In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedAt the Eleventh Hour: The Biography of Swami Rama. By Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, Ph.D. Honesdale, Pennsylvania: Himalayan Institute Press, 2002. Pp. 427. Hardcover $18.95.Awakening and Insight: Zen Buddhism and Psychotherapy. Edited by Polly Young Eisendrath and Shoji Muramoto. Hove, England: Brunner-Routledge, 2002. Pp. xii + 275. Paper $24.95.Beyond Metaphysics Revisited: Krishnamurti and Western Philosophy. By J. Richard Wingerter. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2002. Pp. vii (...) + 391. Hardcover $71.00.Bhāmatī and Vivaraṇa Schools of Advaita Vedānta: A Critical Approach. By Pulasth Soobah Roodurmun, foreword by V. N. Jha, and edited by Kanshi Ram. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2002. Pp. xv + 297. Price not given.A Bibliography of Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy. By James S. Crouch. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and Manohar Publishers and Distributors, 2002. Pp. 430. Price not given.Crisis Theory and World Order: Heideggerian Reflections. By Norman K. Swazo. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. x + 289. Hardcover $78.50. Paper $26.95.Devotional Literature in South Asia: Current Research 1997-2000: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Early Literature in New Indo-Aryan Languages, Leuven, 23-26 August 2000. Edited by Winand M. Callewaert and Dieter Taillieu. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors, 2002. Pp. xxii + 324. Price not given.Dharma Bell and Dhāraṇī Pillar: Li Po's Buddhist Inscriptions. By Paul W. Kroll. Kyoto: Italian School of East Asian Studies, 2001. Pp. viii + 95. Price not given.Essays on the Moral Philosophy of Mengzi. Edited, with introduction, by Xiusheng Liu and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002. Pp. xiv + 249. Hardcover $39.95. Paper $16.95. Professional price $12.95.Ethical Questions: East and West. Edited by Bina Gupta. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002. Pp. vi + 279. Hardcover $70.00. Paper $26.95.Ethical Relativism and Universalism. By Saral Jhingran. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2001. Pp. xiv + 385. Price not given.Genius-In Their Own Words: The Intellectual Journeys of Seven Great 20th Century [End Page 431] Thinkers. Edited and with introduction by David Ramsay Steele, foreword by Arthur C. Danto. Chicago and La Salle: Open Court, 2002. Pp. xxii + 366. Paper $24.95.The Hatha Yoga Pradipika. The original Sanskrit by Svatmarama, an English translation by Brian Dana Akers. Woodstock, New York: YogaVidya.com, 2002. Pp. xii + 115. Hardcover $19.95. Paper $11.95.Human Rights and Chinese Thought: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry. By Stephen C. Angle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xviii + 285. Hardcover $65.00. Paper $23.00.Indestructible Truth: The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism. By Reginald A. Ray. Boston and London: Shambhala Publications, 2002. Pp. x + 495. Paper $17.95.Introduction to Eastern Thought. By Marietta Stepaniants. Edited by James Behuniak and translated by Rommela Kohanovskaya. Lanham, Maryland: AltaMira Press, a division of Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002. Pp. xiv + 293. Hardcover $69.00. Paper $24.95.Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life. Edited by Christopher Key Chapple. Cambridge: Harvard University Press for the Center for the Study of World Religions, 2002. Pp. xliv + 252. Hardcover $32.95. Paper $22.95.Mediating the Power of Buddhas: Ritual in the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa. By Glenn Wallis. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 263. Hardcover $86.50. Paper $29.95.Methodology in Religious Studies: The Interface with Women's Studies. Edited by Arvind Sharma. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. xi + 253. Hardcover $78.50. Paper $26.95.Persons and Valuable Worlds: A Global Philosophy. By Eliot Deutsch. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002. Pp. x + 309. Hardcover $80.00. Paper $34.95.Philosophy and Art in Gurdjieff's Beelzebub: A Modern Sufi Odyssey. By Anna T. Challenger. Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2002. Pp. xi + 145. Paper EUR 27,00, U.S. $25.00.The Pratyabhijñā Philosophy. By G. V. Tagare. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2002. Pp. xii + 165. Price not given.Reflections on Reality: The Three Natures and Non-Natures in the Mind-Only School: Dynamic Responses to ong-ka-a's The... (shrink)

_This illuminating account of contemporary American Buddhism shows the remarkable ways the tradition has changed over the past generation_ The past couple of decades have witnessed Buddhist communities both continuing the modernization of Buddhism and questioning some of its limitations. In this fascinating portrait of a rapidly changing religious landscape, Ann Gleig illuminates the aspirations and struggles of younger North American Buddhists during a period she identifies as a distinct stage in the assimilation of Buddhism to the (...) West. She observes both the emergence of new innovative forms of deinstitutionalized Buddhism that blur the boundaries between the religious and secular, and a revalorization of traditional elements of Buddhism, such as ethics and community, that were discarded in the modernization process. Based on extensive ethnographic and textual research, the book ranges from mindfulness debates in the Vipassana network to the sex scandals in American Zen, while exploring issues around racial diversity and social justice, the impact of new technologies, and generational differences between baby boomer, Gen X, and millennial teachers. (shrink)

