The Forerunner Factor

Two Andre Norton novels in her Forerunner series featuring young alien/human hybrid Simsa, collected for the first time in one volume. A heroic young woman seeks her origins as she comes of age on worlds of peril and alien mystery. Forerunner: On the ancient planet Kuxortal, young Simsa grows up among the ancient ruins of a fallen galactic civilization¾the Forerunners. But Simsa has always been different, with iridescent blue-black skin and a telepathic bond with her bat-like zorsal. When her mentor dies, her future looks bleak¾until Thom, a star ranger, arrives and leads Simsa on a new path that takes both through danger to the ultimate revelation, which will change her life, and perhaps galactic civilization itself, forever. Forerunner: The Second Venture: Simsa has been captured by starfaring humans intent on discovering the secrets of the Forerunners. With the aid of her pet zorsal, Simsa escapes her captors and crash lands on another world touched by ancient Forerunner civilization. Now Simsa must battle the spirit within her that seeks to transform her into something utterly inhuman. But the ancient Forerunners, however scientifically advanced, have not reckoned with the courage of this young woman who is determined to keep her freedom and write her own destiny among the stars. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Scholars have long been intrigued by the Buddha's defining action (karma) as intention. This book explores systematically how intention, agency, and moral psychology were interpreted in all branches of early Theravada thought, paying special attention to the thought of the 5th-century commentator Buddhaghosa.

This volume offers a complete translation of the Samyutta Nikaya, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, the third of the four great collections in the Sutta Pitaka of the Pali Canon. The Samyutta Nikaya consists of fifty-six chapters, each governed by a unifying theme that binds together the Buddha's suttas or discourses. The chapters are organized into five major parts. The first, The Book with Verses, is a compilation of suttas composed largely in verse. This book ranks as one of the most inspiring compilations in the Buddhist canon, showing the Buddha in his full grandeur as the peerless "teacher of gods and humans." The other four books deal in depth with the philosophical principles and meditative structures of early Buddhism. They combine into orderly chapters all the important short discourses of the Buddha on such major topics as dependent origination, the five aggregates, the six sense bases, the seven factors of enlightenment, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the Four Noble Truths. Among the four large Nikayas belonging to the Pali Canon, the Samyutta Nikaya serves as the repository for the many shorter suttas of the Buddha where he discloses his radical insights into the nature of reality and his unique path to spiritual emancipation. This collection, it seems, was directed mainly at those disciples who were capable of grasping the deepest dimensions of wisdom and of clarifying them for others, and also provided guidance to meditators intent on consummating their efforts with the direct realization of the ultimate truth. The present work begins with an insightful general introduction to the Samyutta Nikaya as a whole. Each of the five parts is also provided with its own introduction, intended to guide the reader through this vast, ocean-like collection of suttas. To further assist the reader, the translator has provided an extensive body of notes clarifying various problems concerning both the language and the mean

As relations between the United States and China move into a period of intense activity and sensitivity, this timely book addresses the impact of domestic factors in both countries on their post-Cold War/post-Tiananmen relations. The contributors examine the issue from a number of distinct perspectives: the increased impact of domestic factors in both countries due to changing strategic circumstances; the politics of China policy in the United States, with emphasis on the role of interest groups vis-a-vis Congress, the media, and other domestic institutions; the importance of domestic factors in U.S.-China economic conflicts; the combined impact of domestic factors in both China and the United States on the most important conflict of interest in U.S.-China relations -- the Taiwan issue.

This book, first published in 1923, examines the states of Britain’s rail network at the cusp of great change. The Railways Act of 1921 placed public service on behalf of the community as the raison d’etre of a railway company’s existence – rather than the private gain of shareholders.