Right Thoughts at the Last Moment PDF Download

Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Right Thoughts at the Last Moment PDF full book. Access full book title Right Thoughts at the Last Moment by Jacqueline I. Stone. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.

Right Thoughts at the Last Moment

Right Thoughts at the Last Moment PDF Author: Jacqueline I. Stone
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824867653
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 633

Book Description
Buddhists across Asia have often aspired to die with a clear and focused mind, as the historical Buddha himself is said to have done. This book explores how the ideal of dying with right mindfulness was appropriated, disseminated, and transformed in premodern Japan, focusing on the late tenth through early fourteenth centuries. By concentrating one’s thoughts on the Buddha in one’s last moments, it was said even an ignorant and sinful person could escape the cycle of deluded rebirth and achieve birth in a buddha’s pure land, where liberation would be assured. Conversely, the slightest mental distraction at that final juncture could send even a devout practitioner tumbling down into the hells or other miserable rebirth realms. The ideal of mindful death thus generated both hope and anxiety and created a demand for ritual specialists who could act as religious guides at the deathbed. Buddhist death management in Japan has been studied chiefly from the standpoint of funerals and mortuary rites. Right Thoughts at the Last Moment investigates a largely untold side of that story: how early medieval Japanese prepared for death, and how desire for ritual assistance in one’s last hours contributed to Buddhist preeminence in death-related matters. It represents the first book-length study in a Western language to examine how the Buddhist ideal of mindful death was appropriated in a specific historical context. Practice for one’s last hours occupied the intersections of multiple, often disparate approaches that Buddhism offered for coping with death. Because they crossed sectarian lines and eventually permeated all social levels, deathbed practices afford insights into broader issues in medieval Japanese religion, including intellectual developments, devotional practices, pollution concerns, ritual performance, and divisions of labor among religious professionals. They also allow us to see beyond the categories of “old” versus “new” Buddhism, or establishment Buddhism versus marginal heterodoxies, which have characterized much scholarship to date. Enlivened by cogent examples, this study draws on a wealth of sources including ritual instructions, hagiographies, doctrinal writings, didactic tales, courtier diaries, historical records, letters, and relevant art historical material to explore the interplay of doctrinal ideals and on-the-ground practice.

Right Thoughts at the Last Moment

Right Thoughts at the Last Moment PDF Author: Jacqueline I. Stone
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824867653
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 633

Book Description
Buddhists across Asia have often aspired to die with a clear and focused mind, as the historical Buddha himself is said to have done. This book explores how the ideal of dying with right mindfulness was appropriated, disseminated, and transformed in premodern Japan, focusing on the late tenth through early fourteenth centuries. By concentrating one’s thoughts on the Buddha in one’s last moments, it was said even an ignorant and sinful person could escape the cycle of deluded rebirth and achieve birth in a buddha’s pure land, where liberation would be assured. Conversely, the slightest mental distraction at that final juncture could send even a devout practitioner tumbling down into the hells or other miserable rebirth realms. The ideal of mindful death thus generated both hope and anxiety and created a demand for ritual specialists who could act as religious guides at the deathbed. Buddhist death management in Japan has been studied chiefly from the standpoint of funerals and mortuary rites. Right Thoughts at the Last Moment investigates a largely untold side of that story: how early medieval Japanese prepared for death, and how desire for ritual assistance in one’s last hours contributed to Buddhist preeminence in death-related matters. It represents the first book-length study in a Western language to examine how the Buddhist ideal of mindful death was appropriated in a specific historical context. Practice for one’s last hours occupied the intersections of multiple, often disparate approaches that Buddhism offered for coping with death. Because they crossed sectarian lines and eventually permeated all social levels, deathbed practices afford insights into broader issues in medieval Japanese religion, including intellectual developments, devotional practices, pollution concerns, ritual performance, and divisions of labor among religious professionals. They also allow us to see beyond the categories of “old” versus “new” Buddhism, or establishment Buddhism versus marginal heterodoxies, which have characterized much scholarship to date. Enlivened by cogent examples, this study draws on a wealth of sources including ritual instructions, hagiographies, doctrinal writings, didactic tales, courtier diaries, historical records, letters, and relevant art historical material to explore the interplay of doctrinal ideals and on-the-ground practice.

