What's Wrong with Sex? How to Drive Your Karma Consciousness Commodified. The Karma of Food. The Three Poisons, Institutionalized. Why We Love War. These are just some of the chapters in this brilliant new book from David R. Loy. In little time, Loy has become one of the Buddhist worldview's most powerful advocates, explaining like no one else its ability to transform the sociopolitical landscape of the modern world. In this, his most accessible work to date, he offers sharp and even shockingly clear presentations of oft-misunderstood Buddhist staples-the working of karma, the nature of self, the causes of trouble on both the individual and societal levels-and the real reasons behind our collective sense of ''never enough,'' whether it's time, money, sex, security even war. Loy's ''Buddhist Revolution'' is nothing less than a radical change in the ways we can approach our lives, our planet, the collective delusions that pervade our language, culture, and even our spirituality.

David R. Loy is, hands down, one of the most important thinkers writing today. His work is always sophisticated and trenchant - and Money, Sex, War, Karma is his most accessible and broadly appealing work to date. While offering decisively clear presentations of subtle and often-misunderstood Buddhist staples-the working of karma; the nature of the self and the causes of our troubles on an individual and societal scale-Loy also invites us to examine such topics as "Why We Love War" and the real reasons behind our sense of never having enough of the all the things we constantly strive after-money, sex, time, security and all the rest. Loy's "Buddhist Revolution" is nothing less than radical change to the way we approach our lives, the environment, and collective delusions that pervade our culture-even to Buddhism and spirituality itself. Bracing yet ultimately hopeful and empowering, Money, Sex, War, Karma is not to be missed.

If Buddhism is to remain relevant to the contemporary era, through providing effective solutions to the proliferating and protean discursive problems encountered by its present-day practitioners, it cannot continue to ignore the role of discourse in the formation of subjectivity. In the interest of problematizing such ignorance, this book explores the potential interface between Foucaultian discourse analysis and the development of an indigenous rationale for the practice of contemporary Western Buddhism, along with the growing significance of such a rationale for traditional Buddhism in an era dominated by disciplinary/bio-power. Through doing so, this book radically re-conceptualizes the role of Buddhism in the world today by linking Buddhist practice with acts of discursive transgression.

Classical Buddhism lacked an understanding of systemic injustice and its contribution to collective suffering. Despite the teaching of impermanence, classical Buddhist schools viewed social institutions as given and offered no path to social transformation. Today, Buddhists are shaped by multiple religious and secular traditions, including those stemming from the Hebrew prophets. The prophetic tradition offers a socially and religiously powerful concept—the concept of justice—that reconfigures the Buddhist dharma. In a time of unparalleled peril, Buddhists are challenged as never before to turn wisdom into strategic action to foster systemic social change. Compassion is not enough. Prophetic Wisdom shows how Engaged Buddhists can expand their understanding of the causes of collective suffering and develop nonviolent means for social transformation through a dialectic of love, power, and justice. It concludes by confronting the poison of racism in the American body politic.

This book features research papers that examine a host of contemporary issues in Thailand. Coverage includes culture, gender violence, tourism, human trafficking, environmental and ecological issues, sustainability and the sufficiency economy, the (mis)handling of elephants, and more. It features a sociological and anthropological perspective with a dash of communication for sustainable social change. The papers investigate the various phases of communication technology and its impact on cultural change in the country. They explore the use of social networks and privacy issues as well as ethical journalism in the contexts of Thai Buddhism, Thai culture, and other enabling environmental factors. The contributors focus on documentary research of both quantitative and qualitative data on Thai social change as a consequence of globalization and digital technology. They first provide a general overview of social media and communication in the country. Next, the authors go on to explore the specifics of digital communication. This includes a look at its impact on the various ways of Thai communication given politico-economic and religious influences.

"The oil boom and the resulting environmental battle." "An Entertainment on the Old Themes of Life, Women, Fate, Dreams, The Working Class, Secret Agents, Love and Death" Plus Oil, Money, War, Weather, Relationships, and Karma. Who needs science fiction for a fantastic plot when a global energy crisis looms? Why write a thriller when we're living in one?! Enter the world of an epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors.

A former Roman Catholic, Frank Bolger Kelly has long wondered why thinking humans as a whole in the 21st century have not yet been able to disenthrall themselves from the demonstrable falsehoods and sectarian nonsense of organized religion. A few years ago, Kelly decided to sit down with the "sacred" scriptures of several of the world's major religions, the alleged bedrocks of these various creeds, in a last-ditch effort to achieve holy inspiration. Instead, he became wholly disenchanted, and Scoffing at Scripture: A Commoner Reads the World's Holy Writ and Rejects Traditional Religion is the result. Far from representing that all-elusive "Word of God," creedal scripture the world over, it seems to Kelly, merely cloaks the tribal agendas and cultural designs of the world's priestly (and virtually allmale) elites. With the general reader in mind, the author has grouped together a series of compact discussions of religion and scripture for cross-cultural comparative reference. Kelly's intent is to facilitate critical analysis of the world's holy writ and, in particular, to encourage younger, skeptical readers of a secular mind to confront the doctrinal, scriptural, and ritual absurdities of those faiths into which they were born and continue to be indoctrinated. Frank Bolger Kelly grew up in an Irish Catholic family in the Bronx, New York, matriculated to a noted Jesuit college in New England, and subsequently did time at a prestigious non-sectarian institution of higher learning in the Midwest. It was during his enlightening time at the latter that Kelly first began seriously to question not only his own religious upbringing but the scriptural bases of all the world's major religions. Kelly was quickly convinced that the vast majority of "the faithful" the world over, commoners like himself, just might reconsider their religious roots and motivations in a new light if they actually bothered to immerse themselves for a time in their own "sacred scriptures," rather than merely fake familiarity with them. Actually to read scripture in all its antiquated, tendentious, sectarian absurdity, Kelly reasoned, is to take a first, giant step in renouncing irrational creeds of all kinds. Thus was born Scoffing at Scripture: A Commoner Reads the World's Holy Writ and Rejects Traditional Religion, a book from which the author hopes the open-minded reader will draw a secularly pure, spiritual sustenance.

Amid the world-shattering pain of loss, what helps? In the tradition of C.S. Lewis's A Grief Observed, Guy Newland offers this brave record of falling to pieces and then learning to make sense of his pain and grief within his spiritual tradition. Drawing inspiration from all corners of the Buddhist world--from Zen stories and the Dalai Lama, to Pema Chödrön and ancient Pali texts--this book reverberates with honesty, kindness, and deep humanity. Newland shows us the power of responding fully and authentically to the death of a loved one.

Contains material adapted from The Everything Buddhism Book, 2nd Edition.