A Partial Enlightenment

Author : Avram Alpert
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 119 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2021-04-06
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780231553391

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A Partial Enlightenment by Avram Alpert Pdf

In many ways, Buddhism has become the global religion of the modern world. For its contemporary followers, the ideal of enlightenment promises inner peace and worldly harmony. And whereas other philosophies feel abstract and disembodied, Buddhism offers meditation as a means to realize this ideal. If we could all be as enlightened as Buddhists, some imagine, we could live in a much better world. For some time now, however, this beatific image of Buddhism has been under attack. Scholars and practitioners have criticized it as a Western fantasy that has nothing to do with the actual experiences of Buddhists. Avram Alpert combines personal experience and readings of modern novels to offer another way to understand modern Buddhism. He argues that it represents a rich resource not for attaining perfection but rather for finding meaning and purpose in a chaotic world. Finding unexpected affinities across world literature—Rudyard Kipling in colonial India, Yukio Mishima in postwar Japan, Bessie Head escaping apartheid South Africa—as well as in his own experiences living with Tibetan exiles, Alpert shows how these stories illuminate a world in which suffering is inevitable and total enlightenment is impossible. Yet they also give us access to partial enlightenments: powerful insights that become available when we come to terms with imperfection and stop looking for wholeness. A Partial Enlightenment reveals the moments of personal and social transformation that the inventions of modern Buddhism help make possible.

Author : Frederick Binkerd Artz
Publisher : Kent State University Press
Page : 180 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 1968
Category : History
ISBN : 0873380320

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The Enlightenment in France by Frederick Binkerd Artz Pdf

The founders of the Enlightenment in France are presented in this volume. The author emphasizes the practice as well as practical humanism and examines their fascination with science.

Author : Stanley Rosen
Publisher : CUP Archive
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 1995-09-29
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 0521498899

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The Mask of Enlightenment by Stanley Rosen Pdf

Soon to become the definitive study of Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra.

Author : Polly Campbell
Publisher : Cleis Press
Page : 306 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2013-10-15
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 9781936740185

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Imperfect Spirituality by Polly Campbell Pdf

Discusses how to render everyday moments and challenges into opportunities for spiritual growth, describing how to build a traditional spiritual life on top of a modern routine by engaging in short meditations and mindfulness.

Author : Lhundub Sopa
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 509 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2004-06-15
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780861717736

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Steps on the Path to Enlightenment by Lhundub Sopa Pdf

Steps on the Path to Englightenment: The Foundation Practices marks the first volume of a much-anticipated, comprehensive commentary on the Lamrim Chenmo by the renowned Buddhist scholar, Geshe Sopa. This landmark commentary on what is perhaps the most elegant Tibetan presentation of the Buddhist path offers a detailed overview of Buddhist philosophy, especially invaluable to those wanting to enact the wisdom of the Buddha in their lives. In the Lamrim Chenmo, Tsongkhapa explains the path in terms of the three levels of practitioners: those of small capacity who seek happiness in future lives, those of medium capacity who seek liberation from the cycle of suffering, and those of great capacity who seek full enlightenment in order to benefit all beings. This volume covers the topics common to the first level: Tsongkhapa's explanations of the role of the teacher, his exhortation to take the essence of human existence, the contemplation of death and future lives, and going for the refuge. Given his vast knowledge and his experience in both Tibetan and Western contexts, Geshe Sopa is the ideal commentator of this work for the modern student of Tibetan Buddhism.

Author : Daniel Roche
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 742 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : History
ISBN : 0674317475

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France in the Enlightenment by Daniel Roche Pdf

A panorama of a whole civilization, a world on the verge of cataclysm, unfolds in this magisterial work by the foremost historian of eighteenth-century France. Since Tocqueville's account of the Old Regime, historians have struggled to understand the social, cultural, and political intricacies of this efflorescence of French society before the Revolution. France in the Enlightenment is a brilliant addition to this historical interest. France in the Enlightenment brings the Old Regime to life by showing how its institutions operated and how they were understood by the people who worked within them. Daniel Roche begins with a map of space and time, depicting France as a mosaic of overlapping geographical units, with people and goods traversing it to the rhythms of everyday life. He fills this frame with the patterns of rural life, urban culture, and government institutions. Here as never before we see the eighteenth-century French "culture of appearances": the organization of social life, the diffusion of ideas, the accoutrements of ordinary people in the folkways of ordinary living--their food and clothing, living quarters, reading material. Roche shows us the eighteenth-century France of the peasant, the merchant, the noble, the King, from Paris to the provinces, from the public space to the private home. By placing politics and material culture at the heart of historical change, Roche captures the complexity and depth of the Enlightenment. From the finest detail to the widest view, from the isolated event to the sweeping trend, his masterly book offers an unparalleled picture of a society in motion, flush with the transformation that will be its own demise.

