Zen for Americans: Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot, Addresses on religious subjects & The Dhammapaha

This book is a collection of scholarly essay, difficult to read although I thought it was helpful and a useful source. I read two of the eight essays in the book. The first is by Cynthia Eller p. The second is by Sulak Sivaraksa p this deals with the differences among the international communities of Buddhists. From this book, I read the introduction, the chapter on Zen meditation, and the chapter on Zen koans.

I used this book in writing about Zen texts step 7. Of the books I read for step seven, I found this one to be the most clear and the most informative. This book was helpful for step six. This was the extent of its usefulness though. It is hard to read although it is newer. It has small print and the topic is not that relevant to what we discuss in class. I think you are better off finding another book. Although this book is not the actual Buddhist doctrine it gave me a good and accurate indication of what it is like. This book takes sections of official doctrine from several sources and compiles it to form an easily understood representation of what a Buddhist studies.

I would definitely recommend this book. This book is about the Dhammapada. It was translated in Vietnamese and I tried to read it in Vietnamese but I could not understand it so I read it in English. I used this book for the step on sacred books. Religions of the World Made Simple. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, I used this text to get me started in research, and to clarify concepts that were hard to understand from other texts.

Very complete, an extensive work that even develops the relationship between science and Zen. This book will answer all questions, though at times it is obtuse and confusing. The reading of this book was imperative for me to analyze and experience a sacred Buddhist text for step six. I read only the first two sections of the Sutra, the introduction and the section entitled expedient means.

I found it to be confusing as well as interesting. Religions of Tibet in Practice. New Jersey, Princeton University Press, pp. I did not find this source to be very useful. It may be because I used it too near the end of my research paper and had most of the information that I needed. It did explain Tibet's history with the Chinese people more in depth.

This was interesting for me because I am so in awe of Tibet's nonviolent ways. Overall, I do not think this book is a very good source. It was complex and fairly difficult to read because it contained so much stuff and jumped from one topic to the next too quickly. The Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra. Boston, Shamhala Publication Inc. This book was helpful in looking at stories or tales about the talks the Buddha once gave.

Basically they are about the encouters that the Buddha had with people and what he told them. These Sutra's are the basis for the written cannon of Buddhism. Manchester, Frederick and Swami Prabhavananda. Breath of the eternal. I read this book long before researching Buddhism. I paged through it to get a better understanding of the Hinduism that Buddhism grew from.

This dictionary contains a very short, precise article. It should not be used alone if one is striving to learn anything beyond the surface about Buddhism. Encyclopedia Dictionary of Religion. Corpus and Sisters of St. This book did nothing more than get me started. I used this book to aid me in finding an influential promoter for step seven.

It has a list of religions in the back of the book and then a list of leaders for those religions. You then look up the person by their last name and it will have a short summary of their work and contributions to the particular religion with which they are affiliated.

I would say it was only somewhat helpful for me. Zen and the Birds of Appetite. New Directions Publishing Corp. I read this book and it helped me get started with my research on Buddhism. This article was not a big asset to my study, yet because it is so current it made the subject come alive for me.

It helped me to realize there are Buddhists all over the world striving for peace and struggling against corruption. Mircea Eliade, Encyclopedia of Religion, Ed. Reading through the information within these pages familiarized me with Buddhist history and some traditions followed a long time ago. I found this helpful in that it pointed me toward which sutras to study, and it gave me an understanding of the fundamentals of this worldview so I could understand further readings.

is a totally awesome idea still being worked on.

Reveals the essence of Zen through rock gardening. It comes with a miniture rock garden. I read this article for background material on U Thant as the promoter of peace. This book has been extremely helpful in looking at the peace facet of Buddhism. Thich Nhat Hanh portrays the concept of peace splendidly. The way his work is done makes peace seem like a natural thing that should come naturally and willingly out of man. I liked this book because it helped to understand a peaceful mind of a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk.

This book has also helped me in learnign about this worldview on the peace issue. I read the entire book and found that it was very helpful to understanding the ideals of peace and community within Buddhism. This book is a valuable resource and should be read in its entirely because each section of the book builds off the ideas presented in the preceding chapter. I read the entire book. I originally used this book as my vicarious experience step 4 but decided to use The Sun My Heart instead. Nonetheless, I found this book a good one to read to find how Buddhism can be incorporated into one's everyday life.

