In Search of Mila's Collected Songs. Back to the Basics
In Search of Mila's Collected Songs. Back to the Basics

Author: Kristin Blancke

Publisher: Youcanprint

Published: 2024-11-13

Total Pages: 608

ISBN-13:

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In Search of Milaʼs Collected Songs – Back to the Basics is a comparative study of Tibetan texts with stories and songs of the great yogin and poet Milarepa, written between the 12th and the 15th centuries. By comparing these texts, the evolution of the narratives and the songs related to the lineages in which the texts were transmitted comes to light. The research leads up to the m ost famous Tibetan text regarding Milarepa, Tsangnyön Herukaʼs Life and Songs – The Life of Milarepa and The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa. The analysis of the evolution in the life-and-song stories allows us to evaluate the iconic image of the great yogin as depicted by Tsangnyön Heruka. The book consists of two main parts. Part One assesses the available sources, classified according to the period and the lineages in which they were produced. In Chapter 1, the biographies before Tsangnyön are studied. In Chapter 2, the specific characteristics of Tsangnyönʼs work are highlighted as compared to the earlier works. Chapter 3 considers some doctrinal aspects and their evolutions in all these works. The first part ends with the conclusions drawn from the comparative study. Part Two consists of translations relative to the research. This part is divided into ten chapters. The first one (Chapter 4) is a translation of Milarepa's hitherto unstudied life story by one of his main disciples, Ngendzong Tonpa. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 are translations of specific topics as they appear in all the different texts: Milarepa's stay with his teacher Marpa, the encounter between Milarepa and Gampopa, and the teaching transmission of a specific meditation tradition from Milarepa to his disciple Rechungpa. Chapter 8 describes interesting details found in a text by Zhijé Ripa. Chapter 9 compares the episode of a dying Bönpo, in the different texts. In Chapter 10 three episodes from the biographical compendium ʽLife and Songs of the Glorious Laughing Vajraʼ are studied and compared with Tsangnyön Herukaʼs version. Chapter 11 gives an interesting interpretation of certain features of Milaʼs encounters with non-human beings due to the interconnections between inner winds and outer appearances. Chapter 12 analyses the colophons of the most ancient Chapters in the texts, regarding Milaʼs interactions with the Tseringma long-life sisters. Chapter 13 gives Milaʼs instructions on the intermediate states. Here two different texts explaining the same instructions are compared to each other. Then follows a bibliography and an appendix containing 8 Song Charts, in which the chapters and the songs in all these works are localised.

Living Treasure
Living Treasure

Author: Holly Gayley

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2023-06-06

Total Pages: 547

ISBN-13: 1614297797

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Senior scholars and former students celebrate the life and work of Janet Gyatso, professor of Buddhist studies at Harvard Divinity School. Inspired by her contributions to life writing, Tibetan medicine, gender studies, and more, these offerings make a rich feast for readers interested in Tibetan and Buddhist studies. Janet Gyatso has made substantial, influential, and incredibly valuable contributions to the fields of Buddhist and Tibetan studies. Her paradigm-shifting approach is to take a topic, an idea, a text, a term—often one that had long been taken for granted or overlooked—and turn it inside out, to radically reimagine the kinds of questions that might be asked and what the answers might reveal. The twenty-nine essays in this volume, authored by colleagues and former students—many of whom are now also colleagues—represent the breadth of her interests and influence and the care that she has taken in training the current generation of scholars of Tibet and Buddhism. They are organized into five sections: Women, Gender, and Sexuality; Biography and Autobiography; the Nyingma Imaginaire; Literature, Art, and Poetry; and Early Modernity: Human and Nonhuman Worlds. Contributions include José Cabezón on the incorporation of a Buddhist rock carving in Central Asian culture; Matthew Kapstein on the memoirs of an ambivalent reincarnated lama; Willa Baker on Jikmé Lingpa’s theory of absence; Andrew Quintman on a found poem expressing worldly sadness on the forced closure of a monastery; and Padma ’tsho on Tibetan women’s advocacy for full female ordination. These and the many other chapters, each fascinating reads in their own right, together offer a glowing tribute to a scholar who indelibly changed the way we think about Buddhism, its history, and its literature.

Bodies in Balance
Bodies in Balance

Author: Theresia Hofer

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2018-01-08

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0295807083

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Bodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine is the first comprehensive, interdisciplinary exploration of the triangular relationship among the Tibetan art and science of healing (Sowa Rigpa), Buddhism, and arts and crafts. Generously illustrated with more than 200 images, Bodies in Balance includes essays on contemporary practice, pharmacology and compounding medicines, astrology and divination, history and foundational treatises. The volume brings to life the theory and practice of this ancient healing art. 2015 Best Art Book Accolade, ICAS Book Prize in the Humanities Category Bodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine is the first comprehensive, interdisciplinary exploration of the triangular relationship among the Tibetan art and science of healing (Sowa Rigpa), Buddhism, and arts and crafts. This book is dedicated to the history, theory, and practice of Tibetan medicine, a unique and complex system of understanding body and mind, treating illness, and fostering health and well-being. Sowa Rigpa has been influenced by Chinese, Indian, and Greco-Arab medical traditions but is distinct from them. Developed within the context of Buddhism, Tibetan medicine was adapted over centuries to different health needs and climates across the region encompassing the Tibetan Plateau, the Himalayas, and Mongolia. Its focus on a holistic approach to health has influenced Western medical thinking about the prevention, diagnoses, and treatment of illness. Generously illustrated with more than 200 images, Bodies in Balance includes essays on contemporary practice, pharmacology and compounding medicines, astrology and divination, history and foundational treatises. The volume brings to life the theory and practice of this ancient healing art.

