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Subject Area: Buddhist Studies
MacGregor, Kirk R.2011 0-7734-1549-1 400 pages
The study contends that, due to the parallel religious issues respectively raised by the late classical transition to decentralized feudal rule in Japan and by the Black Death in Europe, Buddhist theological developments mirror in their internal logic the succession from late medieval Catholicism to Lutheranism to Calvinism.
Frost, J. William
2004 0-7734-6561-8 520 pages
This massive, two-volume work is an extensive survey of the interactions between organized religions and war from the Exodus to Gulf War II. The major emphases are on Judaism, Christianity and Islam, with additional chapters on Hinduism, Buddhism, and sections on Shinto, Quakerism, and others. It will attract scholars in a variety of disciplines: peace studies, religion, history, and political science.
Bao, Yuheng
2005 0-7734-6316-X 332 pages
OVERSIZE. 8½ x 11 format with 50 photo illustrations
This interdisciplinary study on the development of Buddhist art and architecture in China from the early period till the Qing Dynasty is in a 8½ x 11 format with 50 photo illustrations, the majority of which have never been shown or introduced to the Western world. This outstanding work will be an invaluable resource book particularly for those in the fields of Art History, Architecture and Asian Studies.
Griffiths, David B.
2004 0-7734-6514-6 418 pages
“Buddhism” is very complex: doctrine, schools, stories, symbols, cultures, deeds. One aim of this study is to elucidate this complexity and reflect on mainstream Theravaadin perspectives, beginning with an analysis of keywords, problems of translation, use of terms, and the dominance of English keywords. It goes on to examine methodological questions, comparative analysis, critical questions about rebirth, no-self, kamma, concluding with chapters on comparative ethics, and extensive indices and bibliography.
Ermanov, M. E.
2001 0-7734-3143-8 420 pages
Hunt III, William Walter
2008 0-7734-5081-5 216 pages
This work examines the relationship between religion and protest on the Japanese island of Okinawa by analyzing the intertwining of various religious beliefs, colonialism, and politics in the region.
Rudoy, V.
1999 0-7734-3257-4 416 pages
Presents a fundamental systematic investigation of the Buddhist post-canonical philosophy as presented in the famous treatise Encyclopaedia of Abhidharma. This treatise is known as a basic source for the study of religious and philosophic views of the Hinayana schools. Vasubandhu, the author of the treatise, was one of the most outstanding thinkers of the ancient and early medieval India. His treatise has been believed to be a model of the ‘universal system of meanings’ that endows the Buddhist religious praxis with sacred and symbolic significance. Application of special structural-hermeneneutic methods worked out by these Russian scholars allows them to analyze the post-canonical buddhist philosophy with exceptional clarity.
Rudy, John G.
2001 0-7734-7461-7 300 pages
This study demonstrates that Zen and Emersonian texts provide a mutual generative context for engaging the meditative dynamics of voidist spirituality. Combining methods of modern literary scholarship with the philosophical initiatives and the meditative practices of Zen Buddhism, the text crosses disciplines as well as cultures, offering a nonmonotheistic, nonpatheistic discursive ground upon which to study what Emerson calls "spiritual emptiness."
Vorenkamp, Dirck
2004 0-7734-6373-9 460 pages
Fa-Tsang (643-712) was an important early figure in the development of Hua-yen Buddhism and is counted the Third Patriarch and first great systematizer of the school. Hua-yen doctrines have affected many other East Asian traditions and his Commentary provides a look at how various concepts associated with the emerging Chinese vijnana/tathagata-garbha tradition were developing at a key point in the tradition’s history. In addition, while Fa-Tsang’s views of the mutual interpenetration and intercontainment of events have been covered in a variety of English language materials, his views on consciousness and its various aspects have not been widely addressed. Like the Awakening of Faith, his Commentary is primarily focused on the nature of consciousness and so provides an extensive look at his perspective on the topic. Those views, we might note, predate many of the commonly known aspects of his thought such as those represented in his “Essay on the Golden Lion”.
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the Awakening of Faith to the history of East Asian Buddhism. It has been esteemed by most of the tradition’s major schools and has accordingly had an enormous impact of the development of East Asian Buddhist thought. It is not surprising then that it has been a favorite topic for Buddhist exegetes and to date upwards of two hundred commentaries have been produced. Of all these works though, Fa-Tsang’s text has always been considered among the 2 or 3 definitive interpretations. Generations of Buddhists have consulted his work in their efforts to understand the Awakening of Faith and his interpretations have accordingly had a deep and lasting influence on the tradition.