Right Thoughts at the Last Moment

Right Thoughts at the Last Moment PDF Author: Jacqueline Ilyse Stone
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780824872984
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
Buddhists across Asia have often sought to die, as the Buddha himself is said to have done, with a clear and focused mind. This study explores the reception and development in early medieval Japan (roughly, tenth through fourteenth centuries) of the ideal of 'dying with right mindfulness' (rinju shonen) and the discourses and practices in which it was embedded.

You Are Here

You Are Here PDF Author: Thich Nhat Hanh
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834845415
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 161

Book Description
Cut through the busyness and anxieties of daily life to discover the simple happiness of living in the present moment, as taught by a world-renowned Zen monk In this book, Thich Nhat Hanh—Zen monk, author, and meditation master—distills the essence of Buddhist thought and practice, emphasizing the power of mindfulness to transform our lives. But true mindfulness, Hanh explains, is not an escape. It is being in the present moment, totally alive and free. Based on a retreat that Thich Nhat Hanh led for Westerners, You Are Here offers a range of effective practices for cultivating mindfulness and staying in the present moment—including awareness of breathing and walking, deep listening, and skillful speech. These teachings will empower you to witness the wonder of life and transform your suffering, both within and outside you, into compassion, tenderness, and peace. As Thich Nhat Hanh declares, “the energy of mindfulness is the energy of the Buddha, and it can be produced by anybody.” It is as simple as breathing in and breathing out.

The Buddhist Dead

The Buddhist Dead PDF Author: Bryan J. Cuevas
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824860160
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 505

Book Description
In its teachings, practices, and institutions, Buddhism in its varied Asian forms has been—and continues to be—centrally concerned with death and the dead. Yet surprisingly "death in Buddhism" has received little sustained scholarly attention. The Buddhist Dead offers the first comparative investigation of this topic across the major Buddhist cultures of India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Tibet, and Burma. Its individual essays, representing a range of methods, shed light on a rich array of traditional Buddhist practices for the dead and dying; the sophisticated but often paradoxical discourses about death and the dead in Buddhist texts; and the varied representations of the dead and the afterlife found in Buddhist funerary art and popular literature. This important collection moves beyond the largely text—and doctrine—centered approaches characterizing an earlier generation of Buddhist scholarship and expands its treatment of death to include ritual, devotional, and material culture. Contributors: James A. Benn, Raoul Birnbaum, Jason A. Carbine, Bryan J. Cuevas, Hank Glassman, John Clifford Holt, Matthew T. Kapstein, D. Max Moerman, Mark Rowe, Kurtis R. Schaeffer, Gregory Schopen, Koichi Shinohara, Jacqueline I. Stone, John S. Strong.13 illus.

The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead

The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead PDF Author: Bryan J. Cuevas
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195306521
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
In 1927, Oxford University Press published the first western-language translation of a collection of Tibetan funerary texts (the Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Bardo) under the title The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Since that time, the work has established a powerful hold on the western popular imagination, and is now considered a classic of spiritual literature. Over the years, The Tibetan Book of the Dead has inspired numerous commentaries, an illustrated edition, a play, a video series, and even an opera. Translators, scholars, and popular devotees of the book have claimed to explain its esoteric ideas and reveal its hidden meaning. Few, however, have uttered a word about its history. Bryan J. Cuevas seeks to fill this gap in our knowledge by offering the first comprehensive historical study of the Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Bardo, and by grounding it firmly in the context of Tibetan history and culture. He begins by discussing the many ways the texts have been understood (and misunderstood) by westerners, beginning with its first editor, the Oxford-educated anthropologist Walter Y. Evans-Wentz, and continuing through the present day. The remarkable fame of the book in the west, Cuevas argues, is strikingly disproportionate to how the original Tibetan texts were perceived in their own country. Cuevas tells the story of how The Tibetan Book of the Dead was compiled in Tibet, of the lives of those who preserved and transmitted it, and explores the history of the rituals through which the life of the dead is imagined in Tibetan society. This book provides not only a fascinating look at a popular and enduring spiritual work, but also a much-needed corrective to the proliferation of ahistorical scholarship surrounding The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