The Monastery Rules
The Monastery Rules

Author: Berthe Jansen

Publisher: University of California Press

Published: 2018-09-25

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0520297008

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At publication date, a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. The Monastery Rules discusses the position of the monasteries in pre-1950s Tibetan Buddhist societies and how that position was informed by the far-reaching relationship of monastic Buddhism with Tibetan society, economy, law, and culture. Jansen focuses her study on monastic guidelines, or bca’ yig. The first study of its kind to examine the genre in detail, the book contains an exploration of its parallels in other Buddhist cultures, its connection to the Vinaya, and its value as socio-historical source-material. The guidelines are witness to certain socio-economic changes, while also containing rules that aim to change the monastery in order to preserve it. Jansen argues that the monastic institutions’ influence on society was maintained not merely due to prevailing power-relations, but also because of certain deep-rooted Buddhist beliefs.

Atisa Dipamkara
Atisa Dipamkara

Author: James B. Apple

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2019-07-23

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0834842203

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The first-ever biography with selected writings of one of the greatest Indian Buddhist masters in history. Few figures in the history of Buddhism in Tibet have had as far-reaching and profound an influence as the Indian scholar and adept Atiśa Dīpaṃkara (982–1054). Originally from Bengal, Atiśa was a tantric Buddhist master during Vajrayana Buddhism’s flowering in India and traveled extensively, eventually spending the remaining twelve years of his life revitalizing Buddhism in Tibet. Revered by all the schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Atiśa and his students founded what came to be known as the Kadam school, whose teachings have influenced countless Buddhist masters. These teachings, cherished by all major traditions, are preserved by the Geluk in particular, the school of the Dalai Lamas. Although Atiśa was an influential practitioner and scholar of Tantra, he is best known for introducing many of the core Mahayana teachings that are widely practiced throughout the Tibetan Buddhist world, including the Stages of the Path to Awakening and Mind Training (lojong), as well as having contributed to highly influential commentaries on Madhyamaka that synthesize various schools of thought. This succinct biography of Atiśa’s life, together with a collection of translations, represents for the first time the full range of Atiśa’s contribution to Buddhism. As the most comprehensive work available on this essential Buddhist figure, this book is an indispensable resource for scholars and Buddhist practitioners alike.

Bhutan the Unremembered Nation
Bhutan the Unremembered Nation

Author: Ura

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-01-16

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 0192868578

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The process of modernization has brought discontinuities in collective memory. This volume and its prequel provide an act of collective remembrance, knitting together many voices and stories. It shows the readers a world of the past before modernization began in the 1960s. Volume 2 covers the monumental architecture of dzongs (castles) and administration of the country, authority and power, cosmological concepts and beliefs, religions and rites, visualization and meditation, visual arts, and folk drama that affected the daily life of the people. Some chapters also dwell on monastic life and monkhood, and Guru Rinpoche's imprints on the land and its people.

The Yogin and the Madman
The Yogin and the Madman

Author: Andrew Quintman

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2013-11-12

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0231164157

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Tibetan biographers began writing Jetsun Milarepa’s (1052–1135) life story shortly after his death, initiating a literary tradition that turned the poet and saint into a model of virtuosic Buddhist practice throughout the Himalayan world. Andrew Quintman traces this history and its innovations in narrative and aesthetic representation across four centuries, culminating in a detailed analysis of the genre’s most famous example, composed in 1488 by Tsangnyön Heruka, or the “Madman of Western Tibet.” Quintman imagines these works as a kind of physical body supplanting the yogin’s corporeal relics.

Monastic and Lay Traditions in North-Eastern Tibet
Monastic and Lay Traditions in North-Eastern Tibet

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-08-22

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 9004256423

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In recent years, the Sino-Tibetan frontier regions have attracted increasing scholarly interest. The region of Rebkong in Qinghai province is of particular significance because of its unique location on the Sino-Tibetan borderland, its multi-ethnic population and its complex religious history, which incorporates both large Geluk monasteries and significant Nyingma and Bonpo lay tantric communities. Covering the nineteenth century to the present, this volume brings together ten papers that explore the relationship between religion and culture in Rebkong. Using insights from anthropology, history and religious studies, the contributors offer new research and fresh interpretations of this important region on China’s periphery, discussing issues of ethnicity and identity, the role of public institutions, and the role of religion and rituals.

Tibet, Past and Present: Religion and secular culture in Tibet
Tibet, Past and Present: Religion and secular culture in Tibet

Author: International Association for Tibetan Studies. Seminar

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2002-01-01

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13: 9789004127760

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The proceedings of the seminars of the International Association for Tibetan Studies (IATS) have developed into the most representative world-wide cross-section of Tibetan Studies. They are an indispensable reference-work for anyone interested in Tibet and capture the cutting edge of Tibet-related research.This volume is the second of three volumes of general proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the IATS. It presents a careful selection of scholarly and academic articles on Tibetan Buddhist and Bon religious culture, including a sizeable section of anthropological contributions. The complete series covers ten volumes. The other seven volumes are the outcome of expert panels. Of special interest to readers of this book are the edited volumes by Katia Buffetrille & Hildegard Diemberger (anthropology: territory and identity), Helmut Eimer & David Germano (Buddhist canon), Toni Huber (anthropology: Amdo cultural revival), Christiaan Klieger (anthropology: presentation of self & identity), and Deborah Klimburg-Salter and Eva Allinger (art history).