This book is also easy reading; I read the entire book. It helps explain the fourteen percepts proposed in Being Peace and discusses them more in depth. Again this helps further my understanding of peaceful mind and the connection to a peaceful world. Again this book was well written and used simple vocabulary, which made it easy to read.

Thich Nhat Hanh uses language and simple sentence structure to covey thought provoking ideas. This book is helpful to see how peace can be obtained in today's society and different mediation used to find one's inner peace. This book is also a light reading. I liked this book, too, although it focus too mus on mindfulness and meditation. It is a good book to understand why Buddhists are really into meditation. From this book, I read the introduction about the book and about the author. Although it probably would have been a good resource for finding Thich Nhat Hanh's views toward war, I chose to find that information elsewhere.

I did use this book as a resource for writing about my influential promoter step 8. This book is a modern version about the understanding of th Prajnaparamita heart Sutra. This book was extremely helpful in steps 7 and 8 because it had a lot of details about Mahayana Buddhism and was very easy to read. I enjoyed reading the information on "emptiness".

Also like the other Thich Nhat Hanh books, this too is helpful and user friendly easy to read. It discusses more about looking through the eyes of your neighbor and understancing justice and peace by looking at things through other eyes. This book is a light reading and I like it although I did not for any of my steps. I just use it to have some feelings of a Buddhist monk who wrote it. The Secret Power Within: Zen Solutions to Real Problems. This is an outstanding book this applies Zen Buddhism to real life problems.

I used this book and it was very comprehensive on Zen Buddhism, I also used this book towards the end of my steps it was very interesting also. A textbook presentation of world religions. About one page is devoted to a brief explanation of Tendai. It also paraphrases the beginning of the Lotus Sutra very well. I thought this book was not very useful because it was so hard to understand.

The author expected the reader to have proir knowledge on the subject. Out of all the books that I checked out of the library, this book was the least helpful. I found this book particularly interesting as it outlines the eightfold path in the form of meditation.

May take more than one reading. This was a fairly good source. It was not nearly informational as World of the Buddha, but it did include different literature on death and how one should relate to the dead. This was interesting to me because I had not read about how Buddhist people feel about the dead or their rituals, practices, etc. It did not influence my paper a whole lot but it was interesting for me as a person to read and learn. Garden City Park, NewYork: Avery Publishing Group, Inc.

Helpful with step six, sacred texts, but a little hard to read. The back section was unreadable as it was in the Tibetan language, which was a little interesting view what they read. General editor, Religions of the World Made Simple: From Primitive Beliefs to Modern Faiths. Grosset and Dunlap, I used this text for a general understanding of Buddhism.

I used this book to get defintions for a lot of terms that I found in other books. This is a definite must for anyone studying Buddhism. Park, Austin and Lipscomb. Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East. The introduction was very helpful in explaining the background information about the Buddha, and his teachings, pp.

I read this book entirely in one setting more than pages. I liked this book the most in all of the books I had read for this study. This book is well written and I found it very helpful for a few steps, not just one. I obtained this book out of luck after searching a long time for the resources.

A Policy of Kindness. This was an excellent source for step 7. It tells of the Dalai Lama's upbringing and his general life. It even includes some of his most famous speeches, like when he won the Nobel Peace Prize. It includes his views on nonviolence and justice, which directly relates to the class and tells of the battle with the Chinese people and how the Tibetan people are responding. It is very informational as well as inspirational.

He is a great man. This reading was vital to understand better, about intercultural communication. As the title suggests this book was beneficial in shedding lights on how Buddhism can be interpreted today's world. The Scarecrow Press, Inc. This was more or less a dictionary type book which listed Buddhist words and names, along with their meanings, in alphabetical order. This was an essential book in helping with the definitions of some obscure and difficult words that I came across in other texts. A somewhat clinical sociological study of the Zen religion, its structure and organization.

Somewhat dry but it served as a refreshing change from the confusing esoteric rhetoric of the other books. Very good for understanding everyday rituals, this also contains interesting sociological data. I read this book for Step 7 on sacred texts. It was fun to read an entire portion of Theravadan scripture rather than just bits and pieces. The reading was actually light, and Radhakrishnan provides explanatory notes where helpful for understanding the meaning of the text.

This is the sacred text I read most of it. It was more challenging because it had the translations under the original text. A lot of it was repetion and the footnotes that explained some of the passages were very helpful. This book was the Buddhist cannon, and was useful in understanding the different principles of Buddhism. This book is a great source for students because it is a simple, well organized, well written book. The Zen Buddhist recommended this book as being vital to the understanding of Zen Buddhism.

