The Origin of Buddhist Meditation

The Origin of Buddhist Meditation PDF Author: Alexander Wynne
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134097417
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
Based on the early Brahminic literature, the author asserts the origin of the method of meditation learned by the Buddha from his two teachers and identifies some authentic teachings of the Buddha on meditation.

The Origin of Buddhist Meditation

The Origin of Buddhist Meditation PDF Author: Alexander Wynne
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134097417
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 171

Get Book Here

Book Description
Based on the early Brahminic literature, the author asserts the origin of the method of meditation learned by the Buddha from his two teachers and identifies some authentic teachings of the Buddha on meditation.

The Origin of Buddhist Meditation

The Origin of Buddhist Meditation PDF Author: Alexander Wynne
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134097409
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Having identified early material that goes back to the Buddha himself, the author argues that the two teachers of the Buddha were historical figures. Based on the early Brahminic literature, namely the early Upanishads and Moksadharma, the author asserts the origin of the method of meditation learned by the Buddha from these teachers, and attempts to use them to identify some authentic teachings of the Buddha on meditation. Stimulating debate within the field of Buddhist Studies, the following claims are put forward: the Buddha was taught by Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, as stated in the literature of numerous early Buddhist sects, is historically authentic Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta taught a form of early Brahminic meditation the Buddha must consequently have been trained in a meditative school whose ideology was provided by the philosophical portions of early Upanishads Shedding new light on a fascinating aspect of the origins of Buddhism, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of Buddhist studies, Asian religion and South Asian studies.

The Birth of Insight

The Birth of Insight PDF Author: Erik Braun
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022600094X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Insight meditation, which claims to offer practitioners a chance to escape all suffering by perceiving the true nature of reality, is one of the most popular forms of meditation today. The Theravada Buddhist cultures of South and Southeast Asia often see it as the Buddha’s most important gift to humanity. In the first book to examine how this practice came to play such a dominant—and relatively recent—role in Buddhism, Erik Braun takes readers to Burma, revealing that Burmese Buddhists in the colonial period were pioneers in making insight meditation indispensable to modern Buddhism. Braun focuses on the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw, a pivotal architect of modern insight meditation, and explores Ledi’s popularization of the study of crucial Buddhist philosophical texts in the early twentieth century. By promoting the study of such abstruse texts, Braun shows, Ledi was able to standardize and simplify meditation methods and make them widely accessible—in part to protect Buddhism in Burma after the British takeover in 1885. Braun also addresses the question of what really constitutes the “modern” in colonial and postcolonial forms of Buddhism, arguing that the emergence of this type of meditation was caused by precolonial factors in Burmese culture as well as the disruptive forces of the colonial era. Offering a readable narrative of the life and legacy of one of modern Buddhism’s most important figures, The Birth of Insight provides an original account of the development of mass meditation.

Chan Before Chan

Chan Before Chan PDF Author: Eric M. Greene
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824884434
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
What is Buddhist meditation? What is going on—and what should be going on—behind the closed or lowered eyelids of the Buddha or Buddhist adept seated in meditation? And in what ways and to what ends have the answers to these questions mattered for Buddhists themselves? Focusing on early medieval China, this book takes up these questions through a cultural history of the earliest traditions of Buddhist meditation (chan), before the rise of the Chan (Zen) School in the eighth century. In sharp contrast to what would become typical in the later Chan School, early Chinese Buddhists approached the ancient Buddhist practice of meditation primarily as a way of gaining access to a world of enigmatic but potentially meaningful visionary experiences. In Chan Before Chan, Eric Greene brings this approach to meditation to life with a focus on how medieval Chinese Buddhists interpreted their own and others’ visionary experiences and the nature of the authority they ascribed to them. Drawing from hagiography, ritual manuals, material culture, and the many hitherto rarely studied meditation manuals translated from Indic sources into Chinese or composed in China in the 400s, Greene argues that during this era meditation and the mastery of meditation came for the first time to occupy a real place in the Chinese Buddhist social world. Heirs to wider traditions that had been shared across India and Central Asia, early medieval Chinese Buddhists conceived of “chan” as something that would produce a special state of visionary sensitivity. The concrete visionary experiences that resulted from meditation were understood as things that could then be interpreted, by a qualified master, as indicative of the mediator’s purity or impurity. Buddhist meditation, though an elite discipline that only a small number of Chinese Buddhists themselves undertook, was thus in practice and in theory constitutively integrated into the cultic worlds of divination and “repentance” (chanhui) that were so important within the medieval Chinese religious world as a whole.

Why Buddhism is True

Why Buddhism is True PDF Author: Robert Wright
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439195471
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
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.