_This illuminating account of contemporary American Buddhism shows the remarkable ways the tradition has changed over the past generation_ The past couple of decades have witnessed Buddhist communities both continuing the modernization of Buddhism and questioning some of its limitations. In this fascinating portrait of a rapidly changing religious landscape, Ann Gleig illuminates the aspirations and struggles of younger North American Buddhists during a period she identifies as a distinct stage in the assimilation of Buddhism to the (...) West. She observes both the emergence of new innovative forms of deinstitutionalized Buddhism that blur the boundaries between the religious and secular, and a revalorization of traditional elements of Buddhism, such as ethics and community, that were discarded in the modernization process. Based on extensive ethnographic and textual research, the book ranges from mindfulness debates in the Vipassana network to the sex scandals in American Zen, while exploring issues around racial diversity and social justice, the impact of new technologies, and generational differences between baby boomer, Gen X, and millennial teachers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 159-161 [Access article in PDF] Benedict's Dharma: Buddhist Reflections on the Rule of Saint Benedict. By Norman Fischer, et al. Edited by Patrick Hart, with an afterword by David Steindl-Rast and a translation of the Rule by Patrick Berry. New York: Riverhead Books, 2001. xvi + 222 pp. When Buddhist and Christian monastics meet, they recognize each other as brothers and sisters engaged in (...) a similar quest, despite their doctrinal differences. The nature of this quest is explored in Benedict's Dharma, in which four Buddhists (Norman Fischer, Joseph Goldstein, Judith Simmer-Brown, and Yifa, representing the Zen, Theravadin, Tibetan, and Chinese Buddhist traditions) ruminate on their fraternal and sororal feelings.Venerable Yifa, a nun of the prominent Taiwanese monastery Fo Guang Shan, is the only one of the four in monastic vows, and the reader may wonder what the three non-monastics could offer to a discussion on the monastic life. This is not a new problem. Patrick Henry and Donald Swearer's groundbreaking study, For the Sake of the World: The Spirit of Buddhist and Christian Monasticism (1989), spends a great deal of time on Zen monks, even though there are no Zen monks, theVinaya is kept by the Zen nuns or by the monastics of the parent and sibling lineages of Chan, Son, and Thien. (See my review article, "Why Are There Monks and Nuns?" in Buddhist-Christian Studies 12.) The monastic, it seems, is not confined to the habit.Brother David Steindl-Rast, a monk of Mount Saviour Monastery, grapples with this problem in his afterword, "Conclusions about a Beginning." It was at Mount Saviour that the phrase "the monastic dimension" was coined, to refer to those of monastic bent who for one reason or another did not or could not live in the cloister. One of Brother David's books was to be called, he told me, The Monk in Us, "us" meaning laypeople, but the title had an odd sound and was dropped. So, what is the monastic dimension? Brother David suggests that it is mindfulness, and he comes close to saying that wherever there is mindfulness, there is monasticism. "If mindfulness is all that matters, the monastery is merely a most convenient environment for this kind of life, but it can be lived anywhere, by anyone" (126). He goes on to discuss the phenomenon of monasteries shrinking in size at the same time as the number of long- and short-term visitors to monasteries grows, and proposes that we are moving toward a new understanding of the terms "contemplative," "monastic," and "lay."This insight may point to the most important contribution of this book. It is not about monasticism per se, and it is not a comparative study of the Rule and the Vinaya, with practical suggestions for their mutual reform; rather, it is a meditation on how anyone, monastic or lay, might live the contemplative or mindful life. Throughout the history of the Church and the sangha, laypeople have been in the majority, but attention has been focused on the priests and monastics. Pope Pius X [End Page 159] put it bluntly: the laypeople are the sheep who are to be led, and the clergy are the shepherds who lead. The Church, he added, is not a democracy. I do not know of a Buddhist who has been quite this straightforward, but many have come close, and the history of Buddhism is not that of a democracy. Occasionally, lay movements in both traditions have arisen, basing themselves on the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers or on the teaching of universal Buddha-nature, but they have quickly been co-opted by leaders who proclaimed themselves to be more equal than their fellows. The tragedy for both Buddhism and Christianity is that the contemplative or mindful life has become restricted to a group of professionals, with the attendant belief that such a life is unattainable by most Buddhists and Christians. Now that the dharma has come to the land of the red-faced people, where democracy is... (shrink)

_An essential collection of Stephen Batchelor’s most probing and important work on secular Buddhism_ As the practice of mindfulness permeates mainstream Western culture, more and more people are engaging in a traditional form of Buddhist meditation. However, many of these people have little interest in the religious aspects of Buddhism, and the practice occurs within secular contexts such as hospitals, schools, and the workplace. Is it possible to recover from the Buddhist teachings a vision of human flourishing that is (...) secular rather than religious without compromising the integrity of the tradition? Is there an ethical framework that can underpin and contextualize these practices in a rapidly changing world? In this collected volume of Stephen Batchelor’s writings on these themes, he explores the complex implications of Buddhism’s secularization. Ranging widely—from reincarnation, religious belief, and agnosticism to the role of the arts in Buddhist practice—he offers a detailed picture of contemporary Buddhism and its attempt to find a voice in the modern world. (shrink)

Some twenty-five centuries after the Buddha started teaching, his message continues to inspire people across the globe, including those living in predominantly secular societies. But what does it mean to adapt religious practices to secular contexts? Stephen Batchelor, an internationally known author and teacher, is committed to a secularized version of the Buddha's teachings. The time has come, he feels, to articulate a coherent ethical, contemplative, and philosophical vision of Buddhism for our age. _After Buddhism, _the culmination of (...) four decades of study and practice in the Tibetan, Zen, and Theravada traditions, is his attempt to set the record straight about who the Buddha was and what he was trying to teach. Combining critical readings of the earliest canonical texts with narrative accounts of five of the Buddha’s inner circle, Batchelor depicts the Buddha as a pragmatic ethicist rather than a dogmatic metaphysician. He envisions Buddhism as a constantly evolving culture of awakening, its long survival due to its capacity to reinvent itself and interact creatively with each society it encounters. This original and provocative book presents a new framework for understanding the remarkable spread of Buddhism in today’s globalized world. It also reminds us of what was so startling about the Buddha’s vision of human flourishing. (shrink)

A comprehensive collection of classic texts, contemporary interpretations, guidelines for activists, issue-specific information, and materials for environmentally-oriented religious practice. Sources and contributors include Basho, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Gary Snyder, Chogyam Trungpa, Gretel Ehrlich, Peter Mathiessen, Helen Tworkov (editor of Tricycle ), and Philip Glass.