Author : John Wilkes
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 972 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 1825
Category : Biology
ISBN : UOM:39015068388415

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Encyclopaedia Londinensis by John Wilkes Pdf

Author : Aziz Kristof
Publisher : Motilal Banarsidass
Page : 652 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2000-01-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9788120817548

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The Human Buddha by Aziz Kristof Pdf

The Message for the New Millennium presents a vision of Awakening which reveals the human face of the Buddha. It is essential at this moment in our evolution to return to a more realistic perspective of enlightenment. Most seekers cannot relate to the concept of enlightenment for they feel intimidated by the image of the 'flawless' Buddha. Here, The Human Buddha is no longer a spiritual superman who denies natural longings, desires and human imperfections. The Human Buddha is indeed a sensitive being, a child of the Beloved like all of us. The Human Buddha openly acknowledges the gentle and vulnerable quality of his or her heart.

Author : S. Frederick Starr
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 694 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2015-06-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9780691165851

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Lost Enlightenment by S. Frederick Starr Pdf

The forgotten story of Central Asia's enlightenment—its rise, fall, and enduring legacy In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds—remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia—drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China. Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 and 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, the size and sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, and, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. Central Asians achieved signal breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, geology, medicine, chemistry, music, social science, philosophy, and theology, among other subjects. They gave algebra its name, calculated the earth's diameter with unprecedented precision, wrote the books that later defined European medicine, and penned some of the world's greatest poetry. One scholar, working in Afghanistan, even predicted the existence of North and South America—five centuries before Columbus. Rarely in history has a more impressive group of polymaths appeared at one place and time. No wonder that their writings influenced European culture from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas down to the scientific revolution, and had a similarly deep impact in India and much of Asia. Lost Enlightenment chronicles this forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, and explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise. Informed by the latest scholarship yet written in a lively and accessible style, this is a book that will surprise general readers and specialists alike.

Author : Leslie Tomory
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 361 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2012-03-02
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780262300452

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Progressive Enlightenment by Leslie Tomory Pdf

An argument that the gas industry was the first integrated large-scale technological network and that it signaled a new wave of industrial innovation. In Progressive Enlightenment, Leslie Tomory examines the origins of the gaslight industry, from invention to consolidation as a large integrated urban network. Tomory argues that gas was the first integrated large-scale technological network, a designation usually given to the railways. He shows how the first gas network was constructed and stabilized through the introduction of new management structures, the use of technical controls, and the application of means to constrain the behavior of the users of gas lighting. Tomory begins by describing the contributions of pneumatic chemistry and industrial distillation to the development of gas lighting, then explores the bifurcation between the Continental and British traditions in distillation technology. He examines the establishment and consolidation of the new industry by the Birmingham firm Boulton & Watt, and describes the deployment of the network strategy by the entrepreneur Frederick Winsor. Tomory argues that the gas industry represented a new wave of technological innovation in industry because of its dependence on formal scientific research, its need for large amounts of capital, and its reliance on business organization beyond small firms and partnerships—all of which signaled a departure from the artisanal nature and limited deployment of inventions earlier in the Industrial Revolution. Gas lighting was the first important realization of the Enlightenment dream of science in the service of industry.

Author : Jacqueline I. Stone
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 566 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2003-05-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780824840501

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Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism by Jacqueline I. Stone Pdf

Original enlightenment thought (hongaku shiso) dominated Buddhist intellectual circles throughout Japan’s medieval period. Enlightenment, this discourse claims, is neither a goal to be achieved nor a potential to be realized but the true status of all things. Every animate and inanimate object manifests the primordially enlightened Buddha just as it is. Seen in its true aspect, every activity of daily life—eating, sleeping, even one’s deluded thinking—is the Buddha’s conduct. Emerging from within the powerful Tendai School, ideas of original enlightenment were appropriated by a number of Buddhist traditions and influenced nascent theories about the kami (local deities) as well as medieval aesthetics and the literary and performing arts. Scholars and commentators have long recognized the historical importance of original enlightenment thought but differ heatedly over how it is to be understood. Some tout it as the pinnacle of the Buddhist philosophy of absolute non-dualism. Others claim to find in it the paradigmatic expression of a timeless Japanese spirituality. According other readings, it represents a dangerous anti-nomianism that undermined observance of moral precepts, precipitated a decline in Buddhist scholarship, and denied the need for religious discipline. Still others denounce it as an authoritarian ideology that, by sacralizing the given order, has in effect legitimized hierarchy and discriminative social practices. Often the acceptance or rejection of original enlightenment thought is seen as the fault line along which traditional Buddhist institutions are to be differentiated from the new Buddhist movements (Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren) that arose during Japan’s medieval period. Jacqueline Stone’s groundbreaking study moves beyond the treatment of the original enlightenment doctrine as abstract philosophy to explore its historical dimension. Drawing on a wealth of medieval primary sources and modern Japanese scholarship, it places this discourse in its ritual, institutional, and social contexts, illuminating its importance to the maintenance of traditions of lineage and the secret transmission of knowledge that characterized several medieval Japanese elite culture. It sheds new light on interpretive strategies employed in pre-modern Japanese Buddhist texts, an area that hitherto has received a little attention. Through these and other lines of investigation, Stone problematizes entrenched notions of “corruption” in the medieval Buddhist establishment. Using the examples of Tendai and Nichiren Buddhism and their interactions throughout the medieval period, she calls into question both overly facile distinctions between “old” and “new” Buddhism and the long-standing scholarly assumptions that have perpetuated them. This study marks a significant contribution to ongoing debates over definitions of Buddhism in the Kamakura era (1185–1333), long regarded as a formative period in Japanese religion and culture. Stone argues that “original enlightenment thought” represents a substantial rethinking of Buddhist enlightenment that cuts across the distinction between “old” and “new” institutions and was particularly characteristic of the medieval period.

