Tibet S Terrifying Deities

This book is a study of the Tibetan protective deities, those gods worshipped by the Tibetans as protectors and guardians of Buddhism.

To the Western imagination, Tibet evokes exoticism, mysticism, and wonder: a fabled land removed from the grinding onslaught of modernity, spiritually endowed with all that the West has lost. Originally published in 1998, Prisoners of Shangri-La provided the first cultural history of the strange encounter between Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Donald Lopez reveals here fanciful misconceptions of Tibetan life and religion. He examines, among much else, the politics of the term “Lamaism,” a pejorative synonym for Tibetan Buddhism; the various theosophical, psychedelic, and New Age purposes served by the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead; and the unexpected history of the most famous of all Tibetan mantras, om mani padme hum. More than pop-culture anomalies, these versions of Tibet are often embedded in scholarly sources, constituting an odd union of the popular and the academic, of fancy and fact. Upon its original publication, Prisoners of Shangri-La sent shockwaves through the field of Tibetan studies—hailed as a timely, provocative, and courageous critique. Twenty years hence, the situation in Tibet has only grown more troubled and complex—with the unrest of 2008, the demolition of the dwellings of thousands of monks and nuns at Larung Gar in 2016, and the scores of self-immolations committed by Tibetans to protest the Dalai Lama’s exile. In his new preface to this anniversary edition, Lopez returns to the metaphors of prison and paradise to illuminate the state of Tibetan Buddhism—both in exile and in Tibet—as monks and nuns still seek to find a way home. Prisoners of Shangri-La remains a timely and vital inquiry into Western fantasies of Tibet.

Making Out in Vietnamese is a fun, accessible and thorough Vietnamese phrase book and guide to the Vietnamese language as it's really spoken. Anh dien cuong vi em! Chung ta gap lai sau duoc khong?--(I'm crazy about you! Can we meet again?) Answer this correctly in Vietnamese and you may be going on a hot date. Incorrectly, and you could be hurting someone's feelings or getting a slap! Vietnamese classes and textbooks tend to spend a lot of time rehearsing for the same fictitious scenarios but chances are while in Vietnam you will spend a lot more time trying to make new friends or start new romances--something you may not be prepared for. If you are a student, businessman or tourist traveling to Vietnam and would like to have an authentic and meaningful experience, the key is being able to speak like a local. This friendly and easy-to-use Vietnamese phrasebook makes this possible. Making Out in Vietnamese has been carefully designed to act as a guide to modern colloquial Vietnamese for use in everyday informal interactions--giving access to the sort of catchy Vietnamese expressions that aren't covered in traditional language materials. Each expression is written in Vietnamese next to the English, so that in the case of difficulties the book can be shown to the person the user is trying to communicate with. This Vietnamese phrasebook includes: A guide to pronouncing Vietnamese words correctly. Explanations of basic Vietnamese grammar, such as, personal pronouns and tones. A guide to male and female usage. Authentic Vietnamese script (Chu Nom) as well as simplified phonetic spellings for all phrases. Useful and interesting notes on Vietnamese language and culture. Lots of colorful, fun and useful expressions not covered in other phrasebooks. Titles in this unique series of bestselling phrase books include: Making Out in Chinese, Making Out in Indonesian, Making Out in Thai, Making Out in Korean, Making Out in Hindi, Making Out in Japanese, Making Out in Vietnamese, Making Out in Burmese, Making Out in Tagalog, Making Out in Hindi, Making Out in Arabic, Making Out in English, More Making Out in Korean, and More Making Out in Japanese.

This is a major anthropological study of contemporary Tibetan Buddhist monasticism and tantric ritual in the Ladakh region of North-West India and of the role of tantric ritual in the formation and maintenance of traditional forms of state structure and political consciousness in Tibet. Containing detailed descriptions and analyses of monastic ritual, the work builds up a picture of Tibetan tantric traditions as they interact with more localised understandings of bodily identity and territorial cosmology, to produce a substantial re-interpretation of the place of monks as ritual performers and peripheral householders in Ladakh. The work also examines the central and indispensable role of incarnate lamas, such as the Dalai Lama, in the religious life of Tibetan Buddhists.