This book presents us with, for the first time, a translation in English a key Chinese Buddhist’s interpretation of one of the most influential texts in the history of East Asian Buddhism. It not only sheds light on the development of Fa-Tsang’s thought and the Hua-Yen school, but also provides further information pertinent to the development of other schools such as T’ien-t’ai and Ch’an.
Chary, M. Srinivas
2018 1-4955-0630-4 300 pages
In this work Dr. Chary looks to the ways in which Buddhism has already affected the lives of many in the United States and elsewhere in the West, and what Buddhism now promises for many more people in the years to come. This book should be helpful to readers from a wide range of religions.
Capper, Daniel Stuart Jr.
2002 0-7734-6986-9 280 pages
This work asks and preliminarily answers the question, "Who do Americans practice Tibetan Buddhism?" Contrary to most previous scholarship on the guru-disciple relationship in the United States, this study finds that the mystical relationship with the spiritual teacher can actually respond in a healthy way to psychological dimensions of the practitioners' lives.
Métraux, Daniel A.
2010 0-7734-3758-4 160 pages
The Soka Gakkai is a massive Japan-based New Religious Movement based on the Buddhist teachings of the medieval Buddhist monk Nichiren. This work examines Soka Gakkai International chapters in Australia, Southeast Asia, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Quebec to determine why the movement has developed strong roots among people from widely divergent cultures.
Hirono, Tatsushi
2017 1-4955-0559-6 104 pages
This books consists of two series of studies conducted by the author on natural disaster relief efforts and the roll of the roll of religious leaders in the United States and Japan. One of the studies focuses on the disaster relief efforts by interviewing Japanese Buddhist monks in Fukashima.
Ingram, Paul O.
1987 0-88946-490-1 448 pages
A discussion of contemporary Buddhist-Christian dialogue between process theologians and Pure Land Buddhists, with an analysis of their transformation and theological structures in the "post-Christian" era of religious and secular pluralism.
Mulder Jr., Jack
2005 0-7734-5856-5 292 pages
Mysticism is often characterized by, among other things, the annihilation of the self and union with God. On a standard reading of Kierkegaard’s insistence upon the absolute distinction between Creator and creation would force him to reject anything like mystical union with God. For Kierkegaard, when we attempt to secure some meaning for our lives that transcends the limits of those lives themselves, we meet with utter failure because of our finitude and, ultimately, sinfulness. Thus, we must “die” to our human longing to secure this meaning on our own, and must receive it from God through grace.
Bocking, Brian
1995 0-7734-8981-9 512 pages
The great Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna's writings on emptiness (sunyata) have profoundly influenced Indian, Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism for nearly 2000 years. The central statement of his thought is found in his Middle Stanzas. The Middle Treatise (T. 1564) here translated in full into English for the first time, is Kumarajiva's Chinese version of Nagarjuna's Middle Stanzas with the commentary attributed to the monk 'Blue Eyes' (Pingala, Vimalaksa) that exists only in the Chinese Buddhist canon. The introductory chapters set the Treatise in context within the Sino-Japanese Buddhist tradition, introduce Madhyamika ideas found in the Middle Treatise, and provide a detailed commentary on the Treatise for the modern reader, discussing each chapter and clarifying the argument of the Treatise. The Translation of all 27 chapters of the Middle Treatise forms the heart of the work, while the extensive Notes to the translation contain more discussion and specialized information including many of the Chinese terms found in the Treatise. The authorship of the Middle Treatise is considered in an Appendix. This is a significant addition to the small but growing body of translated texts of Sino-Japanese Buddhism, a tradition that remains relatively under-represented in modern Buddhist studies.
Kumar, F. L.
1991 0-88946-063-9 562 pages
Comprehensively treats the many alternate systems to Brahman consciousness: Jainism, Buddhism, Zen Charvakas, Nyaya, Vaisesika, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta. Takes note of the early chants, mantras, and prayers of the early thinkers.
Milavec, Aaron
1983 0-88946-010-8 87 pages
Covers the spiritual pilgrimage to the holy sites of six major world religions undertaken by the Youth Seminar on World Religions, an event during which 150 young people and professors from 31 nations traveled around the world together to view the historical settings of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.
Rudy, John G.
