Read Online or Download Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo PDF

Best eastern books

Get Beings and Their Attributes: The Teaching of the Basrian PDF

The educating of the basrian institution of the Mu'tazila within the Classical interval

Download e-book for iPad: The Collected Works of Chinul: The Korean Approach to Zen by Chinul

Download e-book for kindle: Buddhist Texts Through the Ages by Edward Conze

This certain anthology of Buddhist scriptures lines the advance of Buddhism in the course of the a long time and world wide. Designed to serve students and scholars alike, this vintage textual content has develop into a priceless source for Buddhists and all those that desire to probe for themselves the unique assets of 1 of the world's nice religions.

The Concealed Essence of the Hevajra Tantra: With the - download pdf or read online

The treatise consists of discourses among the Bhagavan Buddha and his disciple Vajragarba, and comprises discourses among the Bhagavan and his consort. The Hevajra Tantra, like different Buddhist Sutras and Tantras, commences with the Nidanavakyam--evam maya srutam (Thus have I heard). this can be the resource for the disclose of the Upaya, The ability, the modes of perform.

• Restructing Eastern Germany
• Enlightenment: Beyond Traditions
• Spoken Libyan Arabic
• Life Is Meditation - Meditation Is Life

Additional resources for Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo

Sample text

Throughout India, the communal religion of most communities attaches importance to certain altered states of consciousness. To be specific, it uses possession. Possession is sometimes confused with shamanism; but in shamanism one’s spirit travels while one’s body remains unconscious, whereas in possession one’s body is temporarily inhabited by another spirit, while what happens to one’s own spirit at Gotama Buddha’s problem situation 37 the time is left undetermined. This temporary loss of the sense of self is just like hysteria as clinically defined by Freud and Breuer.

Thus social events cannot all be reduced to matters of psychology. The power of institutional traditions in Therava¯din history can be illustrated by a matter I have already mentioned. The Therava¯din Order of Nuns died out long ago, probably in the eleventh century. There have been many women who led nun-like lives, living according to the Ten Precepts (see below, p. 78) and would evidently have wished to be real nuns had that been possible. aka, says that to become a nun requires a double ordination, by both validly ordained nuns and validly ordained monks.

To attain it is open to any human being, and it is ultimately the only thing worth attaining, for it is the only happiness which is not transient. A person who has attained it will live on so long as his body keeps going, but thereafter not be reborn. Thus he will never have to suffer or die again. For Buddhists, religion is what is relevant to this quest for salvation, and nothing else. Being told that gods have nothing to do with religion made me aware that the adherents of different religions draw the line between what is religion and what is not at very different places.

Download PDF sample