The Buddha Sat Right Here


Book Description

Dena was a busy midwife trapped on the hamster wheel of working motherhood. Adam was an eccentric Buddhist yogi passing as a hard-working dad. Bella was fourteen and wanted to be normal. Sophia was up for anything that involved skipping school. Together, they shouldered backpacks, walked away from their California life of all-night births, carpool schedules, and Cal Skate, and criss-crossed India and Nepal for eight months—a journey that led them to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the tree where the Buddha sat, and the arms of Amma the Divine Mother. From the banks of the Ganges to the Himalayan roof of the world, this enthralling memoir is an unforgettable odyssey, a moving meditation on modern family life, and a spiritual quest, written with humor and honesty—and filled with love and awe.




In the Buddha's Words


Book Description

"This landmark collection is the definitive introduction to the Buddha's teachings in his own words. The American scholar monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, whose voluminous translations have won widespread acclaim, here presents selected discourses of the Buddha from the Pali Canon, the earliest record of what the Buddha taught. Divided into ten thematic chapters, In the Buddha's Words reveals the full scope of the Buddha's discourses, from family life and marriage to renunciation and the path of insight. A concise informative introduction precedes each chapter, guiding the reader toward a deeper understanding of the texts that follow." "In the Buddha's Words allows even readers unacquainted with Buddhism to grasp the significance of the Buddha's contributions to our world heritage. Taken as a whole, these texts bear eloquent testimony to the breadth and intelligence of the Buddha's teachings, and point the way to an ancient yet ever vital path. Students and seekers alike will find this systematic presentation indispensable."--BOOK JACKET.




Travellin Mama Mothers, Mothering and Travel


Book Description

“Don’t women with children travel?” Marybeth Bond and Pamela Michael enquire, in their book A Mother’s World: Journeys of the Heart (1998), when discovering the absence of portrayals of travelling mothers. Addressing this absence, our book Travellin’ Mama: Mothers, Mothering and Travel explores the multiple dimensions of motherhood and travel. Through a variety of compelling creative pieces and critical essays with a global outlook and wide-ranging historical, cultural, and national perspectives, Travellin’ Mama: Mothers, Mothering and Travel examines the vital contributions made to travel writing and representations of travel by mothers. Autoethnographical approaches inform many of the pieces in this book, illustrating the significance of the personal and writing the self in re-imagining our cultural narratives and representations of travel, and the mothers who undertake it. This book is about mothers who travel, for mothers who travel with their children, and all those readers who have travelled in any capacity, with or without family.




Linked Discourses


Book Description

SuttaCentral has published an entirely new translation of the four Pali nikāyas by Bhikkhu Sujato, which is the first complete and consistent English translation of these core texts. This is an ebook version of Bhikkhu Sujato's translation of the Saṁyutta Nikāya, which can also be read at SuttaCentral website. The “Linked” or “Connected” Discourses (Saṁyutta Nikāya, abbreviated SN) is a collection of over a thousand short discourses in the Pali canon. The word “linked” refers to the fact that the texts are collected and organized by topic. In most cases the organizing principle is a particular theme of Dhamma, for example, the five aggregates, dependent origination, the noble eightfold path, mindfulness meditation, or the four noble truths. This collection contains the most extensive range of texts on these core themes. In other cases chapters are organized according to the person or kind of person who speaks. This collection has a full parallel in the Saṁyuktāgama (SA) of the Sarvāstivāda school in Chinese translation. In addition, there are two partial collections in Chinese (SA-2 and SA-3) as well as a number of miscellaneous or fragmentary texts in Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan. Much of the organizational structure of SN is shared with SA, suggesting that this structure preceded the split between these two collections. This translation of Saṁyutta Nikāya was updated on March 8th, 2023.




After Buddhism


Book Description

Some twenty-five centuries after the Buddha started teaching, his message continues to inspire people across the globe, including those living in predominantly secular societies. What does it mean to adapt religious practices to secular contexts? Stephen Batchelor, an internationally known author and teacher, is committed to a secularized version of the Buddha’s teachings. The time has come, he feels, to articulate a coherent ethical, contemplative, and philosophical vision of Buddhism for our age. After Buddhism, the culmination of four decades of study and practice in the Tibetan, Zen, and Theravada traditions, is his attempt to set the record straight about who the Buddha was and what he was trying to teach. Combining critical readings of the earliest canonical texts with narrative accounts of five members of the Buddha’s inner circle, Batchelor depicts the Buddha as a pragmatic ethicist rather than a dogmatic metaphysician. He envisions Buddhism as a constantly evolving culture of awakening whose long survival is due to its capacity to reinvent itself and interact creatively with each society it encounters. This original and provocative book presents a new framework for understanding the remarkable spread of Buddhism in today’s globalized world. It also reminds us of what was so startling about the Buddha’s vision of human flourishing.




