Interpreting Amida

Interpreting Amida PDF Author: Galen Amstutz
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791494829
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Pure Land Buddhism was the largest traditional religion in Japan. It had an enormous impact on Japanese culture and was among the first forms of Buddhism encountered by Western culture. Not only has it been neglected in modern descriptions of Japan, but it also has been relatively ignored by Buddhist studies. The author shows that Pure Land Buddhism, despite a Mahayana Buddhist philosophical basis, has paralleled the social and political qualities associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition. It has variously been threatening to mainstream Westerners, uninteresting to Westerners seeking the exotic, and disagreeable to cultural brokers on all sides who want to depict Japanese culture as radically opposed to the West. The faulty appreciation of Pure Land Buddhism is one of the leading world examples of a counterproductive orientalism that restricts rather than improves cross-cultural communication.

Interpreting Amida

Interpreting Amida PDF Author: Galen Amstutz
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791494829
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book

Book Description
Pure Land Buddhism was the largest traditional religion in Japan. It had an enormous impact on Japanese culture and was among the first forms of Buddhism encountered by Western culture. Not only has it been neglected in modern descriptions of Japan, but it also has been relatively ignored by Buddhist studies. The author shows that Pure Land Buddhism, despite a Mahayana Buddhist philosophical basis, has paralleled the social and political qualities associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition. It has variously been threatening to mainstream Westerners, uninteresting to Westerners seeking the exotic, and disagreeable to cultural brokers on all sides who want to depict Japanese culture as radically opposed to the West. The faulty appreciation of Pure Land Buddhism is one of the leading world examples of a counterproductive orientalism that restricts rather than improves cross-cultural communication.

Interpreting Amida

Interpreting Amida PDF Author: Galen Dean Amstutz
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791433096
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Examines the history of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism and how orientalist assumptions have caused the West to ignore this important tradition.

Exile and Otherness

Exile and Otherness PDF Author: Ilana Maymind
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498574599
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
In Exile and Otherness: The Ethics of Shinran and Maimonides, Ilana Maymind argues that Shinran (1173–1263), the founder of True Pure Land Buddhism (Jodo Shinshu), and Maimonides (1138–1204), a Jewish philosopher, Torah scholar, and physician, were both deeply affected by their conditions of exile as shown in the construction of their ethics. By juxtaposing the exilic experiences of two contemporaries who are geographically and culturally separated and yet share some of the same concerns, this book expands the boundaries of Shin Buddhist studies and Jewish studies. It demonstrates that the integration into a new environment for Shinran and the creative mixture of cultures for Maimonides allowed them to view certain issues from the position of empathic outsiders. Maymind demonstrates that the biographical experiences of these two thinkers who exhibit sensitivity to the neglected and suffering others, resonate with conditions of exile and diasporic living in pluralistic societies that define the lives of many individuals, communities, and societies in the twenty-first century.

The Making of American Buddhism

The Making of American Buddhism PDF Author: Scott A. Mitchell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197641563
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
As of 2010, there were approximately 3-4 million Buddhists in the United States, and that figure is expected to grow significantly. Beyond the numbers, the influence of Buddhism can be felt throughout the culture, with many more people practicing meditation, for example, than claiming Buddhist identity. A century ago, this would have been unthinkable. So how did Buddhism come to claim such a significant place in the American cultural landscape? The Making of American Buddhism offers an answer, showing how in the years on either side of World War II second-generation Japanese American Buddhists laid claim to an American identity inclusive of their religious identity. In the process they-and their allies-created a place for Buddhism in America. These sons and daughters of Japanese immigrants-known as "Nisei," Japanese for "second-generation"-clustered around the Berkeley Bussei, a magazine published from 1939 to 1960. In the pages of the Bussei and elsewhere, these Nisei Buddhists argued that Buddhism was both what made them good Americans and what they had to contribute to America-a rational and scientific religion of peace. The Making of American Buddhism also details the behind-the-scenes labor that made Buddhist modernism possible. The Bussei was one among many projects that were embedded within Japanese American Buddhist communities and connected to national and transnational networks that shaped and allowed for the spread of modernist Buddhist ideas. In creating communities, publishing magazines, and hosting scholarly conventions and translation projects, Nisei Buddhists built the religious infrastructure that allowed the later Buddhist modernists, Beat poets, and white converts who are often credited with popularizing Buddhism to flourish. Nisei activists didn't invent American Buddhism, but they made it possible.