One Breath at a Time

One Breath at a Time PDF Author: Kevin Griffin
Publisher: Rodale Books
ISBN: 1635651816
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
Merging Buddhist mindfulness practices with the Twelve Step program, this updated edition of the bestselling recovery guide One Breath at a Time will inspire and enlighten you to live a better, healthier life. Many in recovery turn to the Twelve Steps to overcome their addictions, but struggle with the spiritual program. But what they might not realize is that Buddhist teachings are intrinsically intertwined with the lessons of the Twelve Steps, and offer time-tested methods for addressing the challenges of sobriety. In what is considered the cornerstone of the most significant recovery movement of the 21st century, Kevin Griffin shares his own extraordinary journey to sobriety and how he integrated the Twelve Steps of recovery with Buddhist mindfulness practices. With a new foreword by William Alexander, the author of Ordinary Recovery, One Breath at a Time takes you on a journey through the Steps, examining critical ideas like Powerlessness, Higher Power, and Moral Inventory through the lens of the core concepts of Buddhism—the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, mindfulness, loving-kindness, and more. The result is a book that presents techniques and meditations for finding clarity and awareness in your life, just as it has for thousands of addicts and alcoholics.

Opening the Hand of Thought

Opening the Hand of Thought PDF Author: Kosho Uchiyama
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0861713575
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
This book offers with infused and wise humor, an eminently practial presentation of meditation, and with clarity shows how Zen Buddhism can be an ever-unfolding path of inquiry.

Critical Readings on Pure Land Buddhism in Japan

Critical Readings on Pure Land Buddhism in Japan PDF Author: Galen Amstutz
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004401504
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Book Description
Pure Land was one of the main fields of mythopoesis and discourse among the Asian Buddhist traditions, and in Japan of central cultural importance from the Heian period right up to the present. The pieces reproduced in this set have been chosen as linchpin works accentuating the diversity and evolution of Pure Land Buddhism. These selections of previously published articles will serve as an essential starting-point for anyone interested in this perhaps underestimated area of Buddhist studies.

Conversations with God for Teens

Conversations with God for Teens PDF Author: Neale Donald Walsch
Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing
ISBN: 1612831168
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Book Description
Suppose you could ask God any question and get an answer. What would it be? Young people all over the world have been asking those questions. So Neale Donald Walsch, author of the internationally bestselling Conversations with God series had another conversation. Conversations with God for Teens is a simple, clear, straight-to-the-point dialogue that answers teens questions about God, money, sex, love, and more. Conversations with God for Teens reads like a rap session at a church youth group, where teenagers discuss everything they ever wanted to know about life but were too afraid to ask God. Walsch acts as the verbal conduit, showing teenagers how easy it is to converse with the divine. When Claudia, age 16, from Perth, Australia, asks, "Why can't I just have sex with everybody? What's the big deal?", the answer God offers her is: "Nothing you do will ever be okay with everybody. 'Everybody' is a large word. The real question is can you have sex and have it be okay with you?" There's no doubt that the casual question-and-answer format will help make God feel welcoming and accessible to teens. Conversations with God for Teens is the perfect gift purchase for parents, grandparents, and anyone else who wants to provide accessible spiritual content for the teen(s) in their lives.

Approaching the Land of Bliss

Approaching the Land of Bliss PDF Author: Richard Karl Payne
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824825782
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description
The discourse of Buddhist studies has traditionally been structured around texts and nations (the transmission of Buddhism from India to China to Japan). And yet, it is doubtful that these categories reflect in any significant way the organizing themes familiar to most Buddhists. It could be argued that cultic practices associated with particular buddhas and bodhisattvas are more representative of the way Buddhists conceive of their relation to tradition. This volume aims to explore this aspect of Buddhism by focusing on one of its most important cults, that of the Buddha Amitabha. Approaching the Land of Bliss is a rich collection of studies of texts and ritual practices devoted to Amitabha, ranging from Tibet to Japan and from early medieval times to the present.