In Song-period China (960–1279 CE), masters in the Chan (Japanese Zen) school of Buddhism were presented as sources of religious authority on par with the Buddha, an almost unthinkably lofty status before the rise of Chan. This claim carried great rhetorical power, facilitating Chan’s appeal to Buddhist monastics and powerful patrons alike. But it also raised a challenging question for Chan Buddhists, who insisted that buddhahood properly transcends all worldly marks: By what signs could one recognize a Chan master as a buddha? Discerning Buddhas argues that Chan Buddhists wove together tropes of sovereignty, hospitality, and martial heroism drawn from both Buddhist tradition and China’s cultural heritage to develop a distinctive vision of what it meant for a Chan master to be a buddha in Song-period China. Kevin Buckelew analyzes the ways Chan Buddhists deployed such tropes in ritual, literature, and visual culture in order to stage the comparison of Chan mastery with buddhahood. He examines how they used the concept of buddhahood to work through questions about the ideal Chan master’s authority, agency, and masculinity, in the process rendering buddhahood in terms highly legible to elite Chinese society. Chan Buddhists, Buckelew shows, developed their own “signature” of buddhahood, according to which enlightened Chan masters who truly deserved comparison to the Buddha were supposed to be distinguished from everyone else. By exploring the resulting Chan culture of discernment, which raised fundamental questions about Buddhist authority at a pivotal inflection point in Chinese history, this book offers fresh insight into the place of Buddhism in Chinese society.

Lam rim Chen mo (roughly, "the great book on stages of the path to enlightenment") is the abbreviated title of a massive encyclopaedic manual written by Tson-kha-pa, the founder of the gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism. 'Calming the mind and Discerning the Real' marks the first appearance in English of the two most important segments of this work.

"The Buddha of this era and the Buddhas of past eras have all taught only two kinds of truths, and nothing more than these. ‘I have taught the Dhamma that I myself have directly penetrated. All the Dhamma I taught between the day I became enlightened and the day I took final Nibbāna – all the Dhamma I have taught are true. There is nothing I have taught which is untrue.’ ‘I have not taught a Dhamma which you cannot practise. Sañjaya Belatthiputta replied, ‘All the wise will go to the Buddha. The fools will come to me. Do not worry.’ A person can poison others, but the Dhamma will never poison anyone. Depend on the Dhamma, then, and not on the person. Mentality does not originate in the brain. In fact, there is not the slightest trace of mentality in the brain."

Stages of the Buddha's Teachings is an extraordinary and systematized representation of the complete path to enlightenment. From the acclaimed Library of Tibetan Classics. The “stages of the teachings” or tenrim genre of Tibetan spiritual writing expounds the Mahayana teachings as a graded series of topics, from the practices required at the start of the bodhisattva’s career to the final perfect awakening of buddhahood. The three texts in the present volume all exerted seminal influence in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The first text, The Blue Compendium, presents the instructions of the Kadam teacher Potowa (1031–1106) as recorded by his student Dölpa (1059–1131). This text is followed by Gampopa’s (1079–1153) revered Ornament of Precious Liberation, which remains the most authoritative text on the path to enlightenment within the Kagyü school. The final text is Clarifying the Sage’s Intent, a masterwork by the preeiment sage of the Sakya tradition, Sakya Pandita (1182–1251).

A masterful translation of one of the most influential Buddhist sutras—the Avatamsaka Sutra—by one of the greatest translators of Buddhist texts of our time Known in Chinese as Hua-yen and in Japanese as Kegon-kyo, the Avatamsaka Sutra, or Flower Ornament Scripture, is held in the highest regard and studied by Buddhists of all traditions. Through its structure and symbolism, as well as through its concisely stated principles, it conveys a vast range of Buddhist teachings. This one-volume edition contains Thomas Cleary’s definitive translation of all thirty-nine books of the sutra, along with an introduction, a glossary, and Cleary’s translation of Li Tongxuan’s seventh-century guide to the final book, the Gandavyuha, “Entry into the Realm of Reality.”

The present volume selcts twenty-four of Prof. Wayman`s published research papers around the topic of Buddhist Insight, and includes only strong, well developed papers consistent with the topic. Students of Buddhism and general Indian religion will find here a rich offering of genuine research with the best of sources and Wayman`s own thoughtful presentations and original organization of the information. The papers begin with Buddha as Savior among the latest and end with the earliest in this volume, Twenty one Praises of Tara.The Hindu and Buddhist Studies illustrate Wayman`s comparative approach by showing both sides in their strong independence, and sensitively revealing their relation.

A richly complex study of the Yogacara tradition of Buddhism, divided into five parts: the first on Buddhism and phenomenology, the second on the four basic models of Indian Buddhist thought, the third on karma, meditation and epistemology, the fourth on the Trimsika and its translations, and finally the fifth on the Ch'eng Wei-shih Lun and Yogacara in China.

Efforts to construct a Christian theology of religions have inevitably stumbled on the Christian scandal of particularity—the historical Jesus of Nazareth. What, however, if we began by focusing on the universal presence and activity of God in the world as symbolized by the Holy Spirit? Yong develops just such a pneumatological approach to religions, drawing, by way of resource, on the Pentecostal-charismatic experience of the Spirit. This book thus invites Pentecostals, charismatics, and other Christians to conceive of how a pneumatological approach to religions can invigorate the wider ecumenical conversation. At the same time, it also brings recent Pentecostal-charismatic scholarship into dialogue with a broader audience, including those interested in philosophical theology, world religions, global spiritualities, and comparative religion and theology.

A book not only for every follower of the Buddha around the world but also for every person who wants to understand the Buddha. This book is a study with a heart but one where reason is allowed to be free. In any study of the historical Buddha there are two major obstacles to confront. Firstly, there are the systematic prejudices that developed against him through the centuries in his own country. Secondly, some of the fantastic myths associated with him can give pause to a modern man of science. As this book shows, however, these hurdles can be readily surmounted. This is done by responding to the Buddha's famous exhortation to "come and see" Rather than accept the Buddha blindly, the book invites readers to simply open their hearts and minds enough to examine him in a fair manner. Though the author uses the Tipitaka as his primary authority, he does not tie himself to any particular tradition. The Buddha's universal teaching came out of the Indian subcontinent's agrarian culture. He was firmly rooted in this world and not in any heavenly realms. The book takes the reader on a journey into the life and the teachings of this son of Earth-an extraordinary human being who offered his fellow humans a timeless road map to a happy life. The book also raises questions that will hopefully help to foster healthy dialogue, in the true spirit in which the Buddha wanted others to look at and follow his teaching.