Scholars have long been intrigued by the Buddha's defining action (karma) as intention. This book explores systematically how intention, agency, and moral psychology were interpreted in all branches of early Theravada thought, paying special attention to the thought of the 5th-century commentator Buddhaghosa.
Scholars have long been intrigued by the Buddha's defining action (karma) as intention. This book explores systematically how intention, agency, and moral psychology were interpreted in all branches of early Theravada thought, paying special attention to the thought of the 5th-century commentator Buddhaghosa.
What would a Buddhist theory of texts look like through the lens of the 5th-century thinker Buddhaghosa? In Voice of the Buddha, Maria Heim reads from the principal commentator, editor, and translator of the Theravada intellectual tradition, yielding fresh insight into all three collections of the early Pali texts: Vinaya, the Suttas, and the Abhidhamma. Buddhaghosa considered the Buddha to be omniscient, the Buddha's words to be "oceanic." Every word, passage, book--indeed the corpus as a whole--is taken to be "endless and immeasurable" in Buddhaghosa's view. Commentarial practice thus requires disciplined methods of expansion, drawing out the endless possibilities for meaning and application. Heim considers Buddhaghosa's theories of texts, and follows his practices of exegesis to discover how he explored scripture's infinity. By examining the significance of the immeasurability of scripture in commentarial practice and as a general principle, this book offers new tools to understand the huge scriptural and commentarial literature of the Pali tradition. And by taking seriously a traditional commentator's theory of texts, it beckons us to learn from commentaries themselves how we might read and interpret them and the texts on which they comment.
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. 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 members 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 whose long survival is 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.
Little is known of the life and work of this enlightened Chinese sage. In this wonderful biography, the personality of this leader and the events of his life are simply and clearly portrayed. Lao-Tse describes how he came to the recognition of his own destiny, and how he then set about to fulfill his mission. The first in a series, this work was transcribed from the direct experience of living pictures taken from the Book of Life by one gifted to do so.
The second novel of the Forerunner Saga trilogy by science fiction legend Greg Bear—set in the Halo universe and based on the New York Times bestselling video game series! One hundred thousand years ago. In the wake of the apparent self-destruction of the alien Forerunner empire, two humans—Chakas and Riser—are like flotsam washed up on very strange shores indeed. Captured by the Forerunner known as the Master Builder and then misplaced during a furious battle in space, Chakas and Riser now find themselves on an inverted world, where horizons rise into the sky and humans of all kinds are trapped in a perilous cycle of horror and neglect. They have become both research animals and strategic pawns in a cosmic game whose madness knows no end—a game of ancient vengeance between the powers who seeded the galaxy with life, and the Forerunners who expect to inherit their sacred Mantle of Responsibility to all living things. In the company of a young girl and an old man, Chakas begins an epic journey across a lost and damaged Halo ringworld in search of a way home, an explanation for the warrior spirits rising up within, and the reason for the Forerunner Librarian’s tampering with human destiny. Their travels will take them into the domain of a powerful and monstrous intelligence—known as “the Captive” by Forerunners, and “the Primordial” by ancient human warriors, this being may not only control the fate of Chakas, Riser, and the rest of humanity, but of all sentient life across the galaxy…
Showing the Sign and Signification of the Several Forms and Shapes in the Creation; and what the Beginning, Ruin, and Cure of Everything is. It proceeds out of Eternity into Time, and again out of Time into Eternity, and Comprises all Mysteries. And other Writings Of the Supersensual Life or the Life which is Above Sense; The Way from Darkness to True Illumination; Discourse Between Two Souls. Contents: How that all whatever is spoken of God without the Knowledge of the Signature is dumb and without Understanding, and that in the Mind of Man the Signature lies very exactly composed, according to the Being of all Beings, Of the Opposition and Combat in the Essence of all Essences, whereby the Ground of the Sympathy and Antipathy in Nature may be seen, and also the Corruption and Cure of each Thing, Of the great Mystery of all Beings, Of the Birth of the four Elements and Stars, Of the Sulphurean Death, and how the dead Body is revived and replaced into its first Glory or Holiness, How a Water and Oil is generated, How Adam (while he was in Paradise) and also Lucifer were glorious Angels, Of the Sulphurean Sude, or Seething of the Earth, Of the Signature, showing how the inward signs the outward, Of the inward and outward Cure of Man, Of the Process of Christ in his Suffering, Dying, and Rising again, Of the Seventh Form in the Kingdom of the Mother, Of the Enmity of the Spirit and Body, and of their Cure and Restoration, Of the Wheel of Sulphur, Mercury, and Sa
Nautilus Award Finalist The renowned Zen’s monk’s profound study of Buddhist psychology—with insights into how these ancient teachings apply to the modern world Based on the fifty verses on the nature of consciousness taken from the great fifth-century Buddhist master Vasubandhu and the teachings of the Avatamsaka Sutra, Thich Nhat Hanh focuses on the direct experience of recognizing, embracing, and looking deeply into the nature of our feelings and perceptions. Presenting the basic teachings of Buddhist applied psychology, Understanding Our Mind shows us how our mind is like a field, where every kind of seed is planted—seeds of suffering, anger, happiness, and peace. The quality of our life depends on the quality of the seeds in our mind. If we know how to water seeds of joy and transform seeds of suffering, then understanding, love, and compassion will flower. Vietnamese Zen Master Thuong Chieu said, “When we understand how our mind works, the practice becomes easy.”
SuttaCentral has published an entirely new translation of the four Pali nikāyas by Bhikkhu Sujato, which is the first complete and consistent English translation of these core texts. This is an ebook version of Bhikkhu Sujato's translation of the Saṁyutta Nikāya, which can also be read at SuttaCentral website. The “Linked” or “Connected” Discourses (Saṁyutta Nikāya, abbreviated SN) is a collection of over a thousand short discourses in the Pali canon. The word “linked” refers to the fact that the texts are collected and organized by topic. In most cases the organizing principle is a particular theme of Dhamma, for example, the five aggregates, dependent origination, the noble eightfold path, mindfulness meditation, or the four noble truths. This collection contains the most extensive range of texts on these core themes. In other cases chapters are organized according to the person or kind of person who speaks. This collection has a full parallel in the Saṁyuktāgama (SA) of the Sarvāstivāda school in Chinese translation. In addition, there are two partial collections in Chinese (SA-2 and SA-3) as well as a number of miscellaneous or fragmentary texts in Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan. Much of the organizational structure of SN is shared with SA, suggesting that this structure preceded the split between these two collections. This translation of Saṁyutta Nikāya was updated on March 8th, 2023.