Dharma Lion

With the sweep of an epic novel, Michael Schumacher tells the story of Allen Ginsberg and his times, with fascinating portraits of Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs, among others, along with many rarely seen photographs.

Stiles hopes to correct some popular misreadings of the nineteenth-century writers and provide a new approach to reading the twentieth-century authors by juxtaposing them alongside their predecessors."--BOOK JACKET.

This book is an anthology of passages gathered from the leading monks and teachers of the Pure Land, or Shin, school of Buddhist teaching. Extending from the foundational texts and first interpreters in the 4th century, to Rennyo in the 15th century, Professor Bloom’s selections trace the development of Shin Buddhist teaching from monastic visualization practices to the widely popular path to salvation through faith in, and recitation of, the name of Amida Buddha. The collection features a foreword by Kenneth K. Tanaka and an insightful introduction by renowned scholar and editor, Alfred Bloom, whose selected passages have been arranged topically for easy reference on issues of Pure Land teaching. The key interpreters featured are the Seven Great Teachers from India, China, and Japan (Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu; T’an-luan, Tao-ch’o, Shan-tao; Genshin, Honen), selected as doctrinal authorities by Shinran (1173-1263), the founder of the Japanese Pure Land sect.

Lion images are everywhere. In literature, in religion, in statues, emblems and heraldry. Symbols of them are found in all larger European cities -- particularly London. Many are also in Vancouver, British Columbia. A lion image is visually stimulating and should become part of our life.

Experimental poetry responded to historical change in the decades after World War II, with an attitude of such casual and reckless originality that its insights have often been overlooked. However, as Benjamin Lee argues, to ignore the scenes of self and the historical occasions captured by experimental poets during the 1950s and 1960s is to overlook a rich and instructive resource for our own complicated transition into the twenty-first century. Frank O'Hara and fellow experimental poets like Amiri Baraka, Diane di Prima, and Allen Ginsberg offer us a set of perceptive responses to Cold War culture, lyric meditations on consequential changes in U.S. social life and politics, including the decline of the Old Left, the rise of white-collar workers, and the emergence of vernacular practices like hipsterism and camp. At the same time, they offer us opportunities to anatomize our own desire for historical significance and belonging, a desire we may well see reflected and reconfigured in the work of these poets.

The Lion's Roar of Queen Srimala, or Sri-mala-sutra, became the Mahayana scripture preeminent for teaching that all sentient beings have the potentiality of Buddhahood. It was an inspiration for both the Lankavatara-sutra and the Chinese classic Awakening of Faith. The translators present evidence that it was composed in the Andhra region of South India in the third century A.D. Thereafter it had remarkable success in China, and through Korea entered into the beginnings of Buddhism in Japan, where it has been important up to the present time. This, the first complete rendering of the scripture into a western language, utilizes all the known Sanskrit fragments, the Tibetan, the two Chinese versions and the Japanese renditions, Chinese and japanese commentaries, and various studies in japanese. Contents Foreword, Preface, Translator's Note, Introduction, I. Sri-Mala as a Text, II. Classification of Persons, III. Doctrine of Sri-Mala, Prologue, 1. Eliminating all Doubts, 2. Deciding the Cause, 3. Clarifying the Final Meaning, 4. Entering the one vehicle path, Epilogue, Appendix I. The Chinese Section Titles of Sri-Mala and Appendix II. Works Cited in Chi-tsang's Commentary, Glossary, Bibliography, Index.

Anagarika Dharmapala (1864–1933) was a leading Sinhalese Buddhist reformer and national activist who ranks high among the makers of modern Buddhism. The Lion’s Roar is one of the first detailed accounts of Anagarika Dharmapala’s life and the pioneering role he played in the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism at a time when resistance to colonial rule was mainly confined to the elite. The book explores his lifelong struggle for re-establishing Buddhist management of their own sacred places under Hindu control, particularly the Mahabodhi site in Bihar, India. Dharmapala’s association with the Bengali intelligensia, the ‘bhadralok’, and close interactions with Gandhi and Nehru in India, where he spent a greater part of his life, form an interesting part of the narration. Using a rich variety of primary sources, most importantly, Dharmapala’s diaries, the book situates his life within the socio-political and cultural ethos of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and chronicles the zealous efforts of a Buddhist crusader and monk who wished to reform the religion in his native land and propagate it in the Western world.

This book is based on two historic seminars of the 1970s, in which Chögyam Trungpa introduced the tantric teachings of Tibetan Buddhism to his Western students for the first time. Each seminar bore the title "The Nine Yanas." Yana, a Sanskrit word meaning "vehicle," refers to a body of doctrine and practical instruction that enables students to advance spiritually on the path of Buddha-dharma. Nine vehicles, arranged in successive levels, make up the whole path of Buddhist practice. Teaching all nine means giving a total picture of the spiritual journey. The author's nontheoretical, experiential approach opens up a world of fundamental psychological insights and subtleties. He speaks directly to a contemporary Western audience, using earthly analogies that place the ancient teachings in the midst of ordinary life.