This book is authored by a present day Buddhist who presented the complexity of Buddhism to the novice without losing the basic essence of Buddhism. This book was most helpful in explaining The Four Noble Truths, The Eight Fold Path, the concepts of anatman, and the importance of the five skandhas in the overall view of karma, and the soul, and the view of justice and peace. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: This book is interesting reading, and it is easy to understand when studying Zen Buddhism.

A collection of Zen writtings. Provided a lot of insight. Ten Bulls was used in this paper. Dickenson Publishing Company, Inc. The Five Great Religions. The section on Buddhism is a very general overview of Buddhism. I skimmed through the entire section, and referenced the section discussing the spread and split of Buddhism, p. From this book, I read the chapter on general teachings and practices of Buddhist's as well as the chapter on Zen Buddhism.

This was a good book for writing on Buddhism's general ideas and practices step 5. This was a well organized and easy to understand book that was of much help to me in researching Buddhism. Three Ways Of Asian Wisdom. Simon and Shuster, This is a very general text, which got me started in looking for more detailed information. This discussed violence in India and Sri Lanka.

It also talks about Ghand's quest for a non-violent political philosophy. While this does not directly pertain to Buddhism, Ghandi is a prevalent figure in Hinduism, which is an important base for the origins of Buddhism. This was a volume of three books. They were both canonical texts of varying translation, and sutra stories.

God in Buddhism

Looking at these books was helpful in setting the atmosphere for learning and reading about Buddhism. I would not suggest these books as a major resource, because I felt they were overwhelming to deal with. This book was very helpful in outlining the basic beliefs of Buddhist thought. It talked about Buddha and His life giving many accounts and experiences , the Four Noble Truths, and Karma in a way that was easy to understand.

This book goes over the basic teachings of Buddhism in all the different schools. I read the parts of this book dealing with the teachings of Theravada Buddhism. This is a very easy read, although a few pages have been torn out. This book will put you up to your ankles in Buddhist terminology before you know what hit you. It is written for those outside of the Buddhist culture but assumes you have a bit of a background with the subject. I would suggest this book for various parts of almost all the steps, but be warned, you may want to read it after you have done some initial research.

From this book, I read the chapter on koans. I used this book in writing about Buddhist's texts step 7.

Shoyen Shaku (Author of Zen for Americans)

It was a bit too academic for my tastes and for the purpose I was using it for. This book served me well in helping me to determine a good choice for my study of a sacred text in Buddhism. This book gives a good overview of many different worldviews. Not extremely in-depth, but agains, a good place to start. This book was the best resource of them all!! This book was the first of the resources I went to, because of its great simpleness to read and the wealth of information contained in a short chapter.

I am working on reading the entire packet. The section on Buddhism is what caused me to choose Buddhism for my topic of study. This section was also used in writing about general ideas and practices of Buddhists step 5. When I read the section on Buddhism, I was right away interested in finding more information about it.

I remembered my sister getting into it so I felt the need to find out what sort of religion she was in. This section was also used in writing some general practices of Buddhists in step Once again I was very fortunate to have Buddhism covered in our major text which is what this was. This book is very useful.

It has about 90 pages on Buddhism. It explained really well and you can understand Buddhism better if you read this book early in your research. I liked this book because it is easy to read as well. Harper and Collins Publishers, Smith had the ability to actually extract the vital facets of a religion, and put it into easy and chronological order.

I read the section on Buddhism before starting my paper, and throughout the paper. Smith helps clarify a better understanding of Buddhism to the reader. I definitely would recommend the section on Buddhism, pp. This book went into great detail and was a great resource to follow up the general descriptions of the above books. It helped with the full understanding of some of the more difficult concepts.

This book went in great detail and was a great resource to follow up the general descriptions of the above books. This book did not help me much in the research department, but I did use it for the maps. Think about composing an Essay explaining how the quotations from the New Testament Gospels of John, Mark and Matthew express the essentials of Christian faith and practice. Think about composing an Essay on Prof. An Affair of Things" in response to this question focused mainly on the second-half of his Essay: Think about composing an Essay explaining how the quotations - Ch.

