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New PDF release: Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities

By Steven Collins

ISBN-10: 0521570549

ISBN-13: 9780521570541

This publication provides a brand new resolution to the query: what's nirvana? half One distinguishes among systematic and narrative notion within the Pali texts of Theravada Buddhism, taking a look at where of nirvana in either. half explores different Buddhist utopias and relates Buddhist utopianism to reviews of ecu and American utopian writing. Steven Collins discusses those matters in terms of textuality, international heritage, and beliefs in premodern civilizations, aiming to give a contribution to a brand new imaginative and prescient of Buddhist background that integrates the interior and the skin of texts.

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Extra info for Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities

Example text

So our practice is to try to go from doggy mind to something more like lion mind, in which there is a deep steadiness. In the Thai tradition, they use the metaphor of different kinds of houses, starting with twig huts, then bamboo, moving on to stones or brick. When conditions are difficult—a storm is raging—you have that solid house to go to for protection. When you’re just starting, before you’ve developed any calm, it’s as if you’re homeless. You have no shelter at all. A number of beginning students ask where in the body they should follow the breath.

Anapanasati accomplishes some of the same things—it is a kind of Buddhist science of breath—by letting the breath be as it is, by surrendering to the process. There is no question that if this practice is followed over a period of time—months and years—the quality of the breathing does improve; it becomes fuller, deeper, and calmer, with consequences both physical and psychological. We’re all breathing. The instruction is just to know that we are, not in an intellectual sense, but to be aware of the simple sensation, the in-breath and the out-breath.

Buddhadasa’s approach was rational and systematic but also beautifully timed to open me up emotionally. He knew something of my history, and I had told him of my particular interest in the Zen concept of emptiness. When we got to the thirteenth contemplation—which concerns impermanence, and where real vipassana begins—he said that anapanasati was one of the simplest and most effective means for realizing emptiness. We could move from the vantage point of the thirteenth back through the twelve previous contemplations and see impermanence and emptiness in all of them.

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Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities by Steven Collins


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