An End to Suffering

An End to Suffering PDF Author: Pankaj Mishra
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429933631
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
An End to Suffering is a deeply original and provocative book about the Buddha's life and his influence throughout history, told in the form of the author's search to understand the Buddha's relevance in a world where class oppression and religious violence are rife, and where poverty and terrorism cast a long, constant shadow. Mishra describes his restless journeys into India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, among Islamists and the emerging Hindu middle class, looking for this most enigmatic of religious figures, exploring the myths and places of the Buddha's life, and discussing Western explorers' "discovery" of Buddhism in the nineteenth century. He also considers the impact of Buddhist ideas on such modern politicians as Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. As he reflects on his travels and on his own past, Mishra shows how the Buddha wrestled with problems of personal identity, alienation, and suffering in his own, no less bewildering, times. In the process Mishra discovers the living meaning of the Buddha's teaching, in the world and for himself. The result is the most three-dimensional, convincing book on the Buddha that we have.

A History of Mindfulness

A History of Mindfulness PDF Author: Bhikkhu Sujato
Publisher: Bhikkhu Sujato
ISBN: 1921842091
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is the most influential scripture in Buddhist meditation. It is the foundation text for the modern schools of 'vipassanā' or 'insight' meditation. The well-known Pali discourse is, however, only one of many early Buddhist texts that deal with mindfulness. This is the first full-scale study to encompass all extant versions of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, taking into account the dynamic evolution of the Buddhist scriptures and the broader Indian meditative culture. A new vision emerges from this groundbreaking study: mindfulness is not a system of 'dry insight' but is the 'way to convergence' leading the mind to deep states of peace.

The Oxford Handbook of Meditation

The Oxford Handbook of Meditation PDF Author: Miguel Farias
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192536370
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 1038

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Book Description
Meditation techniques, including mindfulness, have become popular wellbeing practices and the scientific study of their effects has recently turned 50 years old. But how much do we know about them: what were they developed for and by whom? How similar or different are they, how effective can they be in changing our minds and biology, what are their social and ethical implications? The Oxford Handbook of Meditation is the most comprehensive volume published on meditation, written in accessible language by world-leading experts on the science and history of these techniques. It covers the development of meditation across the world and the varieties of its practices and experiences. It includes approaches from various disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, history, anthropology, and sociology and it explores its potential for therapeutic and social change, as well as unusual or negative effects. Edited by practitioner-researchers, this book is the ultimate guide for all interested in meditation, including teachers, clinicians, therapists, researchers, or anyone who would like to learn more about this topic.

Buddhism

Buddhism PDF Author: Alexander Wynne
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
ISBN: 9781848853973
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Buddhism is often characterised as one of the most complex and enigmatic of all the world's religions. Although the Buddha himself was not a philosopher in the sense that that term is often understood, a Buddhist philosophy nevertheless emerged from the Buddha's teachings that was astonishingly rich, profound and elusive. Buddhism, which for over two millennia has been an integral part of South and East Asian society and civilisation, is now increasingly popular in the West, where its teachings about liberation of the self from the cycle of existence have proved attractive to people from a wide variety of backgrounds. In this new and comprehensive textbook, Alexander Wynne shows that the story of Buddhism as a global system of belief begins with the life of the Buddha in northern India in the fifth century bce. He discusses the many new advances that have been made in recent years with regard to Buddhist origins, and traces the ways that formative Indian doctrines helped shape the features of later Asian Buddhism. Carefully outlining the major Buddhist traditions, Wynne examines in turn the major Mahayana traditions of China, in- cluding the Ch'an and Pure Land schools, as well as recent trends in Theravada Buddhism, especially in Sri Lanka and Thailand, and the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet. Finally, he turns to the role of Buddhism in the modern world, and explores how the western encounter with Buddhism has both affected and been affected by it, especially in the fields of cognitive science and modern psychology.

The Heart of Buddhist Meditation

The Heart of Buddhist Meditation PDF Author: Nyanaponika Thera
Publisher: Buddhist Publication Society
ISBN: 9552401003
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
In print for more than fifty years and translated into some ten languages, Nyanaponika Thera’s The Heart of Buddhist Meditation has attained the stature of a modern spiritual classic. Combining deep personal insight with the power of clear exposition, the author guides the reader into the essential principles making up the Buddha’s Way of Mindfulness. Besides offering a lucid account of the basic practices of insight meditation, the book contains a complete translation of the Great Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness, the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha’s own instructions on the practice. “A work of unique importance ... written with great depth, extraordinary knowledge, deep humanity... I do not know of any book which could be compared to this work as a guide to meditation.” Erich Fromm