| Description |
1 online resource (xi, 333 pages) : illustrations, maps |
| Series |
OPUS
|
| Contents |
INTRODUCTION -- 1. THE BUDDHA: THE STORY OF THE AWAKENED ONE -- The historical Buddha -- The legend of the Buddha -- The nature of a buddha -- 2. THE WORD OF THE BUDDHA: BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES AND SCHOOLS -- Dharma: texts, practice, and realization -- The first recitation of scriptures -- Sūtra and Abhidharma -- The origin of the ancient Buddhist schools -- The Mahāyāna sūtras -- 3. FOUR TRUTHS: THE DISEASE, THE CAUSE, THE CURE, THE MEDICINE -- The orientation of the Buddha's teaching -- The disease of suffering -- The origin of suffering: attachment, aversion, and delusion -- The cessation of suffering: nirvāṇa -- The way leading to the cessation of suffering -- 4. THE BUDDHIST COMMUNITY: MONKS, NUNS, AND LAY FOLLOWERS -- The Buddha's followers and the origin of the Buddhist order -- Ordination and the Buddhist monastic ideal -- The underlying concerns of the Vinaya -- From wandering to settled life -- The spiritual life -- The lay community -- Spiro's schema: apotropaic, kammatic, and nibbanic Buddhism -- 5. THE BUDDHIST COSMOS: THE THRICE-THOUSANDFOLD WORLD -- Of space and time: world-systems -- Cosmology and psychology: macrocosm and microcosm -- Cosmology, folk religion, and modern science -- 6. No SELF: PERSONAL CONTINUITY AND DEPENDENT ARISING -- The Buddhist critique of self as unchanging -- The problem of personal continuity -- Ignorance, attachment, and views of the self -- The elaboration of the teaching of dependent arising -- Did the Buddha deny the existence of the self? -- 7. THE BUDDHISM PATH: THE WAY OF CALM AND INSIGHT -- Introductory remarks -- The role of faith -- Good conduct -- The practice of calm meditation -- The stages of insight meditation -- The relationship of calm and insight -- 8. THE ABHIDHARMA: THE HIGHER TEACHING -- Stories, legends, texts, and authors -- The Abhidharma as a system of Buddhist thought -- The consciousness process, karma, and rebirth -- Some Abhidharma problems -- 9. THE MAHĀYĀNA: THE GREAT VEHICLE -- The beginnings of the Mahāyāna -- The vehicle of the bodhisattva -- Transcendent buddhas -- Emptiness and the 'perfection of wisdom' -- Nāgārjuna and the 'middle' (Madhyamaka) school -- 'Ideas only' (vijñapti-mātra) and the Yogācāra -- The Tathāgatagarbha -- 10. EVOLVING TRADITIONS OF BUDDHISM: SOUTH, EAST, NORTH, AND WEST -- Theravāda Buddhism in Sri Lanka and South-East Asia: Southern Buddhism -- China, Korea, and Japan: East Asian Buddhism -- Tibet and Mongolia: Northern Buddhism -- A final note: Buddhism in the West |
| Summary |
Buddhism is a vast and complex religious and philosophical tradition with a history that stretches over 2,500 years, and which is now followed by around 115 million people. In this introduction to the foundations of Buddhism, Rupert Gethin concentrates on the ideas and practices which constitute the common heritage of the different traditions of Buddhism (Thervada, Tibetan, and Eastern) which exist in the world today. From the narrative of the story of the Buddha, throughdiscussions of aspects such as textual traditions, the framework of the Four Noble Truths, the interaction between the monas |
| Notes |
"Opus"--Cover |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 302-318) and index |
| Notes |
English |
|
Print version record and online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCOhost eBook Collection, viewed July 18, 2014) |
| Subject |
Buddhism.
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Buddhism
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Buddhism.
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RELIGION -- Buddhism -- General.
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Buddhism
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Boeddhisme.
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| Form |
Electronic book
|
| LC no. |
98012246 |
| ISBN |
9780191587894 |
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0191587893 |
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0585111588 |
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9780585111582 |
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