Evolving Dharma is a next-generation book about meditation, Buddhism, and the contemplative path. It explores how the dharma (the path, the way, the teachings of the Buddha) has evolved in astonishing ways and how dharma practice evolves in one's own life. Instead of approaching the dharma as spirituality, therapy, or self-help, scholar and practicing Buddhist Jay Michaelson presents it as a set of technologies for upgrading the brain, for physically enhancing its capacity for wisdom and (...) compassion. In the last twenty years, Buddhism has exploded well beyond its former boundaries. Meditation is being taught to prisoners, cancer patients, and children. It is being practiced online--by geeks, hipsters, and punks; by atheists, Christians, and Jews; by people who are not "spiritual." It's not even "Buddhism" anymore, having evolved out of its original religious context and into dozens of new ones. Evolving Dharma is the first book to take stock of these trends, and to speak in real-life terms about how they affect the practice of meditation and the path to upgrading the mind. Michaelson is fearless, unorthodox, and irreverent, yet his book is also based on his decade of meditation practice and teaching as well as his ten years of work as an LGBT activist. Including forays into neuroscience and cultural criticism and Michaelson's personal stories of his five months spent in silent retreat, life-changing realizations, pain, joy, and insight, this is not an ironic, wading-into-spirituality memoir but a thoughtful, important work that takes its subject seriously, both as discipline and as individual narrative. Chapter titles include "The Dharma Evolves By Disappearing," "The Evolution of Enlightenment," and "When Every Mystical State You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough.". (shrink)

This volume of essays offers direct comparisons of historic Western and Buddhist perspectives on ethics and metaphysics, tracing parallels and contrasts all the way from Plato to the Stoics, Spinoza to Hume, and Schopenhauer through to contemporary ethicists such as Arne Naess, Charles Taylor and Derek Parfit. It compares and contrasts each Western philosopher with a particular strand in the Buddhist tradition, in some chapters represented by individual writers such as Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Santideva or Tsong Khapa. It does so in (...) light of both analytic concerns and themes from the existentialist and phenomenological traditions, and often in an ecumenical spirit that bridges both analytic and continentalist approaches. Some of the deepest questions in ethics, dealing with the scope of agency, value-laden notions of personhood and the nature of value in general, are intertwined with questions in metaphysics. One set of questions addresses how varying conceptions of selfhood relate to moral values ; another set of questions addresses how a conception of oneself or one’s selves should or should not affect how one thinks of happiness, or eudaimonia, or – in classical Indian terms – artha, sukha or nirvana. Western philosophy has featured discussion of both, but some would argue that certain traditions of Asian philosophy have offered a more sustained and even treatment of both sets of questions. The Buddhist tradition in particular has not only featured much discussion on both fronts, but has attracted many contemporary philosophers to its distinctive spectrum of approaches, and to what is – from many ‘Western’ points of view – a seemingly subversive analysis of ego, selfhood and personhood, whether in metaphysical, phenomenological or other incarnations. (shrink)

The existential crisis in zombie apocalyptic fiction brings to the fore the problem of humanity's search for meaning in an increasingly global and secular world. Zombies are analyzed in the context of Buddhist thought, in contrast with social and religious critiques from other works.

Over the last few decades there has emerged a small, yet influential eco-Buddhism movement in South Korea which, since the turn of the millennium, has seen several S?n Buddhist clerics engage in high-profile protests and activism campaigns opposing massive development projects which threatened widespread ecological destruction. This article will survey the issues and events surrounding three such protests; the 2003 samboilbae, or ‘threesteps- one-bow’, march led by Venerable Suky?ng against the Saemangeum Reclamation Project, Venerable Jiyul’s Anti-Mt. Ch?ns?ng tunnel hunger-strike (...) campaign between 2002 and 2006, and lastly Venerable Munsu’s self-immolation protesting the Four Rivers Project in 2010. This article will additionally analyze the attempts by these clerics to deploy innovative and distinctively Buddhist forms of protest, the effects of these protests, and how these protests have altered public perceptions of the role of Buddhist clergy in Korean society. This study will additionally highlight issues relevant to the broader discourse regarding the intersection of Buddhism and social activism, such as the appropriation of traditional Buddhist practices as protest tactics and the potential for conflict between social engagement and the pursuit of Buddhist soteriological goals. (shrink)

