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As neuroscientific research shows, even the immediate sensation of pain is shaped by psychological state and interpretation. Many individuals and cultures find meaning, particularly religious meaning, even in chronic and inexplicable pain. This interdisciplinary book includes not only essays but also discussions among a wide range of specialists.
A critical history of the study of Buddhism in the West, incorporating insights of colonial and post-colonial cultural studies. Social, political and cultural conditions that have shaped the course of Buddhist studies are discussed.
A stunning modern translation of a Buddhist classic that is also one of the oldest literary texts in the world written by women. The Therīgāthā is one of the oldest surviving literatures by women, composed more than two millennia ago and originally collected as part of the Pali canon of Buddhist scripture. These poems were written by some of the first Buddhist women—therīs—honored for their religious achievements. Through imaginative verses about truth and freedom, the women recount their lives before ordination and their joy at attaining liberation from samsara. Poems of the First Buddhist Women offers startling insights into the experiences of women in ancient times that continue to resonate with modern readers. With a spare and elegant style, this powerful translation introduces us to a classic of world literature.
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 pr...
A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. What are the pleasures of reading translations of South Asian literature, and what does it take to enjoy a translated text? This volume provides opportunities to explore such questions by bringing together a whole set of new translations by David Shulman, noted scholar of South Asia. The translated selections come from a variety of Indian languages, genres, and periods, from the classical to the contemporary. The translations are accompanied by short essays written to help readers engage and enjoy them. Some of these essays provide background to enhance reading of the translation, whereas others model how to expand appreciation in comparative and broader ways. Together, the translations and the accompanying essays form an essential guide for people interested in literature and art from South Asia.
A Lasting Vision is dedicated to the Mirror of Literature, a Sanskrit treatise on poetics composed by Dandin in south India (c. 700 CE) and to its remarkable transcontinental career. The Mirror was adapted and translated into many Asian languages and became a classical text and a source of constant engagement and innovation, often well into the modern era.
In its teachings, practices and institutions, Buddhism in its varied Asian forms is centrally concerned with death and the dead. This title offers a comparative investigation of this topic across the major Buddhist cultures of India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Tibet and Burma.
"In this wide-ranging and field-changing work Steven Collins argues that the study of Theravada Buddhism needs to separated from the rather dated and stagnant field of textual history and approached both 'civilizationally' and as a 'practice of the self.' By civilizationally, he means that instead of seeing Buddhism as a set of 'original' teachings of the so-called historical Buddha from the 5th century BC to the present, it should rather be viewed as an effort by many teachers and visionaries over time to make sense of what it means to lead a worthy life. The purveyors of Buddhist philosophy did not consider themselves to be preservers of an archaic body of rules and ethical guidelines; the...
His Holiness the Sakya Trizin delivers an important teaching on ethics in Buddhism.
A cross-disciplinary study of Buddhist modernism in colonial Cambodia that offers an understanding of the history and development of religion and colonialism in Southeast Asia.