Meditation - In the Perspective of Science, Health and Spirituality (Compilation)

Schopenhauer over on The Pirate Bay has put together a great collection of material on Buddhism and Meditation. Some very rare interviews and material in here.

Meditation - In the Perspective of Science, Health and Spirituality (Compilation)
What do we got here? Well, 21 Videoclips (9 hours and 34 minutes) 14 Audiobooks (299 audiofiles with a total duration of 65 hours and 53 minutes) 1 Album and 1 E-book There are many perspectives on meditation, and also people have different ideas about it; Meditation for some is a purely medical treatment founded on evidence based research. Sometimes it is connected with an interest to investigate neurological activity in relation to the study of consciousness. For other people it is just something related to a sense of a healthy lifestyle and personal well-being. And for yet others it is a part of developing, or deepening their spiritual or religious life. I did put a lot of effort into making a DVD that appeals to any of these three perspectives or categories that might be in your particularly, taste, interest or need, without compromising on either quantity/quality of material. Use what you find helpful for yourself, discard what you don't find any value in. Almost every person on this DVD with very few exceptions has either a M.D or a PhD in something, that is related to what they offer to teach. It just turned out that way, and it gives a small guarantee that those persons didn't get into the field 2 months ago just to make a bit of quick and easy cash.I didn't put any of the typical new-age people or so on this DVD just because that was not the kind of compilation i had in mind this time. But there are both scientist and people representing different spiritual traditions on the DVD.

TPB

Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha - Jack Kerouac

Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha - Jack Kerouac
Though raised Catholic, in the early 1950s Jack Kerouac became fascinated with Buddhism, an interest that would have a profound impact on his ideas of spirituality and their expression in his writing from Mexico City Blues to The Dharma Bums. Published for the first time in book form, Wake Up is Kerouac’s retelling of the story of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who as a young man abandoned his wealthy family and comfortable home for a lifelong search for Enlightenment. As a compendium of the teachings of the Buddha, Wake Up is a profound meditation on the nature of life, desire, wisdom, and suffering. Distilled from a wide variety of canonical scriptures, Wake Up serves as both a concise primer on the concepts of Buddhism and as an insightful and deeply personal document of Kerouac’s evolving beliefs. It is the work of a devoted spiritual follower of the Buddha who also happened to be one of the twentieth century’s most influential novelists. Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha will be essential reading for the legions of Jack Kerouac fans and for anyone who is curious about the spiritual principles of one of the world’s great religions.

TPB

Japanese Religion:The Ebook - Robert Ellwood

Japanese Religion: The Ebook - Robert Ellwood
This volume is intended to present both information about the religion traditions of Japan and an experience of their world. For that reason it contains data, descriptions, quotations, anecdotes, and a few philosophical reflections. It is hoped also that working with this book will introduce students to some academic ways of looking at the religions of the world. Japanese Religions: The eBook should be accessible to all motivated college and university students, whether they have had previous courses in Japanese or Religious Studies topics or not. Nonetheless, a little background reading in Japanese history, and in Buddhism and Confucianism, would obviously be helpful. Some students may have had more background in European and American history than in Japanese. To my mind, at least, despite very minimal direct contact until modern times, interesting parallels between Japanese and western social, intellectual, and religious history, from the feudal Middle Ages on up, suggest themselves; a few speculations in this direction appear. Each chapter is followed by a list of study questions and a short representative bibliography. More specialized books and articles will be found cited in the notes; they are also generally recommended for further research. Much information can now be found online as well. Japanese names are given in the Japanese way, with surname first, except in the case of authors of English-language, or translated, books (e.g. Susumu Shimazono), in which case the name is given as it appears on the book’s title page and in library catalogs. It should be noted, however, that many premodern Japanese historical figures are normally referred to by their given name (e.g. Ieyasu rather than Tokugawa Ireyasu), and after first identification they are so named here. Also, Buddhist teachers and writers usually go by their name in religion rather than their birth-name, and to make matters more confusing, sometimes change that name to mark different ordinations or stages of life, including a posthumous (after-death) name (e.g. Saeki Mao? birth-name; Kukai, religious name; Kobo daishi, posthumous name). For the sake of clarity, the name most commonly recognized (e.g. Shinran, Nichiren, Basho) is used consistently, regardless of whether the individual actually was known by that name at the point in life under discussion.

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The Life of Buddhism - Frank Reynolds, Jason A. Carbine

The Life of Buddhism - Frank Reynolds, Jason A. Carbine

Bringing together fifteen essays by outstanding Buddhist scholars from Asia, Europe, and North America, this book offers a distinctive portrayal of the "life of Buddhism." The contributors focus on a number of religious practices across the Buddhist world, from Sri Lanka to New York, Japan to Tibet. The essays highlight not so much Buddhist doctrine or sacred texts, but rather the actual behavior and lived experience of Buddhist adherents.

A general introduction by Frank E. Reynolds and Jason A. Carbine provides a historical overview and briefly characterizes the three major variants of Buddhist tradition--the Hinayana/Theravada branch practiced in Sri Lanka and much of Southeast Asia; the Mahayana branch located most notably in East Asia; and the Vajrayana/Esoteric branch established in Tibet and Japan. It also takes note of a distinctive form of Buddhism that is now emerging among non-Asian practitioners in the West. The editors introduce each essay with a brief commentary that situates its contents within the Buddhist tradition as a whole.

The pieces offer concise depictions and analyses of particular aspects of Buddhist life, including temple architecture and iconography, the consecration of sacred objects, meditative practices, devotional expressions, exorcisms, and pilgrimage journeys. Topics discussed also include the construction of religio-political and religio-social hierarchies, gender roles, the management of asocial behavior, and confrontations with dying and death.

Includes: Creating and Disseminating the Sacred by Donald K.Swearer; a View of Temple Life and Practice by James Bissett Pratt; a Tooth Relic and the Legitimation of Power by Juliane Schober; Bun Phraawes by S.J. Tambiah; Ordination in the Chogye Order by Robert Buswell; Theravada Religious Women by Hiroko Kawanami; a Morning Star Meditation by Taiko Yamasaki; the Biography of a Nun by Hanna Havnevik; the Cremation of a Senior Monk by Charles F.Keyes; Lay Praxis in a Mahayana Context by Holmes Welch; Buddhist Secular Law: Doctrines in Context by Rebecca Redwood French; Yaktovil: the Role of the Buddha and Dhamma by Jason A.Carbine; a New Theravadin Liturgy by Richard Gombrich; Memorizing One's Mizuko by William LaFleur; and Transmitting the Dharma by Phillip Kapleau.

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