_Action Dharma_ charts the emergence of a new chapter in an ancient faith - the rise of social service and political activism in Buddhist Asia and the West. Fourteen new essays treat the historical origins, global range, teachings and practices, and leaders and organizations that make up the latest turning of the Dharma. Environmentalism and peace walks through the minefields of Southeast Asia, the future of the 'untouchables' of Japan, and outreach to minorities and inmates of the criminal justice (...) system in the West are some of the challenging topics considered. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:DHARMA AND DESTRUCTION: BUDDHIST INSTITUTIONS AND VIOLENCE Christopher Ives Stonehill College Photographs ofgentle monks in saffron, the cottageindustry ofbooks on mindfulness, and the Dalai Lama's response to the Chinese invasion of Tibet have all helped portray Buddhism as the "religion of nonviolence." This representation ofBuddhism finds support in Buddhist texts, doctrines, and ritual practices, which often advocate ahimsa, nonharming or non-violence. The historical record, however, belies the (...) portrayal of Buddhism as a "religion of nonviolence." By reinterpreting early doctrines of ahimsa, Buddhist thinkers have legitimated violence in particular situations, practitioners have committed acts of violence, and Buddhist institutions have lent support to other institutions—social, political, and governmental —engaged in violence. In this paper I will examine Buddhist perpetration andjustifications ofviolence,1 with particularfocus on Japan, arguing that, historically, Buddhists' desire for institutional security has taken precedence over total rejection of violence. 1 I have restricted my discussion to the killing of other human beings. I do not consider suicide andthe killing ofnon-human animals. For a discussion ofBuddhism, (self-)sacrifice, and suicide in relation to Girard's theory, see Charles D. Orzech, '"Provoked Suicide' and the Victim's Behavior." 152Christopher Ives Non-violence The doctrine of ahimsa figures prominently in early and Theravadan Buddhism. The first ofthe five moral precepts (panca silani) in Buddhism is ahimsa, and in the Dhammapada the historical Buddha purportedly states, All are afraid of the rod. Of death all are afraid. Having made oneself the example, One should neither slay nor cause to slay. (Ross 202) The Buddhaalso sketches the consequences ofhurting orharming (himsa): Who with a rod does hurt Beings who desire ease [of nibbana], While himself looking for ease— He, having departed, ease does not get. Theravadan monastic codes and practices, such as the uposatha biweekly confession of moral transgressions and recitation of the 227 rules in the Patimokkha (Skt. Pratimoksa), are closely tiedto ahimsa. One ofthe Patimokkha's four "offenses of defeat" (parajika dharmas), for which the punishment is immediate expulsion of the monk or nun from the order, is killing another human being (Prebish 11). Mahayana texts continue this exhortation against violence. For example, in the Dasabhimika-sutra we read that a Buddhist "must not hate any being and cannot kill a living creature even in thought."2 Early Buddhist texts include depictions ofthe ideal Buddhist king, the cakravartin-raja or "monarch who turns the wheel [of the Dharma],"3 as an exemplar of nonviolence. Contemporary Buddhist activist Sulak Sivaraksa expresses it, this king is a "an ideal ruler, a world-conquering monarch, who subdued the earth through righteousness rather than war" (Sulak 129), and whose ten main duties include striving for peace and ruling with nonviolent benevolence (129). For well over 2000 years 2 Cited in Har Dayal, The Bodhisattva Doctrine, p. 199; quoted by Kraft, 5. In much ofthe first section of this paper I am indebted to Ken Kraft's introduction to his volume. 3 The metaphor ofturning the wheel refers to the historical Buddha's teaching ofthe Dharma and the later propagation of it by others. Dharma and Deconstruction153 Buddhists have lifted up Indian king Ashoka (c. 272-236) as an instantiation of this ideal. The early Buddhist doctrine of ahimsa should not, however, be construed as compassionate altruism. Luis Gómez and other scholars have delineated how ahimsa at first did not express some sort of underlying altruistic concern for the well-being of others. Vegetarianism and other ways of avoiding himsa, harming or violence, derived from ancient Indian ritual taboos againstblood and otherbodily liquids (Gómez 36). Buddhists ethicized and psychologized earlier notions of physical pollution, and advocated abstention fromviolenceprimarily as ameans ofself-cultivation, as a way to keep the mind pure, like an unstained cloth (36). (Scholars have even argued that the positive expression oíahimsa, the practice ofdirecting metta (loving-kindness) to others, originally had as much or more to do with the spiritual benefits accrued by the person directing the metta as it did with the well-being of the person receiving it. Only later was ahimsa furtherreinterpreted as positive regard forothers, as seen in the bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism. Violence in Buddhist History At numerous times over... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 222-228 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds. Edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and Duncan Ryuken Williams. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1997. 467 pp. As Mary Evelyn Tucker's foreword explains, this book is part of a series of conferences and publications exploring the (...) relationship between religion and ecology initiated by the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University. The volume is divided into several sections. In the first section, "Overview: Framing the Issues," Lewis Lancaster provides an excellent overview of the important role of religion in relation to ecology in "Buddhism and Ecology: Collective Cultural Perceptions." In addition, he discusses some of the promise and pitfalls of interpreting Buddhism to ascertain its perspectives on nature, the human/nature relationship, and so forth.The first substantive section, "Theravada Buddhism and Ecology," has a focus on Thailand, with essays by Donald Swearer on Thai Buddhist perspectives on nature, and Leslie Sponsel and Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel, entitled "Theoretical Analysis of the Potential Contribution of the Monastic Community in Promoting a Green Society in Thailand." Swearer describes the approaches of two preeminent Thai Buddhist monk scholars and activists, Bhikkhu Buddhadasa and Phra Prayudh Payutto, concluding that these two offer distinct but similarly proenvironmental interpretations of Buddha dharma.The Sponsels' essay is less persuasive. Their thesis is that "the local monastic communities of Thailand have the potential to serve as working models of a green society and that some actually do" (48). The evidence they offer is that "by drawing on the environmental wisdom of the dharma, by serving as a model of a green society, and through the power afforded by their liminal status, local monastic communities have significant potential to contribute to the environmental awareness, information, and ethics of the populace" (Sponsel and Sponsel 53). Since the monastic environment is comprised predominantly of males, however, what contribution do women make to these goals, and how do they become educated into environmental awareness? The authors do acknowledge the gender discrimination of the sangha and recognize both that "one of the concomitants of a green society is gender equity" as well as that the gender bias of the sangha and society in Thailand need to change if a green society is to be realized in Thailand (56). However, assuming that women are equal contributors to environmental destruction as well as the potential for rehabilitation, it would seem to be important to use vehicles for environmental education that provide access to females as well as males, rather than monastic institutions composed exclusively of males (at least the formally recognized ones).However, the Sponsels see the greatest obstacle to the attainment of a green society in Thailand to be "the disparity between Buddhist ideals and teachings, on the one hand, and the actual practices of Buddhists, on the other" (56). The authors note that in reality, Thailand is increasingly becoming an environmental disaster rather [End Page 222] than an ecotopia. Although the authors contend that Buddhism is one of the most important resources for resolving environmental problems in Thailand because of its ability to "penetrate to the very roots of the problems and to find lasting solutions rather than merely treat superficial symptoms and single issues," they have failed to describe what these principles are in any detail other than the doctrine of interdependent origination and care for all sentient beings, as well as failing to demonstrate specifically how monks actually provide an example of a green society. Thus, their "hypotheses" remain largely unproven and unsupported.The third section of the volume, "Mahayana Buddhism and Ecology," focuses on Japan. Paul O. Ingram's essay, "The Jeweled Net of Nature," supports the thesis that Shingon (esoteric) Buddhism, especially that of the Japanese monk and scholar Kukai, offer resources for resolving the environmental crisis (as Graham Parkes also does in a later essay in this section). Beginning from the premise that the dualistic, hierarchical, atomizing, androcentric, and sexist characteristics of Western monotheistic religion and... (shrink)

