Your search for: tibetan AND buddhist AND monasticism

"A rich and fascinating study of Tibetan monastic life, from an author who is not only a leading scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, but who spent many years as a Buddhist monk."--Donald Lopez, author of "Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West

"Georges Dreyfus, extraordinary person and ...

"A rich and fascinating study of Tibetan monastic life, from an author who is not only a leading scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, but who spent many years as a Buddhist monk."--Donald Lopez, author of "Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West

"Georges Dreyfus, extraordinary person and writer, gives us crucial insights into the structure and practices of higher Tibetan education as well as his own fascinating journey leading to his becoming the first Westerner to achieve the highest rank in Tibetan education. This book both peals away myths and reveals the true depths of Tibetan techniques to train the mind."--Jeffrey Hopkins, author of "Emptiness in the Mind-Only School of Buddhism

"A remarkable tour de force. Georges Dreyfus merges personal memoir and outstanding scholarship to draw us into the intellectual life of the Tibetan monastic college, and in so doing he transforms forever our understanding of education and the cultivation of reason in traditional and pre-modern societies.If you read no other book on Tibetan Buddhism, immerse yourself in this one and applaud."--Matthew T. Kapstein, author of "The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism

"An immensely engaging work that contributes much to our understanding of the social-religious culture of Tibetan village life at the local level, providing a rich and deeply personal account of the ebb and flow of life and death, of communal harmony and discord, of personal conflicts and social ...

"An immensely engaging work that contributes much to our understanding of the social-religious culture of Tibetan village life at the local level, providing a rich and deeply personal account of the ebb and flow of life and death, of communal harmony and discord, of personal conflicts and social resolutions. The author shows that the Himalayan enclaves of Nubri and Kutang are genuinely human communities with their own complications and contradictions."--Brian J. Cuevas, author of "The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead

"An immensely readable and genuinely moving account of Tibetan lives and religion. Childs provides mutually illuminating narratives of the present and past that reveal an intimate portrayal of a Tibetan community in the Nepalese highlands."--David Germano, University of Virginia

"A splendid book that displays a remarkable ability to combine a critical understanding of the difficulties of Tibetan life with a great sensitivity to its humane atmosphere and its culturalcomplexities. This rich anthropological study is also a good read that conveys valuable insights through an entertaining and at times moving narrative. In short, a must read for all those who love Tibetans and their culture, as well as a most welcome addition to the developing field of Tibetan anthropology."--Georges Dreyfus, Professor of Religion, Williams College, author of "The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is one of the texts that, according to legend, Padma-Sambhava was compelled to hide during his visit to Tibet in the late 8th century. The guru hid his books in stones, lakes, and pillars because the Tibetans of that day and age were somehow unprepared for their ...

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is one of the texts that, according to legend, Padma-Sambhava was compelled to hide during his visit to Tibet in the late 8th century. The guru hid his books in stones, lakes, and pillars because the Tibetans of that day and age were somehow unprepared for their teachings. Now, in the form of the ever-popular Tibetan Book of the Dead, these teachings are constantly being discovered and rediscovered by Western readers of many different backgrounds--a phenomenon which began in 1927 with Oxford's first edition of Dr. Evans-Wentz's landmark volume. While it is traditionally used as a mortuary text, to be read or recited in the presence of a dead or dying person, this book--which relates the whole experience of death and rebirth in three intermediate states of being--was originally understood as a guide not only for the dead but also for the living. As a contribution to the science of death and dying--not to mention the belief in life after death, or the belief in rebirth--The Tibetan Book of the Dead is unique among the sacred texts of the world, for its socio-cultural influence in this regard is without comparison. This fourth edition features a new foreword, afterword, and suggested further reading list by Donald S. Lopez, author of Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Lopez traces the whole history of the late Evans-Wentz's three earlier editions of this book, fully considering the work of contributors to previous editions (C. G. Jung among them), the sections that were added by Evans-Wentz along the way, the questions surrounding the book's translation, and finally the volume's profound importance in engendering both popular and academic interest in the religion and culture of Tibet. Another key theme that Lopez addresses is the changing nature of this book's audience--from the prewar theosophists to the beat poets to the hippies to contemporary exponents of the hospice movement--and what these audiences have found (or sought) in its very old pages.