Many people in the United States are poor, lead marginal lives, and need jobs as well as basic services such as education, medical care, and housing. Multitudes in other parts of the world, in addition to being poor, are jailed, tortured, and killed for being members of the wrong ethnic group or expressing political opinions. Those who argue for empowerment claim it is a magic bullet. It can liberate the oppressed, largely through self-organization, self-motivation, self-invention, and even self-clarity. William M. Epstein sees contemporary empowerment practice in the United States as a civic church of national values, one better in performing its ceremonial role than god-based houses of worship. By itself, empowerment is not worth the effort of commentary, since it achieves none of its goals and has not even generated a respectable critical literature. But Epstein argues that empowerment practice and American social welfare both embody prescriptive cultural preferences. Like art and music, empowerment opens windows into deeper social meaning. The social sciences have carved out roles for themselves by looking for simple remedies, ones that are inexpensive and compatible with contemporary social arrangements. Epstein shows that those in social work practices have not only deluded themselves into thinking that these services have real instrumental value, but really operate at cross-purposes. This accessible work will attract critical attention among these professional groups. It bases its carefully-documented insights upon informed sociological and anthropological theory.

Replies to queries from a disciple on the teaching of Mahāmudrā and its initiations; an explanation instruction according to the Rñiṅ-ma-pa tradition.

Buddhist teachings provide numerous methods for bringing greater meaning and happiness into our lives and into our relationships with others. In A Complete Guide to the Buddhist Path, Khenchen Konchog Gyaltshen Rinpoche reveals these methods in direct, vibrant, down-to-earth language. At the core of this work lies The Jewel Treasury of Advice, a text composed by Drikung Bhande Dharmaradza (1704–1754), the reincarnation of Drikung Dharmakirti. Khenchen Rinpoche interprets these ancient teachings with compassion, humor, and a keen awareness for their relevance in contemporary Western life. Those who sincerely want to study and practice the Buddha's teachings will find this an indispensable guide.

Uncover the nature of the mind with this ground-level, practice-oriented presentation of Tibetan Buddhism. A personal and accessible guide to establishing progress on the path. The book begins with the awakening of students' interest in spirituality and the initial encounter with Tibetan Buddhism, then leads us through all the steps necessary for successful practice in the West. Included is succinct counsel on finding an appropriate teacher, receiving empowerments, becoming active in a center, and launching and sustaining a Vajrayana practice. Special emphasis is placed on the potential pitfalls, and the marvelous benefits, of the guru-disciple relationship.

In the pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican world, histories and collections of ritual knowledge were often presented in the form of painted and folded books now known as codices, and the knowledge itself was encoded into pictographs. Eight codices have survived from the Mixtec peoples of ancient Oaxaca, Mexico; a part of one of them, the Codex Zouche-Nuttall, is the subject of this book. As a group, the Mixtec codices contain the longest detailed histories and royal genealogies known for any indigenous people in the western hemisphere. The Codex Zouche-Nuttall offers a unique window into how the Mixtecs themselves viewed their social and political cosmos without the bias of western European interpretation. At the same time, however, the complex calendrical information recorded in the Zouche-Nuttall has made it resistant to historical, chronological analysis, thereby rendering its narrative obscure. In this pathfinding work, Robert Lloyd Williams presents a methodology for reading the Codex Zouche-Nuttall that unlocks its essentially linear historical chronology. Recognizing that the codex is a combination of history in the European sense and the timelessness of myth in the Native American sense, he brings to vivid life the history of Lord Eight Wind of Suchixtlan (AD 935–1027), a ruler with the attributes of both man and deity, as well as other heroic Oaxacan figures. Williams also provides context for the history of Lord Eight Wind through essays dealing with Mixtec ceremonial rites and social structure, drawn from information in five surviving Mixtec codices.