Zhiyi is the most important scholar of Tiantai Buddhism. He uses the term ‘ji即,’ which is normally translated as ‘equals to’ or ‘is identical to,’ to illustrate the relation between...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and DeedsSteven HeineBuddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds. Edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and Duncan Ryūken Williams. Cambridge: Harvard University Press and the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, 1997. xlii + 467 pp. Paper $19.95.Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds, edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and (...) Duncan Ryūken Williams, is the first book in the series on "Religions of the World and Ecology" edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim. The book series is an outgrowth of a series of conferences held from 1996 to 1998 at the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, funded primarily by the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation in addition to a variety of other sources. Each volume of the series is to be edited by Tucker along with a specialist in the respective tradition. By the time this review appears, several other volumes will have been published, including books on Hinduism and Confucianism. The aim of the series is to examine the similarities and differences in the attitudes of world religions to ecological issues in an era in which "[f]rom resource depletion and species extinction to [End Page 136] pollution overload and toxic surplus, the planet is struggling against unprecedented assaults … [that are] aggravated by population explosion, industrial growth, technological manipulation, and military proliferation heretofore unknown by the human community" (p. xv). The series editors hope to stimulate "scholars of religion to respond as engaged intellectuals with deepening creative reflection" (pp. xxx-xxxi) rather than remain as seemingly uninvolved armchair observers of the ongoing environmental crisis.Buddhism may be a likely candidate for the first religious tradition to be examined in the book series because it appears to have a special affinity with environmental concerns and causes for several reasons. The basic Buddhist philosophy of karmic causality and dependent origination stresses the interdependence of all sentient beings who participate in transmigration throughout the six realms; the nonduality of humans and nature; and the moral retribution that awaits those who violate the sanctity of existence. This nondualistic worldview is enhanced, especially in Mahāyā na Buddhism in East Asia, by interaction with the organic cosmology of indigenous Chinese religions based on yin-yang ideology, and the result is a pantheistic notion that, according to Lewis Lancaster, asserts that "(t)he rocks, trees, lotuses, streams, mountains—all have Buddha-nature" (p. 13).Furthermore, in recent years some Buddhists have been among the leading voices trumpeting the need for ecological awareness and action. For example, the Council of All Beings, a ritual in which one places oneself as in a trance in the position of another species in order to appreciate the impact of ecological decline on it, was designed by Buddhists and has become popular among environmentalists of all persuasions. Also, there are several examples of Buddhist movements establishing environmentally sustainable rural communities in America, and the group known as "engaged Buddhists," many of whom are associated with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, have consistently led protests against the misuse of nuclear power and a host of other issues. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that there has always been another side of Buddhism, which after all is largely a monastic tradition for home-leavers—a side that is hermetic, withdrawing, and socially and environmentally disengaged and, at times in history, corrupt, at least as a by-product of benign neglect.The question is, which side of Buddhism will prevail in the discourse concerning environmental issues? Will it be the one emphasizing how to analyze and act on the ecological crisis based on the inseparability of all forms of existence? Or will it be the face of Buddhism that may appear disconnected with and neglectful of current social issues in focusing exclusively on the individual quest for enlightenment or, as was the case in medieval China, on the growth of powerful, independent temple complexes? While several of the contributions to the volume rather uncritically celebrate the former side of Buddhist discourse, the more constructive essays make it clear that a notion of Buddhist engagement with the environment... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:T. S. Eliot, Dharma Bum:Buddhist Lessons in The Waste LandThomas Michael LeCarnerMany critics have argued that T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land is a poem that attempts to deal with the physical destruction and human atrocities of the First World War, or that he had somehow expressed the disillusionment of a generation. For Eliot, such a characterization was too reductive. He replied, "Nonsense, I may have expressed for (...) them their own illusion of being disillusioned, but that did not form part of my intention." He did not want to be the poet of a "lost generation" of war survivors, but rather, he wanted, like most poets, to write for all ages. To that end, Eliot sought to transcend time and space by bringing to The Waste Land scores of literary, cultural, and artistic allusions from a variety of sources including the Upanishads, Greek mythology, the Bible, Chaucer, Dante, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Leonardo Da Vinci. Ironically, within this menagerie of literary homages, Eliot has created a vast emptiness, a world of pain, suffering, desolation and despair, as if to suggest that even in the presence of all the greatest artistic and cultural achievements of mankind, we must understand that life is transitory and material things ephemeral.The idea that life is fleeting and filled with suffering is at the core of Buddhist thought and one that Eliot surely learned from his graduate studies at Harvard. Several scholars have examined the influence of Eastern philosophy, and in particular Buddhist thought, on Eliot's work, largely in the past forty years.1 My argument departs from this scholarship in two significant ways. First, I will read The Waste Land through the lens of Eliot's graduate studies, and in doing so will show how the poem functions as a didactic, artistic representation of the Buddhist doctrine of samsāra, an idea that views the world as transitory, overcome [End Page 402] with lustful desires, and forever bound to a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. From this perspective, we can see how Eliot's understanding of the original Buddhist texts, which informed much of his writing of The Waste Land, allowed him to see through the all-too-common misconceptions about Buddhism during the early part of the twentieth century. Lastly, we will see that Eliot looked at these misconceptions as a psychological projection of Europeans' discontent with their own lives in an uncertain time.Over the past three decades an increasing number of scholars have studied Eliot's graduate work. In 1985, Jeffrey Perl and Andrew Tuck published a study that examines the impact that Eliot's coursework and professors had on during his studies at Harvard.2 Perl and Tuck point out that Eliot devoted nearly one third of his graduate program to the study of Asian philosophy and philology. Eliot studied Sanskrit and Pali under C. R. Lanman, the preeminent Sanskrit specialist of the age. In his third year, Eliot took a course entitled "Schools of Religious and Philosophical Thought in Japan" with Professor Masaharu Anesaki, a course that had a profound impact on him. Eliot was exposed to several schools of Buddhism in his studies including the Kegon, Shingon, and Tendai, which are characterized as "descendants of the Madhyamika School, which was founded in the second century A.D. by Nāgārjuna, the Indian Buddhist philosopher." Nāgārjuna is widely considered the most influential Buddhist philosopher after Siddhartha Gautama himself and is the leading proponent of the Mādhyamika ("Middle Way") philosophy.The central teaching of Nāgārjuna was the doctrine of śūnyatā, or as it is often translated, "emptiness." For Mahāyāha Buddhists, all things are totally empty of any defining essence. Thus, all things are void of any fixed identity or inherent existence and remain in a constant state of impermanence, change, and flux. This is the fundamental premise of Mahāyāha Buddhism. Only through the realization of this emptiness in material things can one achieve Buddhahood. According to one standard text, "the real knowledge of Buddha nature is empty of empirical content, and it is the discovery of that emptiness or void, śūnyatā, of the true Buddha... (shrink)

