The author tells of five incidents from the Buddha's life and reflects on their significance: the Buddha's struggle for Enlightenment, his first communication of the Enlightenment to others, his reluctance to admit women into his Order, his encounter with a monk with dysentery and his final passing away into parinirvana.

Among the numerous lives of the Buddha, this volume may well claim a place of its own. Composed entirely from texts of the Pali Canon, the oldest authentic record, it portrays an image of the Buddha which is vivid, warm, and moving. Chapters on the Buddha's personality and doctrine are especially illuminating, and the translation is marked by lucidity and dignity throughout.

Reproduction of the original: The Jungle Girl by Gordon Casserly

The Buddha Rescue is the 5th book in the Gohan Thriller Series. Gohan Rice returns to Menghan, China to visit his Christian friend, Songsuda, but due to threats against her and a local murder, they both must flee to Burma where all Christian missionaries have recently been deported by the government. Learning that the most famous Buddhist monk in the country has just been kidnapped, Gohan and Songsuda decide to stay and attempt to rescue him. Greatly outnumbered by their adversaries, Gohan must, once again, find outside help and gets it from some long lost friends. The Buddha Rescue is a story of faith, suspense, and victory; and the power of God to reach lives that vacillated between a hopeless religious culture and atheism. Peter Hess is a U.S. Air Force veteran, a multiple business owner, and an accomplished author. His books include historical biblical novels, Christian thrillers and mystery novels, and non-Fiction Christian books, centering on the power and goodness of God and the need for Christians to abandon themselves completely to Him. Peter and his wife of thirty-nine years, Rita, have four grown children and fifteen grandchildren. They make their home in Frederick, Maryland where they are active members of New Life Foursquare Church. Peter is now semi-retired from the business world and devotes most of his time to writing and church ministry. Information on Peter's other books can be found at www.peterhessbooks.com.

Novel, translated from Japanese.

Visions of the Buddha offers a ground-breaking approach to the nature of the early discourses of the Buddha, the most foundational scriptures of Buddhist religion. Although the early discourses are commonly considered to be attempts to preserve the Buddha's teachings, Shulman demonstrates that these texts are full of creativity, and that their main aim is to beautify the image of the wonderous Buddha. While the texts surely care for the early teachings and for the Buddha's philosophy or his guidelines for meditation, and while at times they may relate real historical events, they are no less interested in telling good stories, in re-working folkloric materials, and in the visionary contemplation of the Buddha in order to sense his unique presence. The texts can thus be, at times, a type of meditation. Eviatar Shulman frames the early discourses as literary masterpieces that helped Buddhism achieve the wonderful success it has obtained. Much of the discourses' masterful storytelling was achieved through a technique of composition defined here as the play of formulas. In the oral literature of early Buddhism, texts were composed of formulas, which are repeated within and between texts. Shulman argues that the formulas are the real texts of Buddhism, and are primary to full discourses. Shaping texts through the play of formulas balances conservative and innovative tendencies within the tradition, making room for creativity within accepted forms and patterns. The texts we find today are thus versions--remnants--chosen by history of a much more vibrant and dynamic creative process.