In the second half of the twentieth century, Reiki went from an obscure therapy practiced by a few thousand Japanese and Japanese Americans to a global phenomenon. By the early twenty-first century, people in nearly every corner of the world have undergone the initiations that authorize them to channel a cosmic energy—known as Reiki—to heal body, mind, and spirit. They lay hands on themselves and others, use secret symbols and incantations to send Reiki to distant recipients, and strive to follow five precepts to cultivate their spiritual growth. Reiki’s international rise and development is due to the work of Hawayo Takata (1900–1980), a Hawai‘i-born Japanese American woman who brought Reiki out of Japan and adapted it for thousands of students in Hawai‘i and North America, shaping interconnections across the North Pacific region as well as cultural transformations over the transwar period spanning World War II. Alternate Currents: Reiki’s Circulation in the Twentieth-Century North Pacific analyzes how, from her training in Japan in the mid-1930s to her death in Iowa in 1980, Takata built a vast trans-Pacific network that connected Japanese American laborers on plantations in Hawai‘i to social elites in Tokyo, Hollywood, and New York; middle-class housewives in American suburbs; and off-the-grid tree planters in the mountains of British Columbia. Using recently uncovered archival materials and original oral histories, Justin B. Stein examines how these relationships between healer and patient, master and disciple, became deeply infused with values of their time and place and how they interplayed with Reiki’s circulation, performance, and meanings along with broader cultural shifts in the twentieth-century North Pacific. Highly readable and informative, each chapter is structured around a period in the life of Takata, the charismatic, rags-to-riches architect of the network in which Reiki spread for decades. Alternate Currents explores Reiki as an exemplary transnational spiritual therapy, demonstrating how lived practices transcend artificial distinctions between religion and medicine, and circulate in global systems while maintaining strong connections with the practices’ homeland.

In his early twenties, the Tibetan monk Sangyé Gyaltsen (1452–1507) left his monastery to become a wandering tantric yogin. As he moved from place to place, seeking enlightenment beyond the bounds of monasticism, his behavior became increasingly erratic. While some were shocked or even angered by his actions, others were drawn to him. Tsangnyön’s followers described his transgressive behaviors as enlightened action, rooted in authoritative Buddhist scripture. Using biographical sources, Stefan Larsson explores Sangyé Gyaltsen’s transformation into the charismatic ‘Madman of Tsang,’ Tsangnyön Heruka. Best known today as the author of the Life of Milarepa, Tsangnyön Heruka was one of the most influential mad yogins of Tibet. His biography brings its reader face-to-face with an unexpected aspect of Buddhist practice that flourished in fifteenth-century Tibet.

The acclaimed English translation of this masterpiece of world literature - prepared with the participation of the Dalai Lama One of the greatest works created by any culture and one of the most influential of all Tibetan Buddhist texts in the West, The Tibetan Book of the Dead has had a number of distinguished translations, but strangely all of these have been partial abridgements. Now the entire text has not only been made available in English but in a translation of quite remarkable clarity and beauty. A comprehensive guide to living and dying, The Tibetan Book of the Dead contains exquisitely written guidance and practices related to transforming our experience in daily life, on the processes of dying and the after-death state, and on how to help those who are dying. As originally intended this is as much a work for the living, as it is for those who wish to think beyond a mere conventional lifetime to a vastly greater and grander cycle. 'Extraordinary ... this work will be a source of inspiration and support to many' His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The proceedings of the seminars of the International Association for Tibetan Studies (IATS) have developed into the most representative world-wide cross-section of Tibetan Studies. They are an indispensable reference-work for anyone interested in Tibet and capture the cutting edge of Tibet-related research. This volume is the second of three volumes of general proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the IATS. It presents a careful selection of scholarly and academic articles on Tibetan Buddhist and Bon religious culture, including a sizeable section of anthropological contributions. The complete series covers ten volumes. The other seven volumes are the outcome of expert panels. Of special interest to readers of this book are the edited volumes by Katia Buffetrille & Hildegard Diemberger (anthropology: territory and identity), Helmut Eimer & David Germano (Buddhist canon), Toni Huber (anthropology: Amdo cultural revival), Christiaan Klieger (anthropology: presentation of self & identity), and Deborah Klimburg-Salter and Eva Allinger (art history).

Windhorse Warrior offers an inside look at the struggles and aspirations of the Tibetan people during the 1950s. It is a tale that weaves together the politics of occupation and resistance, an other-worldly romance between a Chinese communist and an educated Tibetan woman, and the soaring vision of the Tibetan spiritual heart. Chuang Wei Ming, a young zealot from Shanghai, arrives in Lithang—on the eastern Tibetan plateau—with a mission to prepare the people for Maoism but soon outgrows its limiting worldview. Chuang falls in love with the beautiful and intelligent Dechen, who introduces him to the richness of Tibetan Buddhism. Palden Rinpoche, Dechen’s spiritual teacher, includes Chuang in their plan for a general spiritual awakening based on the Legend of King Gesar of Ling. Together, they pursue a pure communism infused with Buddhist teachings to create an ‘enlightened society’. This is a story that extends beyond the decade in which it is set. Its message is true today in the global context of oppression and disparity, fake news, and injustice. Those who believe in a just and beautiful world will find themselves longing for an ‘enlightened society’ filled with spiritually awakened women and men, free to pursue their true potential and eager to enrich the lives of others.