Too often Buddhism has been subjected to the Procrustean box of western thought, whereby it is stretched to fit fixed categories or had essential aspects lopped off to accommodate vastly different cultural norms and aims. After several generations of scholarly discussion in English-speaking communities, it is time to move to the next hermeneutical stage. Buddhist philosophy must be liberated from the confines of a quasi-religious stereotype and judged on its own merits. Hence this work will approach Chinese Buddhism (...) as a philosophical tradition in its own right, not as an historical after-thought nor as an occasion for comparative discussions that assume the west alone sets the standards for or is the origin of philosophy and its methodologies. Viewed within their own context, Chinese Buddhist philosophers have much to contribute to a wide range of philosophical concerns, including metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and perhaps most especially philosophy of mind. Moreover they have been enormously influential in the development of Buddhist philosophy in Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. (shrink)

Though scholars of Chinese Theology have expanded the inter-religious dialogue between Christian theology and traditional Chinese philosophy and culture from Neo-Confucianism to other fields such as Taoism, the dialogue with Chinese Buddhism, especially Chan Buddhism, has not been carried out yet. This article mainly reflects on the starting point of Leung In-sing’s Chinese Theology through the perspective of Dharma as Nonduality in Chan. Firstly, it briefly outlines the background and basic ideas of Chinese Theology formulated by Leung (...) In- sing, focusing on discussing the two fundamental theological categories: “Relationship” and “Rapport.” Then, it annotates and analyzes Huineng’s“Dharma as Nonduality.”Finally, from the perspective of Huineng, it rethinks the starting point of Chinese Theology itself and proposes further research questions. (shrink)

McFarland and Co. 2016. 284pp. Pb. £41.50. ISBN-13: 9780786498093. E-book: 9781476623504.

We often feel powerless in our lives. We have many desires but are limited in our ability to transform those wishes into tangible results. We are confused and unsure about what will really make us happy. In Eternal Dharma, Vishnu Swami guides you on a journey to align yourself with the natural flow of existence through the ancient Eastern knowledge of Veda. Eternal Dharma distills 5,000 years of spiritual wisdom so you can learn to live an enlightened, effective, (...) and fulfilled life. Vishnu Swami inspires you to take action and manifest your fullest spiritual potential in everything you do: Explore the subtle and physical domains to achieve a totally new relationship with reality. Learn the radical new system of effectiveness. Gain clarity on all spiritual and religious paths. Free yourself from pain and suffering to reach pure, transcendental love. (shrink)

Foreword -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The concept of Dharma in Purvamīmāmsā -- 3. Dharma as in Buddhism and Jainism -- 4. Dharma as in Mahabharata -- 5. Dharma : the essential properties of man -- 6. Some problems along with critical remarks -- Bibliography -- Index.