Author : Kenneth Kuan Shêng Chʻen
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 574 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 1964
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780691000152

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Buddhism in China by Kenneth Kuan Shêng Chʻen Pdf

A study of the history of Buddhism in China.

Author : Peter Gay
Publisher : Knopf
Page : 301 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2013-05-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9780307831439

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The Party of Humanity by Peter Gay Pdf

THE ENLIGHTENMENT has long been the victim of uninformed or hostile criticisms. Even so respected a source as the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines the Enlightenment as “shallow and pretentious intellectualism, unreasonable contempt for authority and tradition,” thus collecting in one sentence most of our current prejudices. In this provocative book—at once a scholarly study and a vigorous polemic—Peter Gay sets out to shatter old myths, to sort out illusion from reality, and to restore the men of the Enlightenment—Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot—to the esteem they deserve. The nine related essays in The Party of Humanity fall into three divisions: three are on Voltaire, presenting the great philosophe as a tough-minded, realistic man of letters who tried to reshape his world, rather than as merely brittle and shallow wit. Then, three essays characterize the French Enlightenment as a whole, and seek for the unity underlying the diversity of tempers and attitudes among its leaders. The last three, which include Mr. Gay’s well-known critique of Carl Becker’s The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers, are polemics against widely accepted views of the Enlightenment. The longest chapter here is a detailed examination of Rousseau, the philosopher, and of his reputation among his interpreters. What all nine essays have in common, apart from their portrayal of the philosophes as serious and engage partisans of humanity, is that they are all essays in the “social history of ideas”; they all treat ideas as inseparable from the specific social and cultural setting from which they emerge and which they affect.

Author : Michael Schwartz,Sean Esbjörn-Hargens
Publisher : SUNY Press
Page : 524 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2019-11-01
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781438476551

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Dancing with Sophia by Michael Schwartz,Sean Esbjörn-Hargens Pdf

Explores the philosophical dimensions and implications of integral theory. Dancing with Sophia is the first book of essays to focus on the philosophical dimensions and implications of integral theory. A metatheory that organizes first order theories and disciplines into higher order modes of knowing and insight needed to address the complexity of today’s world, integral theory has already impacted a wide range of disciplines, from psychology to business to religious studies to art. Included here are perspectives by scholars in the continental, comparativist, and process traditions who dive into integral theory’s postmetaphysical claims in order to mine, extend, and critique its philosophical merits. On the verge of its own emergence, integral philosophy promotes modes of creative critical thought oriented toward the multidimensional flourishing of planetary well-being, and Dancing with Sophia will be of interest to scholars in philosophy; religious studies; transpersonal, developmental, and humanist psychology; and more. “Integral theory is a bold and provocative endeavor. It challenges one to think past the norm, to sail beyond the horizon and risk encountering the Scylla and Charybdis of what is academically acceptable—or at least familiar—and what is possible, in ways that only are now beginning to dawn on both thinking and dwelling. If it is nothing else, integral theory is the movement beyond the purely intellectual into the lived experience. This is its ‘meta-’ dimension properly understood.” — from the Foreword by Brian Schroeder

Author : Lhundub Sopa
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 626 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780861714827

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Steps on the Path to Enlightenment by Lhundub Sopa Pdf

The third volume of Steps on the Path to Enlightenment, Geshe Sopa's commentary on Tsongkhapa's Lamrim Chenmo, introduces the reader to the path of the bodhisattvas. The volume begins with an explanation of what distinguishes the Mahayana practitioner from all other Buddhists-bodhicitta, the desire to attain enlightenment in order to benefit other sentient beings. The nature of bodhicitta, an essential practice for persons of great spiritual capacity, is described in depth, and Geshe Sopa then provides a detailed, contemporary commentary on the two methods to develop this attitude: the "sevenfold cause-and-effect personal instructions" based on the teachings of the lineage descended from Atisa, and the "training to exchange self and other" based on Santideva's Engaging in the Bodhisattva's Deeds. Bodhicitta is an incredibly important attitude, but the attitude alone is not enough to attain enlightenment; a practitioner must perform actions motivated by bodhicitta, in other words, the six bodhisattva perfections. After a general introduction, this volume contains a detailed explanation of the first four perfections: generosity, ethical discipline, patience, and joyful perseverance. Here we find only a brief summary of the final two perfections, meditative stabilization and wisdom, to prepare the reader for the detailed discussion of these topics in the last two volumes of the series. To tie all these practices together, the volume concludes with an explanation of how Mahayana practitioners help others to mature spiritually: the four ways to gather disciples.