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Among Chinese religious sites, Mount Putuo, the "Island of Guanyin," stands out as a fascinating embodiment of China's vibrant Buddhist tradition. A small island in the East China Sea, it has been the single most important pilgrimage site for the worship of Guanyin, the beloved Bodhisattva of Compassion, who is venerated from Sri Lanka to Japan. Attracting thousands of visitors every year, the site has accumulated a multi-layered historical record, as it appears in different lights in poems, biographies, maps, and legends across the centuries. From its foundation in Mahayana Buddhist scriptures to its descriptions in local histories known as "gazetteers," Mount Putuo's distinctive profile ma...
The compassionate visage of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, better known as Guanyin in Chinese, has been a source of inspiration and devotion for Buddhists and non-Buddhists for centuries. Offering readers the opportunity to get to know this great practitioner from the Buddhist texts themselves, "The Universal Gate" contains a new translation of Avalokitesvara¿s Universal Gate Sutra, the Buddha¿s scriptural account of this compassionate sage and his power to manifest in whatever form necessary to help sentient beings. This short sutra, chanted and memorized throughout East Asia, is rich with symbolic significance and striking, memorable images. Venerable Master Hsing Yun provides a complete line-by-line commentary to unpack the sutra¿s fantastic descriptions, relating them to personal practice and the wider Buddhist teachings. "The Universal Gate" allows readers to enter Avalokitesvara¿s compassion and to appreciate the bodhisattva¿s special place of reverence in the Buddhist world.
Devoted to the most enigmatic and little-known aspect of training of Shaolin monks. Training methods allow supernatural abilites to develop, far beyond abilities of an ordinary man. The book was writen with the blessing and direct participation of the Head of the Shaolin Monastery Reverend Miao Xing, nicknamed "The Golden Arhat," one of the best Shaolin fighters of all times. These secret practices traditionally called "72 arts of Shaolin" or the essence of the Shaolin Combat Training.
As the Chinese economy develops, academic libraries continue to evolve and provide indispensable services for their users. Throughout this growth, the scientific and cultural dialogue between China and the United States has made it necessary for each country’s libraries to understand each other. Academic libraries often act as catalysts for progress and innovation; proper management and applications of these resources is key to promote further research. Academic Library Development and Administration in China provides a resource to promote Sino-U.S. communication and collaboration between their academic libraries. In considering the relationship between China and the West, this publication serves as a timely reflection on the expanding global field of information science. This publication is intended for librarians, researchers, university administrators, and information scientists in both the U.S. and China.
Winner, 2024 Geiss-Hsu Book Prize for Best First Book, Society for Ming Studies The goddess Guanyin began in India as the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, originally a male deity. He gradually became indigenized as a female deity in China over the span of nearly a millennium. By the Ming (1358–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) periods, Guanyin had become the most popular female deity in China. In Becoming Guanyin, Yuhang Li examines how lay Buddhist women in late imperial China forged a connection with the subject of their devotion, arguing that women used their own bodies to echo that of Guanyin. Li focuses on the power of material things to enable women to access religious experience and transcen...
Toward Community-Based Learning contends that the ideal school offers the opportunity to understand reality in a way that connects teaching and education with conditions in the surrounding community and the student’s life and concerns. This view holds that problem solving requires an understanding and awareness of the whole, which can be achieved through direct activities. In this manner, learning is linked to its natural context, with ideal instruction being actively problem-oriented, holistic, and life-centered. This thought-provoking volume offers an essential and comprehensive picture of community-based learning in the field of education. The book deals with the history of community-ba...
This edition, comprising a sound recording, transcription, and English translation, provides a record of the Liberation Rite of Water and Land as a resource for the study, analysis, and further exploration of both the Medicine Buddha Sutra and the accompanying liturgical service. The editor created it at the invitation of Fo Guang Shan monastery, and it outlines both the textual and musical elements of the service. Designed as a chantbook, it is intended to be a tool for all those who wish to participate in the vocal elements of the service, from the uninitiated monastery visitor to musical ensembles that might use these musical fragments as inspiration for appropriately staged performances. It is especially conceived for non-Chinese speaking monastics in the Buddhist college and/or those who have experience reading Western musical notation.
Recent archaeological finds in China have made possible a reconstruction of the ancient history of Sichauan, the country's most populous province. Excavated artifacts and newly recovered texts can now supplement traditional textual materials. Combing these materials, Sage shows how Sichauan matured from peripheral obscurity to attain central importance in the formation of the Chinese empire during the first millennium B.C.
In this, the first full-length study in English of China's best-known travel writer, new light is shed on the importance of the diaries of Xu Xiake (1587-1687) a compulsive traveller who spent a lifetime visiting and writing about China's 'beauty spots'. The general view of his work, that he brought a sober, analytical approach to a genre previously the domain of the dillentante and that his writing was 'utilitarian' and lacking in literary merit is cast aside, revealing Xu to be a figure of his age, his concerns perfectly in tune with the exuberant tastes of other late Ming literati. Essential background is provided with a survey of the history of Chinese travel writing in general with part...