Papers presented at the National Seminar on "Dharma, Virtue and Morality : the Indian Ideal of Human Perfection, held at Kanpur in 2005.

pt. 1. The dharma imperative -- pt. 2. The dharma toolbox -- pt. 3. The dharma user's guide -- pt. 4. Dharma in action -- pt. 5. The dharma of leadership.

This introductory work proposes a fresh take on the ancient Indian concept dharma. By unfolding how, even in its developments as "law" and custom, dharma participates in nuanced and multifarious understandings of the term that play out in India's great spiritual traditions, the book offers insights into the innovative character of both Hindu and Buddhist usages of the concept. Alf Hiltebeitel, in an original approach to early Buddhist usages, explores how the Buddhist canon brought out different meanings of (...) dharma. This is followed by an exposition of the hypothesis that most, if not all, of the Hindu law books flowered after the third-century BC emperor Asoka, a Buddhist, made dharma the guiding principle of an entire realm and culture. A discussion built around the author's expertise on the Sanskrit epics shows how their narratives amplified the new Brahmanical norms and brought out the ethical dilemmas and spiritual teachings that arose from inquiry into dharma. A chapter on the tale of the Life of the Buddha considers the relation between dharma, moksa/nirvana, and bhakti. Here, Hiltebeitel ties together a thread that runs through the entire story, which is the Buddha's tendency to present dharma as a kind of civil discourse. In this sense, dharma challenges people to think critically or at least more creatively about their ethical principles and the foundations of their own spiritual values. A closing chapter on dharma in the twenty-first century explores its new cachet in an era of globalization, its diasporic implications, its openings into American popular culture, some implications for women, and the questions it is still raising for modern India. (shrink)

Originally published in 1962. This book discusses and interprets the main themes of Buddhist thought in India and is divided into three parts: Archaic Buddhism: Tacit assumptions, the problem of "original Buddhism", the three marks and the perverted views, the five cardinal virtues, the cultivation of the social emotions, Dharma and dharmas, Skandhas, sense-fields and elements. The Sthaviras: the eighteen schools, doctrinal disputes, the unconditioned and the process of salvation, some Abhidharma problems. The Mahayana: doctrines common to (...) all Mahayanists, the Madhyamikas, the Yogacarins, Buddhist logic, the Tantras. (shrink)

In line with a particular form of analysis as developed by Michel Foucault, this article proposes to elucidate a particular way of understanding Buddhist monastic culture as detailed in the rules concerning behaviour (the Vinaya), which may be called the “care of the self approach”. To develop this argument, the article first describes the nature of the Vinaya as a “training scheme” rather than a system of prohibitions or rules. Second, it examines the nature of confession or what is called (...) “truth telling”. Third, it examines the nature of transgression of the Vinaya rules. Fourth, I examine the Vinaya and the role of ethics. Lastly, it is shown how these approaches to monastic Buddhism deal with the nature of the transformation of desire to construct what may be seen as a form of “ethical technology” or alternatively as a “transgressive technology”. (shrink)

This introductory work proposes a fresh take on the ancient Indian concept dharma. By unfolding how, even in its developments as "law" and custom, dharma participates in nuanced and multifarious understandings of the term that play out in India’s great spiritual traditions, the book offers insights into the innovative character of both Hindu and Buddhist usages of the concept. Alf Hiltebeitel, in an original approach to early Buddhist usages, explores how the Buddhist canon brought out different meanings of (...) dharma. This is followed by an exposition of the hypothesis that most, if not all, of the Hindu law books flowered after the third-century BC emperor Asoka, a Buddhist, made dharma the guiding principle of an entire realm and culture. A discussion built around the author’s expertise on the Sanskrit epics shows how their narratives amplified the new Brahmanical norms and brought out the ethical dilemmas and spiritual teachings that arose from inquiry into dharma. A chapter on the tale of the Life of the Buddha considers the relation between dharma, moksa/nirvana, and bhakti. Here, Hiltebeitel ties together a thread that runs through the entire story, which is the Buddha’s tendency to present dharma as a kind of civil discourse. In this sense, dharma challenges people to think critically or at least more creatively about their ethical principles and the foundations of their own spiritual values. A closing chapter on dharma in the twenty-first century explores its new cachet in an era of globalization, its diasporic implications, its openings into American popular culture, some implications for women, and the questions it is still raising for modern India. (shrink)

