Category: Other Eastern Religions Sacred Texts

By Laozi, Laozi, Moss Roberts

Dao De Jing is likely one of the richest, so much suggestive, and preferred works of philosophy and literature. Composed in China among the past due 6th and the past due fourth centuries b.c., its enigmatic verses have encouraged artists, philosophers, poets, spiritual thinkers, and common readers right down to our personal occasions. This new translation, either revelatory and genuine, captures a lot of the wonder and nuance of the unique paintings. In an intensive and obtainable statement to his translation, Moss Roberts unearths new depths of Dao De Jing. This version is extraordinary by way of the literary caliber of the interpretation, its new renderings for the various stanzas, and via Roberts's an expert contextualizations. using lately found manuscripts and chinese language scholarship according to them, he's capable of shed new gentle at the work's ancient and philosophical contexts. This translation exhibits that Dao De Jing is much greater than a piece of non-public idea; it's also a piece of common scope that makes penetrating reviews on politics, statecraft, cosmology, aesthetics, and ethics. Roberts brings those topics to our recognition, exhibits how they're built-in into the paintings as a complete, and demonstrates the relevance of those subject matters for our personal instances.

By Peter J. Columbus, Donadrian L. Rice

Considers the contributions and modern value of Alan Watts. Alan Watts—Here and Now explores the highbrow legacy and carrying on with relevance of a prolific author and speaker who was once an immense impact on American tradition through the latter half the 20 th century. A philosopher attuned to the non secular malaise affecting the Western brain, Watts (1915–1973) supplied highbrow and non secular choices that assisted in shaping the Beat tradition of the Nineteen Fifties and the counterculture of the Nineteen Sixties. popular for introducing Buddhist and Daoist spirituality to a large Western viewers, he additionally wrote on psychology, mysticism, and psychedelic adventure. Many idolized Watts as a guru-mystic, but he was once additionally disregarded as intellectually shallow and as a trifling popularizer of Asian religions (the “Norman Vincent Peale of Zen”). either severe and appreciative, this edited quantity locates Watts on the leading edge of significant paradigmatic shifts in Western highbrow existence. participants discover how Watts’s paintings resonates in present-day scholarship on psychospiritual transformation, Buddhism and psychotherapy, Daoism within the West, phenomenology and hermeneutics, humanistic and transpersonal psychology, mysticism, and ecofeminism, between different parts. “Columbus and Rice have prepare a quantity that's good conceived, good written, good edited, and available to undergraduates in addition to scholars.” — selection “Watts used to be a stunningly extraordinary writer—far greater than virtually somebody writing then or now; he essentially had grasped ‘the essence of Zen.’ each essay during this booklet throws new gentle at the relevance of his rules for at the present time, and those written by way of those people who are additionally ancient figures within the circles Watts moved in and wrote out of supply attention-grabbing ancient tidbits. I enthusiastically suggest this book.” — Jeffrey J. Kripal, writer of Esalen: the United States and the faith of No faith Peter J. Columbus is Administrator of the Shantigar starting place in Rowe, Massachusetts. Donadrian L. Rice is Professor of Psychology on the collage of West Georgia. also they are the coeditors of Psychology of the Martial Arts

By John T. Willis

The translation of Exodus 4:24-26 is especially debatable. students have taken care of this article from a variety of viewpoints at the foundation of divergent equipment or techniques. basic difficulties reason uncertainty concerning the beginning and that means of this article. One challenge has to do with the character of Exod 4:24-26. one other challenge is the identification of the individuals pointed out in Exod 4:24-26. This e-book arranges forty-two documented interpretations lower than each one method or ways, featuring the view of every student offering his/her interpretation of Exodus 4:24-26 in chronological order. the writer offers his personal view within the concluding bankruptcy, primarily adopting a redactional, canonical, narrative, rhetorical method.

By Catherine Ludvik

It is a attention-grabbing depiction of the transformation of the Indian riverine goddess from the manuscript-carrying vina-player to the Buddhist weapon-wielding defender of the Dharma. Drawing on Sanskrit and chinese language textual assets, in addition to Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist paintings ancient representations, this ebook lines the conceptual and iconographic improvement of the riverine goddess of information Sarasvati from it slow after 1750 B.C.E. to the 7th century C.E. during the research of chinese language translations of now not extant Sanskrit types of the Buddhist Sutra of Golden gentle the writer sheds gentle on Sarasvati's interactions with different Indian goddess cults and their impression on each other.

By Michael R. Saso

Until eventually his dying in 1976 grasp Chuang, a descendant of 35 generations of Taoist clergymen, conducted his historic rituals for the advantage of a small band of believers in Taiwan. His relatives, who claimed to have come from Hua Shan, the Taoist mountain in western China, the observances of the Dragon-Tiger Mountain sect in southeastern China. even if there are various conflicting Taoist colleges, the antiquity and authenticity of grasp Chuang's traditions can't be doubted. Michael Saso, a Western disciple of grasp Chuang, recounts the teachings of Taoist grasp Chuang, together with Taoist historical past as grasp Chuang understood it, the function of Taoist monks in glossy chinese language society, and grasp Chuang's personal rituals of Taoist black magic, meditation, and barely mentioned exorcistic thunder magic.

By Paul Kriwaczek

A desirable trip via time and throughout Europe and relevant Asia, looking for the prophet Zarathustra (a.k.a. Zoroaster)—perhaps the best spiritual lawgiver of the traditional world—and his gigantic influence.In Persia greater than 3 thousand years in the past, Zarathustra said a unmarried common god, the conflict among stable and evil, the satan, heaven and hell, and an eventual finish to the world—foreshadowing the middle ideals of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. relocating from current to previous, Paul Kriwaczek examines the consequences of the prophet’s teachings at the spiri-tual and day-by-day lives of numerous peoples. starting within the yr 2000 with New Year’s festivities in Iran, he walks us again via Nietzsche’s nineteenth-century interpretation of Zarathustra to the Cathars of thirteenth-century France and the ninth-century Bulgars; from historical Rome to the time of Alexander the Great’s destruction of the Persian Empire; and, ultimately, to the time of Zarathustra himself. not just a charming go back and forth publication, looking for Zarathustra is additionally a revelation of the significance of the prophet, and a brilliantly conceived and lucid explication of the idea platforms that assisted in shaping the ecu Enlightenment, the center a while, the darkish a long time, and the start of the Christian period. it really is a charming examine of a little-explored topic.

By Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty

Karma could be the primary notion in Indian Philosophy, yet there's no finished learn of its quite a few meanings or philosophical implications. major American Indologists met on a number of events to debate their rules approximately Karma. the result's this beneficial thought-provoking quantity.

By Heirman, A. (ed.), Bumbacher, S.P. (ed.), Ann Heirman, Stephan Peter Bumbacher

This e-book unravels the various advanced elements that allowed or hampered the presence of (certain elements of) Buddhism within the areas to the north and the east of India, similar to Asia, China, Tibet, Mongolia, or Korea.

By S. J. Marshall

-- Stephen L. box, professor and chair, division of contemporary languages and literature, Trinity collage

By Morny Joy