understanding of what it means to practice Tantra.

Marpa Kagyu, Part One

Marpa Kagyu, Part One PDF Author: Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 161180888X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1241

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Book Description
A translation from Tibetan of an eighteenth-century compilation by one of Tibet's greatest Buddhist masters of practice texts of the Marpa Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. The Treasury of Precious Instructions by Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Taye, one of Tibet’s greatest Buddhist masters, is a shining jewel of Tibetan literature, presenting essential teachings from the entire spectrum of practice lineages that existed in Tibet. In its eighteen volumes, Kongtrul brings together some of the most important texts on key topics of Buddhist thought and practice as well as authoring significant new sections of his own. The seventh volume of the series, Marpa Kagyu, is the first of four volumes that present a selection of core instructions from the Marpa Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. This lineage is named for the eleventh-century Tibetan Marpa Chökyi Lodrö of Lhodrak who traveled to India to study the sūtras and tantras with many scholar-siddhas, the foremost being Nāropa and Maitrīpa. The first part of this volume contains source texts on mahāmudrā and the six dharmas by such famous masters as Saraha and Tilopa. The second part begins with a collection of sādhanas and abhisekas related to the Root Cakrasamvara Aural Transmissions, which are the means for maturing, or empowering, students. It is followed by the liberating instructions, first from the Rechung Aural Transmission. This section on instructions continues in the following three Marpa Kagyu volumes. Also included are lineage charts and detailed notes by translator Elizabeth M. Callahan.

Saraha's Spontaneous Songs

Saraha's Spontaneous Songs PDF Author: Klaus-Dieter Mathes
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1614297444
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 595

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Book Description
The first volume in over six decades to bring to light new original material on Saraha’s Treasury of Spontaneous Songs (Dohakosa). “Completely abandon thought and no-thought, and abide in the natural way of a small child.” —Saraha To find liberation and realize the true nature of reality, the Indian Buddhist master Saraha says we must leave behind any conceptual assessment of reality, since no model of it has ever been known to withstand critical analysis. Saraha’s spontaneous songs, or dohas, represent the Buddhist art of expressing the inexpressible. The most important collection of Saraha’s songs is the Dohakosagiti, better known in Tibet as the Songs for the People, and the Tibetan Mahamudra tradition, especially within the Kagyü school, has done the most to preserve the lineage of Saraha’s instructions to the present day. But Saraha was also widely cited in Indian sources starting around the eleventh century, and one Indic commentary, by the Newar scholar Advayavajra, still exists in Sanskrit. In addition, we have independent root texts of Saraha’s songs in the vernacular Apabhramsa in which they were recorded. These Indian texts, together with their Tibetan translations, are here presented in masterful new critical editions along with the Tibetan translation of the commentary no longer extant in Sanskrit by Moksakaragupta. Finally, both commentaries are rendered in elegant English, and the authors offer a brisk, comprehensive introduction. Saraha’s Spontaneous Songs provides the reader with everything needed for a serious study of one of the most important works in the Indian Buddhist canon.

Seeing the Sacred in Samsara

Seeing the Sacred in Samsara PDF Author: Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 1611804043
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Rare paintings set aside life stories of each of the eighty-four wild Buddhist saints of ancient India. This exquisite full-color presentation of the lives of the eighty-four mahāsiddhas, or “great accomplished ones,” offers a fresh glimpse into the world of the famous tantric yogis of medieval India. The stories of these tantric saints have captured the imagination of Buddhists across Asia for nearly a millennium. Unlike monks and nuns who renounce the world, these saints sought the sacred in the midst of samsara. Some were simple peasants who meditated while doing manual labor. Others were kings and queens who traded the comfort and riches of the palace for the danger and transgression of the charnel ground. Still others were sinners—pimps, drunkards, gamblers, and hunters—who transformed their sins into sanctity. This book includes striking depictions of each of the mahāsiddhas by a master Tibetan painter, whose work has been preserved in pristine condition. Published here for the first time in its entirety, this collection includes details of the painting elements along with the life stories of the tantric saints, making this one of the most comprehensive works available on the eighty-four mahāsiddhas.

Four Tibetan Lineages

Four Tibetan Lineages PDF Author:
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0861714474
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 691

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Book Description
"Drawing primarily from the Pacification, Severance, Shangpa Kagyü, and Bodongpa traditions, Four Tibetan Lineages presents some of Tibet's most transformative yet lesser-known teachings on meditative practice. Most works in this volume are drawn from a Tibetan anthology known as the Treasury of Precious Instructions compiled by Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Thayé (1813-1900). A vast preservation project, this anthology reflects Kongtrul's attempt to rescue rare teachings from disappearing. By foregrounding the teachings of masters like Khedrup Khyungpo Naljor (d. 1135), Dampa Sangyé (d. 1117), Machik Labdrön (1031/55-1126/50), Jonang Taranatha (1575-1634), and Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo (1820-92), this volume extends Jamgön Kongtrul's preservation efforts into the modern world, presenting a set of rare teachings to English readers for the first time"--

Historical Dictionary of Buddhism

Historical Dictionary of Buddhism PDF Author: Carl Olson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538130246
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
Moving beyond the original bodhi tree where the historical Buddha attained enlightenment, Buddhism spread throughout Asia and in more recent history has become ubiquitous in America and other Western nations as it marches into the status of a major global religion. During its history westward, it has changed, adapted to new cultures, and offered spiritual help to those looking for answers to the problems of life. Buddhism is studied in institutions of higher education, practice by many people worldwide, and its literature is translated in numerous languages. Historical Dictionary of Buddhism, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 900 cross-referenced entries on important personalities as well as complex theological concepts, significant practices, and basic writings and texts. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Buddhism.

Tibetan Buddhism and Mystical Experience

Tibetan Buddhism and Mystical Experience PDF Author: Yaroslav Komarovski
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019024495X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
In this book, Yaroslav Komarovski argues that the Tibetan Buddhist interpretations of the realization of ultimate reality both contribute to and challenge contemporary interpretations of unmediated mystical experience. The model used by the majority of Tibetan Buddhist thinkers states that the realization of ultimate reality, while unmediated during its actual occurrence, is necessarily filtered and mediated by the conditioning contemplative processes leading to it, and Komarovski argues that therefore, in order to understand this mystical experience, one must focus on these processes, rather than on the experience itself. Komarovski also provides an in-depth comparison of seminal Tibetan Geluk thinker Tsongkhapa and his major Sakya critic Gorampa's accounts of the realization of ultimate reality, demonstrating that the differences between these two interpretations lie primarily in their conflicting descriptions of the compatible conditioning processes that lead to this realization. Komarovski maintains that Tsongkhapa and Gorampa's views are virtually irreconcilable, but demonstrates that the differing processes outlined by these two thinkers are equally effective in terms of actually attaining the realization of ultimate reality. Tibetan Buddhism and Mystical Experience speaks to the plurality of mystical experience, perhaps even suggesting that the diversity of mystical experience is one of its primary features.

Turning the Wheel

Turning the Wheel PDF Author: Wim van den Dungen
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0359363792
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description