Deals With 2 Important Concepts-Bodhisattva And Sunyata In Mahayana Texts Which In Fact Had Their Routes In Pali Nikayas. The Study Helps In Understanding The Doctrines Of Mahayana And Those Found In Pali Nikaya. Contains 9 Chapters.

During the time of my sojourn in India to pursue Ph.D. course of Buddhist Studies in the University of Delhi, I received from Ven. Tri Quang, Late Ven. Tinh Vien, Ven. Nhu Dien, Ven. Minh Chon, Late Ven. Minh Thanh, Ven. Hai Trieu Am... not only in terms of the generous material supports, but also that of the warm spiritual, have in deed created comfort and smooth conditions for me to keep mental peace and light-hearted in order to put whole my mind and will in study. I could not express my debt of gratitude to these most venerable Monks in words. In the course of writing this research work, I would like to express my deep gratitude specially to Dr. I. N. Singh, my respected supervisor - the Lecturer of Buddhist Philosophy in Department of Buddhist Studies, Delhi University, whose scientific method of guidance has developed in me a critical point of view, with self-confidence and inspired me to do my research work easily without his guidance, I could not be able to do this heavy task. I should also like to show my deep thankful to all the other professors, readers and lecturers of the Department, who directly or indirectly instructed me during the period of my study Buddhism from M.A. to Ph.D. courses at the place of its origination. I am also very grateful to all my friends - Venerable monks and nuns, lay-men and lay-women and Buddhist disciples have been kindly helpful in one way or another for my knowledge accomplishments, but their names are too many to be mentioned here. At last, my sincere acknowledgements go to those whose books have been well used for quotations and references in my research work and my thanks are also due to the library staff of Delhi University Library System and Research Services Section, Central Reference Library for research facilities and their helping hands. Delhi, March 30, 2003 Bhikkhuni Gioi Huong ([email protected])

This book comprises fifteen research articles primarily based on the discipline of Indian and Buddhist Studies. The collection is designed to propose a Buddhist philosophy of religion--that the insight of Prajna and Sunyata initiates a future religion which is freed both from conflict between reasoning and believing, and from goal-oriented cycles of life. It addresses transformation from the conflict-ridden quest for a supreme being, to the search for a non-theistic nature of spirituality that provides a foundation for universal human happiness and salvation. For the discipline of Buddhist Studies, this collection also demonstrates the productive value of drawing upon cross-cultural and cross-racial literary sources and traditions.

Bodhisattvas are dedicated to one thing: helping people on the path towards Enlightenment. The bodhisattvas know that they are not apart from the rest of life. Seeking Enlightenment for themselves alone can never satisfy as they witness the suffering that is all around them. Their vision is to work endlessly in the service of living beings. This Guide introduces a panoply of figures: Tara, the rescuer; Manjusri the Bodhisattva of Wisdom; and Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion; among others.

Boston University Professor Malcolm David Eckel takes us on a contemporary quest to discover the essential meaning behind the Buddha's many representations. Eckel shows that the dimensions of early Indian Buddhism--popular art, conventional piety, and critical philosophy--all work together to express the same religious yearning for the fullness of emptiness that Buddha conveys.

In Emptiness, the fifth volume in The Foundation of Buddhist Thought series, Geshe Tashi Tsering provides readers with an incredibly welcoming presentation of the central philosophical teaching of Mahayana Buddhism. Emptiness does not imply a nihilistic worldview, but rather the idea that a permanent entity does not exist in any single phenomenon or being. Everything exists interdependently within an immeasurable quantity of causes and conditions. An understanding of emptiness allows us to see the world as a realm of infinite possibility, instead of a static system. Just like a table consists of wooden parts, and the wood is from a tree, and the tree depends on air, water, and soil, so is the world filled with a wondrous interdependence that extends to our own mind and awareness. In lucid, accessible language, Geshe Tashi Tsering guides the reader to a genuine understanding of this infinite possibility.

The Summary of the Great Vehicle is perhaps the most representative text of the Yogacara school of Mahayana Buddhism. It presents the classic argument for the basic Yogacara themes on conscious interiority, attempting to reinterpret within this context the general Mahayana teachings of emptiness and dependent co-arising. It then proceeds to explain the etiology if imaginative illusion, sketch its reversal by offering an explanation of the nature of conversion, champion the recovered insight into depended co-arising in terms of the converted other-dependent pattern of consciousness, and thus allow for a valid, if limited, role for language-formed, conventional discourse, both commonsense and theoretical.