Love and Liberation


Book Description

Love and Liberation reads the autobiographical and biographical writings of one of the few Tibetan Buddhist women to record the story of her life. Sera Khandro DewŽ DorjŽ (1892Ð1940) was extraordinary not only for achieving religious mastery as a Tibetan Buddhist visionary and guru to many lamas, monastics, and laity in the Golok region of eastern Tibet, but also for her candor. This book listens to Sera KhandroÕs conversations with deities, dakinis, bodhisattvas, lamas, and fellow religious community members and investigates the concerns and sentiments relevant to the author and to those for whom she wrote. Sarah H. JacobyÕs analysis focuses on the status of the female body in Sera KhandroÕs texts, the virtue of celibacy versus the expediency of sexuality for religious purposes, and the difference between profane lust and sacred love between male and female Tantric partners. Her findings add new dimensions to our understanding of Tibetan Buddhist consort practice, complicating standard scriptural presentations of a male subject and a female aide. Sera Khandro depicts herself and her guru and consort, DrimŽ zer, as inseparable embodiments of insight and method that together form the Vajrayana Buddhist vision of complete buddhahood. By advancing this complementary sacred partnership, Sera Khandro carved a place for herself as a female virtuoso in the male-dominated sphere of early twentieth-century Tibetan religion.




In the Cool Shade of Compassion


Book Description

A fascinating collection of stories of the Thai forest monks that illuminates the Thai Forest tradition as a vibrant, compassionate, and highly appealing way of life. This work ingeniously intermingles real-life stories about nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Buddhist monks in old Siam (today’s Thailand) with experiences recorded by their Western contemporaries. Stories of giant snakes, bandits, boatmen, midwives, and guardian spirits collectively portray a Buddhist culture in all its imaginative and geographical brilliance. By juxtaposing these eyewitness accounts, Kamala Tiyavanich presents a new and vivid picture of Buddhism as it was lived and of the natural environments in which the Buddha’s teachings were practiced. This book was previously published under the title The Buddha in the Jungle.




Marriage Seen through Proverbs and Anti-Proverbs


Book Description

This book explores various aspects of marriage and the ways it is viewed and conceptualized in the body of Anglo-American anti-proverbs (or proverb transformations). It also depicts those who contribute to the institution of marriage (that is, husbands and wives), and analyses their nature, qualities, attributes and behaviours as revealed through such anti-proverbs. In addition, the text investigates those who remain single and do not belong to the institution of marriage, but contribute to the institution of marriage. It will appeal to a wide range of readers, from the casually interested general reader to the paremiologist, paremiographer, lexicographer, and anthropologist.




Inseparable across Lifetimes


Book Description

Winner of a 2021 Kayden Translation Award A true story of love, separation, and rediscovery in a time of cultural and spiritual upheaval in Tibet. An inspiring and intimate tale set against the turmoil of recent Tibetan history, Inseparable across Lifetimes offers for the first time the translations of love letters between two modern Buddhist visionaries. The letters are poetic, affectionate, and prophetic, articulating a hopeful vision of renewal that drew on their past lives together and led to their twenty-year partnership. This couple played a significant role in restoring Buddhism in the region of Golok once China’s revolutionary fervor gave way to reform. Holly Gayley, who was given their correspondence by Namtrul Rinpoche himself, has translated their lives and letters in order to share their remarkable story with the world.




Amdo Tibetans in Transition


Book Description

This book investigates Tibetan recovery from the devastation of High Socialism and a new engagement with attempts to modernize the region in the era of 'reform and opening' in post-Mao China. A unique introduction to contemporary life and attitudes in north-eastern Tibet, invaluable for understanding modern Tibetan life in China today, how it developed, and what it is rapidly becoming.




Tibetan Civilization


Book Description

An overall view of the Tibetan civilization, both ancient and modern Tibet. This book relates developments in Tibet to those in the rest of Asia.