The Zen Poetry of DOGEN: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace

The Zen Poetry of DOGEN: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace PDF Author: STEVEN HEINE
Publisher: Fivestar
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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Book Description
THIS VOLUME contains a complete translation of Dōgen's collection of thirty-one-syllable Japanese poetry, or waka, along with a translation of a representative selection of his Chinese verse, or kanshi. Although Dōgen is generally considered to be more of a philosopher than a poet, his verse has great value for several reasons. First, the poems, most of which were composed on the mountain peak of Eiheiji Temple (the Temple of Eternal Peace, as pictured on the front cover), are beautiful, displaying Dōgen's remarkable facility with language. Second, the Japanese and Chinese collections illuminate key aspects of his life and thought not revealed in his prose writings, including his trips to China and Kamakura, his feelings about Kyoto while living in Eiheiji in the northern provinces, and his feelings about death.

Myōe the Dreamkeeper

Myōe the Dreamkeeper PDF Author: George J. Tanabe, Jr.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684172950
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
In the Kamakura period, Myoe Shonin (1173-1232) was a leader of Nara Buddhists who sought to revitalize traditional Buddhism in Japan. In his teaching, Myoe specially emphasized the value of the visions that could be achieved through meditation; and in his practice, he kept and occasionally illustrated a diary of his own visions and significant night dreams. The autograph copy of this remarkable document still exists, although some pages have been scattered among collectors. George J. Tanabe, Jr., here presents in English the most comprehensive compilation of the diary in any language. Moreover, his study of Myoe's life and teachings provides both a context within which the diary can be understood and a view of the often doctrinally contentious world of Kamakura Buddhism.

Language, Cognition, and Biblical Exegesis

Language, Cognition, and Biblical Exegesis PDF Author: Ronit Nikolsky
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350078123
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
What role do texts play in religious practice? What is the relationship between these texts and cognition? Are some texts more successful because they are better adapted to our cognitive structures? Why is biblical interpretation necessary, and what is the cognitive process behind it? This book considers such questions, and fills the gap in research on religious texts and narratives in the cognitive science of religion. The study of ancient religions and biblical studies are dominated by textual evidence. However, the cognitive science of religion is lacking significant research on the language and textual interpretation of this literature. This book presents a systematic attempt to redefine the interpretation of religious texts in a cognitive framework, providing concrete textual analysis on a broad selection of biblical passages. It explores the ways that cognitive approaches to language and textual interpretation expand the disciplines of the cognitive science of religion and biblical studies. This book brings together methodology from the cognitive sciences, linguistics, philology, biblical studies, and religious studies, to offer a new perspective for biblical studies and cognitive sciences. It presents a renewed vision of textual interpretation - one that aligns hermeneutical reflection with our cognitive capacities.

Catholic Engagement with World Religions

Catholic Engagement with World Religions PDF Author: Karl Josef Becker
Publisher: Orbis Books
ISBN: 157075828X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1121

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Book Description
Twenty-Five Element International Scholars show how roman catholic theology has grappled with religious pluralism. Catholic Engagement with World Religions outlines, clarifies, and defends official Roman Catholic teaching on the relationship between Christianity and other religious traditions in light of the Catholic belief that "We must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery".(Gaudium et Spes, 22) Part I studies the history of these issues while Part II examines their theological framing. Part III addresses Christianity and other religions since Vatican U. Part IV deals specifically with Judaism, Confucianism, Hinduism and Islam as these religions see themselves in relation to Christianity. A final chapter by Bishop Michael Fitzgerald offers a theological reflection on the foundations of interreligious dialogue today. For scholars, students, and practitioners of interreligious encounter, Catholic Engagement with World Religions is necessary and absorbing reading. Karl J. Becker, S.J., and Ilaria Morali teach at the Gregorian University in Rome.

A Study into the Thought of Kōgyō Daishi Kakuban

A Study into the Thought of Kōgyō Daishi Kakuban PDF Author: Henny van der Veere
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900448759X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Kakuban (1095-1144) is the second most important figure in the history of the Shingon sect of Esoteric Buddhism, but there are few studies about him in Western languages. This work contains a biography and a discussion of Kakuban's works, focusing on his doctrines. Although it is widely believed that Kakuban incorporated Amidist ideas and practices into Shingon, this study shows that Kakuban's aim was to explain the practices of other schools from an orthodox Shingon point of view. The translations of Kakuban's major works, the Amida hishaku and the Gorin kuji myô himitsushaku, clearly support this idea.

Three Mountains and Seven Rivers

Three Mountains and Seven Rivers PDF Author: Musashi Tachikawa
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
ISBN: 9788120824683
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 964

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Book Description
Three mountains and the seven rivers is a collection of 56 essays to felicitate the sixtieth birthday of Doctor Musashi Techikawa, Professor at Aichi gakuin University in Nagoya. This volume consist of thirteen Sections; (1) Ancient Geography, (2) Buddhism, (3) Madhyamika, (4) Iconography, (5) Jainism, (6) Logic, (7) Poetics, (9) Social Practice, (10) Tibetan Themes, (11) Vedanta and Mimamsa, (12) Samkhya and Yoga and (13) Tantrism. these saetions throw new light on enduring themes in Indian studies as well as raises fresh issues.