Handbook of Zen, Mindfulness, and Behavioral Health


Book Description

This comprehensive handbook presents a Zen account of fundamental and important dimensions of daily living. It explores how Zen teachings inform a range of key topics across the field of behavioral health and discuss the many uses of meditation and mindfulness practice in therapeutic contexts, especially within cognitive-behavioral therapies. Chapters outline key Zen constructs of self and body, desire, and acceptance, and apply these constructs to Western frameworks of health, pathology, meaning-making, and healing. An interdisciplinary panel of experts, including a number of Zen masters who have achieved the designation of roshi, examines intellectual tensions among Zen, mindfulness, and psychotherapy, such as concepts of rationality, modes of language, and goals of well-being. The handbook also offers first-person practitioner accounts of living Zen in everyday life and using its teachings in varied practice settings. Topics featured in the Handbook include: • Zen practices in jails.• Zen koans and parables.• A Zen account of desire and attachment.• Adaptation of Zen to behavioral healthcare.• Zen, mindfulness, and their relationship to cognitive behavioral therapy. • The application of Zen practices and principles for survivors of trauma and violence. The Handbook of Zen, Mindfulness, and Behavioral Health is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in clinical psychology, public health, cultural studies, language philosophy, behavioral medicine, and Buddhism and religious studies.




Street Teaching in the Tenderloin


Book Description

This book is an ethnographic account of San Francisco’s most inner city neighborhood, the Tenderloin. Using its streets as campus and its people as teachers, Stannard-Friel uses storytelling as a way of explaining why inner city social problems, such as homelessness, drugs, prostitution, untreated mental illness, and death of young people by murders and suicides, exist and persist there. The work delves into who lives in the Tenderloin and why, the role of dedicated service providers in meeting people’s needs and encouraging social change, and what lessons university students, many coming from their own challenging backgrounds, learn through community engagement and service learning that encourage understanding, compassion, and meaningful contributions to society. The work also explores how life in the area is changing, and why so many youth report that they “love living in the Tenderloin.”




The Path of Individual Liberation


Book Description

The foundational teachings of Buddhism—presented here in volume one of Chögyam Trungpa's magnum opus, which offers a systematic overview of the entire path of Tibetan Buddhism This three-volume collection presents in lively, relevant language the comprehensive teachings of the Tibetan Buddhist path of the hinayana, mahayana, and vajrayana. Considered Chögyam Trungpa’s masterpiece, The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma will resonate with new and senior students of Buddhism. Chögyam Trungpa begins his study by presenting the teachings of the hinayana. The hinayana introduces core Buddhist teachings on the nature of mind, the practice of meditation, the reality of suffering, and the possibility of liberation. It examines the nature of suffering, impermanence, and egolessness, with an emphasis on personal development through meditative discipline and study. The formal entry into the hinayana and the Buddhist path altogether is the refuge vow, in which a student goes for refuge to the Buddha, or the teacher; the dharma, or the teachings; and the sangha, or the community. The hinayana path is based on training in mindfulness and awareness, cultivating virtue, and cutting grasping. Topics covered in detail in this volume include the four noble truths, karma, the four foundations of mindfulness, meditation practice, the refuge vows, the three jewels, the five skandhas, the five precepts, twofold egolessness, and more.




Sayings of the Buddha


Book Description

This edition offers a new translation of a selection of the Buddha's most important sayings reflecting the full variety of material: biography of the Buddha, narrative, myth, short sayings, philosophical discourse, instruction on morality, meditation, and the spiritual life. It provides an excellent introduction to Buddhist scripture.




Sayings of the Buddha


Book Description

'As if someone were to hold up a lamp in the dark so that those with eyes could see - in exactly the same way Gotama has made the truth clear in various ways.' Gotama the Buddha, who lived the life of a wandering ascetic in northern India during the fifth century BCE, is looked to as the founder of one of the world's major religions. One of the main sources for knowledge of his teachings is the four Pali Nikayas or 'collections' of his sayings. Written in Pali, an ancient Indian language closely related to Sanskrit, the Nikayas are among the oldest Buddhist texs and consist of more than one and a half million words. This new translation offers a selection of the Buddha's most important sayings reflecting the full variety of material contained in the Nikayas: the central themes of the Buddha's teaching (his biography, philosophical discourse, instruction on morality, meditation, and the spiritual life) and the range of literary style (myth, dialogue, narrative, short sayings, verse). ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.