2004 0-7734-6452-2 324 pages
Critical discourse on Romanticism is grounded in an idiom of subject and object that avoids the literature’s drive to establish an alternative to the self-other dualism at the base of Western culture in general. This study offers an alternative way of reading Romantic texts, one predicated not on the assumption of a self to be affirmed, negated, or transcended but on the Zen Buddhist understanding that “The true Self is no-self” and that “Self-nature is no-nature”. The functional ethos of much Romantic writing, like the meditative dynamics of Zen Buddhist practice, entails the retrieval of a unitive, originary ground prior to all notions of selfhood. Accessing this ground follows patterns of meditative emptying by which individuals relinquish the compulsion either to assert independence through radical emphases on difference or to establish unity through variant modes of bridged togetherness. The result is neither subjective nor objective. It is, rather, an opening process that reveals how each thing in nature is both an autonomous unit of codependent activity and a holistic manifestation of ultimate reality. Reading selected British Romantic poems in the mode of self-emptying offered by Zen Buddhist meditative practice illuminates an alternative spiritual potential in Western literary engagement, moving individuals from a realm of understanding expressed in terms of a systematic grasping for intellectual and emotional straws to a process of awakening based in patterns of continual opening upon the grounds of a shared preconceptual nature.
Métraux, Daniel A.
1997 0-7734-8472-8 104 pages
Quebec's Quiet Revolution of the 1960s and the decline of the Catholic church had a profound effect on the spiritual life of the citizenry. Quebec became a largely secular society, but some turned to new religions. By the late 1990s, well over a thousand Quebeckers had joined the Soka Gakkai, a Japanese-based Buddhist organization with ten million followers worldwide. This study analyzes why an Asian Buddhist group would attract a respectable and devoted following in once-Catholic Quebec while other Buddhist movements have always failed in Quebec and the rest of Canada. Metraux presents a history of Soka Gakkai movement in both Japan and Canada, as well as interviews and testimonies from a large number of Quebec Soka Gakkai leaders and members.
Flores, Ralph
1996 0-7734-8792-1 264 pages
This study moves against the grain of both traditional allegories and contemporary critical theory. The first section proposes hypotheses about existing theoretical work in the field. It shows how Pali Buddhist texts context 'metaphysics' many centuries before Nietzsche and Derrida, providing a distinct outlook on the problem of figurative language. The second section examines four texts, ranging from Plato to Dante, to indicate the difficult assumptions of 'life-giving' allegory. The third section deals with texts from Spenser onward that illustrate ghost-effects in the displacement of medieval allegory. The various chapters examine differing yet related inflections: economics in Plato, theatricality in the Buddha's texts, failing communication in Augustine, 'unreading' in the Roman de la Rose, marginality in Dante, doubtful signatures in Spenser, decapitation in Hawthorne, blindness in Baudelaire. The study is culturally far-reaching, and takes issue with the relatively truncated theories of allegory in our time. By scrutinizing other texts than the usual, it discloses new possibilities for investigation.
Augustine, Jonathan Morris
2012 0-7734-2930-1 148 pages
Nishitani Keiji was an influential member of the 20th century Japanese philosophical scene known as the Kyoto School. His work fuses existentialism, notably that of Martin Heidegger, with Eastern influences such as Confucianism, various strands of Buddhist thinking, and even Christianity into a melting pot of original ideas. There are deep discussions of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion which showcase Keiji’s broad range of interests.
Hirono, Tatsushi
2012 0-7734-2603-5 236 pages
The purpose of this study is to examine American and Japanese clergy’s perception of their role in the prevention of suicide. The research questions are: (1) How do clergy in the US and Japan perceive suicide?; (2) Do they see suicide differently?; and (3) How do they envision the role of suicide prevention? The hypotheses are: (A) Christian clergy think that suicide is an unacceptable “sin;” (B) Buddhist clergy are more accepting of suicide than Christian clergy; and (C) There are role differences related to suicide prevention in the Japanese and American religious communities; and (D) American and Japanese religious leaders have a different view of their obligations related to suicide prevention. The investigator sent 400 anonymous mail surveys respectively to New York and Tokyo. The surveys asked about the clergy’s personal beliefs and the Church’s role in suicide prevention. The investigator analyzed the responses using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The major findings are that many American Christian clergy consider suicide to be a sin; but that “God’s love is available for people who committed suicide.” Many Japanese Buddhist clergy think how one dies is not the most important issue.
Chávez-Segura, Alejandro
2012 0-7734-1608-0 300 pages
This monograph examines the theological paradigms within Buddhism, a religion that interacts with the world without narratives of genesis and eschatology. This book argues that there is a need to study and understand this interdependent relation between the religious and the secular political world.
Cheung, Neky Tak-Ching
2008 0-7734-4962-0 400 pages
Based on historical, textual and field studies, this work examines the paradoxical nature of jiezhu, which simultaneously upholds and challenges tradition through religious and social empowerment. This book contains twelve color photographs and twenty-eight black and white photographs.
Chong, Key Ray
1997 0-7734-8436-1 168 pages
This groundbreaking work is the first full-length study in English of Won Buddhism, now regarded as one of the major six religions in South Korea.