Igniting a long-overdue dialogue about how the legacy of racial injustice and white supremacy plays out in society at large and Buddhist communities in particular, this urgent call to action outlines a new dharma that takes into account the ways that racism and privilege prevent our collective awakening. The authors traveled around the country to spark an open conversation that brings together the Black prophetic tradition and the wisdom of the Dharma. Bridging the world of spirit and activism, (...) they urge a compassionate response to the systemic, state-sanctioned violence and oppression that has persisted against black people since the slave era. With national attention focused on the recent killings of unarmed black citizens and the response of the Black-centered liberation groups such as Black Lives Matter, Radical Dharma demonstrates how social transformation and personal, spiritual liberation must be articulated and inextricably linked. Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, and Jasmine Syedullah represent a new voice in American Buddhism. Offering their own histories and experiences as illustrations of the types of challenges facing dharma practitioners and teachers who are different from those of the past five decades, they ask how teachings that transcend color, class, and caste are hindered by discrimination and the dynamics of power, shame, and ignorance. Their illuminating argument goes beyond a demand for the equality and inclusion of diverse populations to advancing a new dharma that deconstructs rather than amplifies systems of suffering and prepares us to weigh the shortcomings not only of our own minds but also of our communities. They forge a path toward reconciliation and self-liberation that rests on radical honesty, a common ground where we can drop our need for perfection and propriety and speak as souls. In a society where profit rules, people's value is determined by the color of their skin, and many voices--including queer voices--are silenced, Radical Dharma recasts the concepts of engaged spirituality, social transformation, inclusiveness, and healing. (shrink)

PYRRHONIAN BUDDHISM: AN IMAGINATIVE RECONSTRUCTION -/- Author: -/- Adrian Kuzminski 279 Donlon Road Fly Creek, NY 13337 USA -/- Description of Pyrrhonian Buddhism: -/- The ancient Greek sceptic philosopher, Pyrrho of Elis, accompanied Alexander the Great to India, where he had contacts with Indian sages, so-called naked philosophers (gymnosophists), among whom were very probably Buddhist mendicants, or sramanas. My work, entitled Pyrrhonian Buddhism, takes seriously the hypothesis that Pyrrho’s contact with early Buddhists was the occasion of his (...) rethinking, in a Greek philosophical idiom, of what he experienced in those encounters. This has major implications for our understanding of both Buddhism and Pyrrhonism. -/- Pyrrho’s rethinking of Buddhism, I argue, enabled him to introduce into Greek philosophy and culture several key Buddhist notions. These include the primacy and interdependence of immediate phenomenal experience (which the Buddhists called dependent origination), the suspension of judgment about beliefs lacking phenomenal verification (reflecting the scepticism of the Buddha about ‘unanswered’ or ‘metaphysical’ questions), and the promise of personal enlightenment said to follow such suspension, which Pyrrho called ataraxia, and the Buddhists called bodhi. -/- Pyrrho, like Socrates, wrote nothing, but the movement he founded—Pyrrhonism--became an important tradition in Western philosophy. When the texts of later Pyrrhonian philosophers, particularly Sextus Empiricus, were redicovered during the Renaissance, they sparked a reexamination of the foundations of knowledge, thereby helping to prompt the modern scientific revolution. -/- The notion that early Buddhism played a pivotal role in the birth of ancient Greek Pyrrhonian philosophy remains provocative, but has found increasing support in recent years. An earlier work of mine, Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism (Lexington Books, 2008), was, as far as I know, the first book-length comparison of the common features of the two traditions. My current work, Pyrrhonian Buddhism, seeks to broaden and deepen this comparison. It argues that ancient Greek Pyrrhonism is best understood as a fully developed but hitherto largely unrecognized Western version of Buddhism. -/- The Introduction reviews our current understanding of Pyrrhonism in light of recent scholarship on ancient Greek-Indian cultural exchanges, and outlines the methodology I employ. -/- Part I of the book offers re-readings of the classic Pyrrhonian texts, with parallels to Buddhism in mind, including Diogenes Laertius (Chapter One), Sextus Empiricus (Chapter Two) and Timon and Aulus Gellius (Chapter Three). -/- Part II enlists the rubric of the Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma to illuminate the fundamental points of comparison between early Buddhism and ancient Pyrrhonism. -/- The First Turning (Chapter Four) centers on the Buddhist insistence on the dependent origination of the objects of immediate consciousness, which can also be found in the understanding of immediate experience expressed in the phenomenalistic atomism of the Pyrrhonists. The Second Turning (Chapter Five), as posed by the ‘unanswered questions’ of the Buddha and the ‘emptiness’ of the Madhyamaka, finds its Pyrrhonian correlation in the suspension of judgment over ‘indeterminate’ beliefs. And the Third Turning (Chapter Six), reported as bodhi in Buddhism and ataraxia in Pyrrhonism, is shown in both traditions to follow liberation from suffering and existential angst, caused by what the Buddhists call our attachments and the Pyrrhonists call our beliefs. -/- Other Writers/Commentators: -/- Aspects of the Pyrrhonian/Buddhism question have been addressed by Edward Conze, Everard Flintoff, Thomas McEvilley, Jay Garfield, Mathew Neale, Ethan Mills, Christopher Beckwith, and Robin Brons, among other recent writers. The book-length studies on the issue (since my earlier work) are by Beckwith (Greek Buddha) and Neal (Madhyamaka and Pyrrhonism). Other writers/scholars with relevant expertise include C. W. Huntington, Jr., Charles Goodman, Stephen Batchelor, Dan Lusthaus, Rupert Gethin, and Mark Siderits. -/- . (shrink)

Concept of compassion and joy in Buddhist religion and philosophy; a study.

Study on Buddhism and philosophy, and secularism; seminar papers. study.

My critical focus in this article is on Rick Repetti's compatibilist conception of free will, and his apparent commitment to a Kantian conception of autonomy, which I argue is in direct conflict with the Buddhist doctrine of no‐self. As an alternative, I defend a conception of ego‐less agency that I believe better coheres with core Buddhist teachings. In the course of the argument, I discuss the competing conceptions of free agency and autonomy defended by Harry Frankfurt, John Martin Fischer, Christine (...) Korsgaard, and David Velleman. (shrink)