Buddha's Warriors


Book Description

The Chinese Invasion And Occupation Of Tibet Has Been One Of The Great Tragedies. More Than A Million People Have Died As A Result. An Ancient Culture With Its Buildings, Literature, And Artifacts Has Been Largely Destroyed. In Kham, Eastern Tibet, In Particular, Where People Retained The Warrior-Like Qualities Of Old, Groups Of Men Banded Together To Oppose The Chinese By Force&. And I Am Glad That Mikel Dunham Has Been Able To Tell These Brave Men S Story In This Book, Much As They Told It To Him. His Holiness The Dalai Lama, From The Foreword In The Last Sixty Years, Tibet Has Been So Mythologized And Politicized That The Outside World Remains Confused About What Really Happened When Mao Tse-Tung Invaded In 1950. Buddha S Warriors Is The Story Of The Tens Of Thousands Of Tibetans Who Violently Resisted The Bloody Occupation Of Their Country And The Desecration Of All That Was Holy To Them. From The Farthest Reaches Of Tibet Kham, Amdo And Golok The Most Feared Tribes In Asia Mounted Their Warhorses And Rode Together For The First Time In History. By Their Side Were Thousands Of Buddhist Monks Who Renounced Their Vows Of Nonviolence, Grabbed Swords, And In The Name Of Freedom Charged Into Enemy Lines. Tibet S Only Source Of Outside Help Came From A Small Group Of Cia Agents, Who Secretly Trained And Armed The Freedom Fighters. Author Mikel Dunham Spent Seven Years Interviewing The Warriors Who Fought The Chinese, Collecting Stories That Otherwise Would Have Been Lost To History. He Also Befriended The Cia Officers Who Trained The Young Tibetans. These Firsthand Accounts Bring Faces And Deeply Personal Emotions To The Forefront Of The Ongoing Tragedy Of Tibet. Buddha S Warriors Is A Sweeping History Of A Nation And An Ancient Culture Under Siege. The Saga Of The Tibetan Resistance Movement Is One Of Brave Soldiers And Cowardly Traitors, Courage Against Repression, Buddhism Against Atheism, And, Ultimately, Of What Happens To An Isolated Civilization When It Is Thrust Almost Overnight Into The Horrors Of Modern-Day Warfare.




Love Letters from Golok


Book Description

Love Letters from Golok chronicles the courtship between two Buddhist tantric masters, Tāre Lhamo (1938–2002) and Namtrul Rinpoche (1944–2011), and their passion for reinvigorating Buddhism in eastern Tibet during the post-Mao era. In fifty-six letters exchanged from 1978 to 1980, Tāre Lhamo and Namtrul Rinpoche envisioned a shared destiny to "heal the damage" done to Buddhism during the years leading up to and including the Cultural Revolution. Holly Gayley retrieves the personal and prophetic dimensions of their courtship and its consummation in a twenty-year religious career that informs issues of gender and agency in Buddhism, cultural preservation among Tibetan communities, and alternative histories for minorities in China. The correspondence between Tare Lhamo and Namtrul Rinpoche is the first collection of "love letters" to come to light in Tibetan literature. Blending tantric imagery with poetic and folk song styles, their letters have a fresh vernacular tone comparable to the love songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama, but with an eastern Tibetan flavor. Gayley reads these letters against hagiographic writings about the couple, supplemented by field research, to illuminate representational strategies that serve to narrate cultural trauma in a redemptive key, quite unlike Chinese scar literature or the testimonials of exile Tibetans. With special attention to Tare Lhamo's role as a tantric heroine and her hagiographic fusion with Namtrul Rinpoche, Gayley vividly shows how Buddhist masters have adapted Tibetan literary genres to share private intimacies and address contemporary social concerns.




Pioneer in Tibet


Book Description

Dr. Albert Shelton was a medical missionary and explorer who spent nearly twenty years in the Tibetan borderlands at the start of the last century. During the Great Game era, the Sheltons' sprawling station in Kham was the most remote and dangerous mission on earth. Raising his family in a land of banditry and civil war, caught between a weak Chinese government and the British Raj, Shelton proved to be a resourceful frontiersman. One of the West's first interpreters of Tibetan culture, during the course of his work in Tibet, he was praised by the Western press as a family man, revered doctor, respected diplomat, and fearless adventurer. To the American public, Dr. Albert Shelton was Daniel Boone, Wyatt Earp, and the apostle Paul on a new frontier. Driven by his goal of setting up a medical mission within Lhasa, the seat of the Dalai Lama and a city off-limits to Westerners for hundreds of years, Shelton acted as a valued go-between for the Tibetans and Chinese. Recognizing his work, the Dalai Lama issued Shelton an invitation to Lhasa. Tragically, while finalizing his entry, Shelton was shot to death on a remote mountain trail in the Himalayas. Set against the exciting history of early twentieth century Tibet and China, Pioneer in Tibet offers a window into the life of a dying breed of adventurer.