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The Pali Canon recognizes four levels of Awakening, the first of which is called stream entry. This gains its name from the fact that a person who has attained this level has entered the “stream” flowing inevitably to nibbana. He/she is guaranteed to achieve full awakening within seven lifetimes at most, and in the interim will not be reborn in any of the lower realms. This study guide on stream entry is divided into two parts. The first deals with the practices leading to stream entry; the second, with the experience of stream entry and its results.
An updated edition of David Lu's acclaimed "Sources of Japanese History", this book presents in a student-friendly format original Japanese documents from Japan's mythological beginnings through 1995. Covering the full spectrum of political, economic, diplomatic as well as cultural and intellectual history, this classroom resource offers insight not only into the past but also into Japan's contemporary civilisation. Three major criteria used in the document selection were that: the selection avoids duplication with other collections - 75% of the documents presented here are newly translated; a document accurately reflects the spirit of the times and the life-styles of the people; and emphasis is on the development of social, economic and political institutions.
A story about the big, gentle temple elephant, Gajapati Kulapati catching a cold.
Buddhism is a religion practiced by an estimated 495 million in the world, as of the 2010s, representing 9% to 10% of the world's total population. China is the country with the largest population of Buddhists, approximately 244 million or 18.2% of its total population. They are mostly followers of Chinese schools of Mahayana, making this the largest body of Buddhist traditions. Mahayana, also practiced in broader East Asia, is followed by over half of world Buddhists. The second largest body of Buddhist schools is Theravada, mostly followed in Southeast Asia. The third and smallest body of schools, Vajrayana, is followed mostly in Tibet, the Himalayan region, Mongolia and parts of Russia, but has been disseminated throughout the world. Buddhism was almost entirely unknown in western countries until the 19th century. European diplomats and scholars who travelled and lived in Asia collected Buddhist texts to have them translated into English, German and French. Awareness of Buddhism arrived in the United States around the 1840's when the first Chinese immigrants settled in the western part of the country. Still, in general Buddhism remained poorly understood in the west until the 1960's when the first Buddhist teachers started arriving and quickly found thousands of followers. However curious westerners without serious study tended to view Buddhism as more of a mystic movement, rather than an encompassing spirituality involving meditation. Buddhism gained more popularity across Western culture by the end of the 20th century, when celebrities and other well-known people like Steve Jobs, Richard Gere or Phil Jackson openly talked about the positive influence Buddhism has had on their lives. The author of this book has joined the debate and examines the issues bringing fresh insights on the subject. In this book the author seeks to prove that the consciousness of the individual and individuality, which at the empirical level involves the rise of private property, family and the state, finds its most sophisticated and rational expression in early Buddhism.
This volume offers a multidisciplinary approach to the combinatory tradition that dominated premodern and early modern Japanese religion, known as honji suijaku (originals and their traces). It questions received, simplified accounts of the interactions between Shinto and Japanese Buddhism, and presents a more dynamic and variegated religious world, one in which the deities' Buddhist originals and local traces did not constitute one-to-one associations, but complex combinations of multiple deities based on semiotic operations, doctrines, myths, and legends. The book's essays, all based on specific case studies, discuss the honji suijaku paradigm from a number of different perspectives, always integrating historical and doctrinal analysis with interpretive insights.
The Mah&_ratnak&_ta S&_tra is one of the five major sutra groups in the Mah&_y&_na canon. Of the two great schools of Buddhism, Mah&_y&_na has the greatest number of adherents worldwide&—it prevails among the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Tibetans, and Vietnamese&—and contains within it a number of movements, notably Zen, which have been of growing interest in the West in recent decades. Yet despite this increased attention and enormous following, translations of Mah&_y&_na scriptures have been scarce and fragmentary; clearly, a comprehensive translation of a major work within the canon was called for. This volume addresses that need. It contains 22 of the 49 S&_tras of the Mah&_ratnak&_ta (or &"Treasury&") S&_tra, many translated for the first time in a Western language, selected and arranged to give the modern reader a progressive introduction to one of the world's major religious traditions. Subjects covered include M&_y&_ and miracles, the teachings on Consciousness, Emptiness, and monastic discipline, the Mystical Light of the Tath&_gata, and the devotional practice of Pure Land, making this a comprehensive source book of Mah&_y&_na Buddhism hitherto unavailable in English. The book also includes an introduction to provide historical and interpretive guidance, annotations that assist in the comprehension of difficult passages, and an extensive glossary that will be valuable to specialist and layman alike. A team of scholars, working in Taiwan, spent eight years translating the Treasury's million words from Chinese, using Tibetan texts for comparison and checking each S&_tra with an international board of scholars. In the course of translating from the original, special effort was made to retain both the devotional style appropriate for religious reading and the precision required by the scholar, while presenting the material with a clarity and flow that would make it accessible to the Western layman. The editors then selected, arranged, and annotated the 22 S&_tras presented here. Published in cooperation with The Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions.