Dreaming the Great Brahmin
Dreaming the Great Brahmin

Author: Kurtis R. Schaeffer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2005-06-02

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0195346637

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Dreaming the Great Brahmin explores the creation and recreation of Buddhist saints through narratives, poetry, art, ritual, and even dream visions. The first comprehensive cultural and literary history of the well-known Indian Buddhist poet saint Saraha, known as the Great Brahmin, this book argues that we should view Saraha not as the founder of a tradition, but rather as its product. Kurtis Schaeffer shows how images, tales, and teachings of Saraha were transmitted, transformed, and created by members of diverse Buddhist traditions in Tibet, India, Nepal, and Mongolia. The result is that there is not one Great Brahmin, but many. More broadly, Schaeffer argues that the immense importance of saints for Buddhism is best understood by looking at the creative adaptations of such figures that perpetuated their fame, for it is there that these saints come to life.

Dreaming the Great Brahmin
Dreaming the Great Brahmin

Author: Kurtis R. Schaeffer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2005-06-02

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0195173732

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Dreaming the Great Brahmin explores the creation and recreation of Buddhist saints through narratives, poetry, art, ritual, and even dream visions. The first comprehensive cultural and literary history of the well-known Indian Buddhist poet saint Saraha, known as the Great Brahmin, this book argues that we should view Saraha not as the founder of a tradition, but rather as its product. Kurtis Schaeffer shows how images, tales, and teachings of Saraha were transmitted, transformed, and created by members of diverse Buddhist traditions in Tibet, India, Nepal, and Mongolia. The result is that there is not one Great Brahmin, but many. More broadly, Schaeffer argues that the immense importance of saints for Buddhism is best understood by looking at the creative adaptations of such figures that perpetuated their fame, for it is there that these saints come to life.

Baksheesh & Brahman
Baksheesh & Brahman

Author: Joseph Campbell

Publisher: New World Library

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 9781577312376

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Baksheesh & Brahman illustrates Campbell's working method and grants an illuminating look at the thoughts and experiences of an incredible mind, as well as a revealing portrait of the roiling Indian subcontinent of fifty years ago."--BOOK JACKET.

A History of Buddhism in India and Tibet
A History of Buddhism in India and Tibet

Author:

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2022-07-19

Total Pages: 987

ISBN-13: 0861714725

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"This volume contains the first full English translation of a thirteenth-century history of Buddhism in India and Tibet. That means most of all a complete life of the Buddha with the history of his renunciate order and of early Buddhist authors in India. Midway through, the action moves to Tibet where there is an emphasis on the Tibetan ruling dynasty, the translators of Buddhist texts, and the lineages that transmitted doctrinal understanding, meditative insights, and practical realization. It concludes with a pessimistic account of the demise of the monastic order followed by optimism with the advent of the future Buddha Maitreya. The composer of this remarkably ecumenical Buddhist history remains anonymous but was likely a follower of rare lineages of Dzogchen and Zhijé teachings. He put together some of the most important early sources on the Tibetan imperial period that had been preserved in his times and supplies the best witnesses we have for many of them in our own times"--

Sakya: The Path with Its Result, Part Two
Sakya: The Path with Its Result, Part Two

Author: Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2023-08-15

Total Pages: 537

ISBN-13: 1611809673

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A collection of liturgical and instructional practice texts on the Eight Ancillary Path Cycles of the Sakya lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, compiled by one of Tibet's greatest Buddhist masters. The Treasury of Precious Instructions by Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Taye, one of Tibet's greatest Buddhist masters, is a shining jewel of Tibetan literature, presenting essential teachings from the entire spectrum of practice lineages that existed in Tibet. In its eighteen volumes, Kongtrul brings together some of the most important texts on key topics of Buddhist thought and practice as well as authoring significant new sections of his own. Volumes in this series may be engaged as practice manuals while also preserving ancient teachings significant to the literature and history of world religions. Volume 6 of the series, Sakya: The Path with Its Result, Part Two, presents a selection of teachings and practices from the Eight Ancillary Path Cycles of the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. The Sakya lineage derives from Virūpa, Dombi Heruka, and other Indian masters, or mahāsiddhas, and passes through Gayadhara and his Tibetan disciple Drokmi Lotsāwa Śākya Yeshe (992–1072). The practice tradition centers around the teaching and transmission of the Hevajra Tantra and its subsidiary texts. This second volume of Sakya texts contains oral instructions transmitted to Drokmi Lotsāwa by the early eleventh-century Indian masters, Ācārya Vīravajra, Mahāsiddha Amoghavajra, Paṇḍita Prajñāgupta of Oḍḍiyāna, and Paṇḍita Gayadhara. These texts broaden our understanding of how mahāmudrā, the teaching on the nature of mind, is understood and practiced in the Sakya school.

The Oxford Handbook of Meditation
The Oxford Handbook of Meditation

Author: Miguel Farias

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-10-21

Total Pages: 1038

ISBN-13: 0192536389

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.

Saraha
Saraha

Author: Roger R. Jackson

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2024-11-05

Total Pages: 589

ISBN-13: 1611806062

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The life and works of the mysterious Indian yogin, Saraha, who has inspired Buddhist practitioners for over a thousand years. Saraha, “the Archer,” was a mysterious but influential tenth-century Indian Buddhist tantric adept who expressed his spiritual realization in mystic songs (dohās) that are enlightening, shocking, and confounding by turns. Saraha’s poetic verses made the esoteric ideas and practices of Vajrayāna accessible to a wide audience on the Indian subcontinent and served as a basis for the exposition, in Tibet, of mahāmudrā, the great-seal meditation on the nature of mind that permeates every tradition of Buddhism on the Tibetan plateau. This is the first book to attempt a thorough treatment of the context, life, works, poetics, and teachings of Saraha. It features a search for the “historical” Saraha through evidence provided by our knowledge of the medieval Indian context in which he likely lived, the biographical legends that grew up around him in Tibet, and the works attributed to him in Indic and Tibetan text collections; a consideration of the various guises in which Saraha appears in his writings (as poet, social and religious critic, radical gnostic thinker, and more); an overview of Saraha’s poetic and religious legacy in South Asia and beyond; and complete or partial translations, from Tibetan, of over two dozen works attributed to Saraha. These include nearly all his spiritual songs, from his well-known Dohā Trilogy to obscure but important expositions of mahāmudrā, as well as several previously untranslated works.

Dreamworlds of Shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism
Dreamworlds of Shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism

Author: Angela Sumegi

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2008-05-08

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 0791478262

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Dreamworlds of Shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism explores the fertile interaction of Buddhism, shamanism, and Tibetan culture with the subject of dreaming. In Tibetan Buddhist literature, there are numerous examples of statements that express the value of dreams as a vehicle of authentic spiritual knowledge and, at the same time, dismiss dreams as the ultra-illusions of an illusory world. Examining the "third place" from the perspective of shamanism and Buddhism, Angela Sumegi provides a fresh look at the contradictory attitudes toward dreams in Tibetan culture. Sumegi questions the longstanding interpretation that views this dichotomy as a difference between popular and elite religion, and theorizes that a better explanation of the ambiguous position of dreams can be gained through attention to the spiritual dynamics at play between Buddhism and an indigenous shamanic presence. By exploring the themes of conflict and resolution that coalesce in the Tibetan experience, and examining dreams as a site of dialogue between shamanism and Buddhism, this book provides an alternate model for understanding dreams in Tibetan Buddhism.