Hibba Abugideiri's essay-reflections in which she explains how her Islamic faith and values guide and sustain her as a Muslim woman living her life with its fulfillments and its challenges. A Your required Essay-response 20 pts. B Your choice of 1 20 pts. Your typed Essay 40 pts. Varanasi as ancient yet living pilgrimage-city. Arvind Sharma's reflections on "What Hinduism means to me": Hinduism as a global religion. I ask you to REread the Acknowledgements ix-x and the Introduction. Since our first reading of these two prefatory pieces weeks ago, we have journeyed with Rodger Kamenetz and his fellow "Jewish delegates" to Dharamsala in India, and we have "listened in" on their thoughts and lively, intellectual discussions both among themselves and with the Dalai Lama.

Our reading-journey thus far NOW allows us to bring our individual reader's "vicarious" travel-experiences to our REreading of these 2 opening sections of The J in the L, and thereby we can better understand what Rodger and his colleagues looked forward to: Standard margins, double-spacing, point font. Here is the first installment of the Review Pages for our Final Exam. Actually, I have made a selection, but I need to ponder further. Thanks for your patience. And on Tuesday we'll have our Retrospective session. I recommend that you begin to REread the selected pages for your personal Retrospective.

Exam for the 1: A sh oka who reigned ca. Otto's obeisance Andrew's perfect word as "the right thing to do". I thought he was. R explains the religious symbolism of the thangka painting - the elderly woman with the "beatific smile" and "chocolate eyes" Otto's thoughts about "the blue sphere". Otto's encounter with Jane A. Bismarck, ND - toplowerend: So, here's what to REread:. As you REread these 10 pages, reflect upon why this chapter is titled as it is: Who is the person?

What was his "sleep? What kind of awakening? What now for him? As you REread these 10 pages, reflect upon the logical and experientially meaningful sequence of the stages forming the Four Noble Truths, with the 4th being the Eightfold Path, which has its own components. I suggest consulting my handout to you "The Path" for helpful elucidation. Stretch your thinking here and see what you can come up with in this chapter! Given what we have learned about Buddhism in our reading, and viewing, Huston Smith's presentation of this religious tradition from Noble Truths to Zen, how does she strike you NOW after your REreading?

Of course, don't neglect what she emphatically tells Otto about the Rinpoche, whom we know better now as well. You will choose only 2 out of 3 22 pts. The 3 question-options parallel the Review Pages above:. SIX for which you will give a Title, justifying it with significant story-details, AND include Cecelia as a person who speaks with a "Buddhist" voice, in contrast to Otto, as I suggested above. So, be attentive to grammar, punctuation, spelling, logic. So, be a good proofreader!

I really am looking forward to reading all your exam-essays, which will make my Spring Break all the sunnier! As I said in class today, I will type explanatory details about your Exam-Format later this afternoon, once I've finished my other tasks. I will also send an e-mail to one and all as a reminder. And I wish to thank Ravin on all our behalf for his wonderful presentation on Buddhism, giving us the perspective of the Southern - Theravada also called Hinayana - tradition, in contrast to the Northern - Mahayana - tradition of which Tibetan Buddhism Vajrayana is a branch.

Eckel with a focus on the Noble Eightfold Path.

I will send a list-serve e-mail to you all when I've finished typing. There will be a word-bank of 6 Buddhism-related words which you will match with sentences by number. These 6 fundamental key-words name, title, A further name for this irreducible, time-and-space-transcending mysterious Truth or Essence of Buddhic Reality is the Dharmakaya Body of Truth. The Buddha also speaks of no time and no space, where if I make a sound there is in that single moment a million years.

It is spaceless like radio waves, like electric space - intrinsic. The Buddha said that there is a mirror that reflects consciousness. In this electric space a million miles and a pinpoint - a million years and a moment - are exactly the same. It is pure essence We call it 'original consciousness' - 'original akasha' - perhaps God in the Christian sense. I am afraid of speaking about anything that is not familiar to me. No one can know what IT is The same Zen adept, Sokei-An, further comments: The Rinzai Zen Buddhist master, Soyen Shaku, speaking to Americans at the beginning of the 20th century, discusses how in essence the idea of God is not absent from Buddhism, when understood as ultimate, true Reality: The idea of an eternal, all-pervading, all-knowing, immaculate, uncreated and deathless Ground of Being the dharmadhatu , inherently linked to the sattvadhatu , the realm of beings , which is the Awakened Mind bodhicitta or Dharmakaya "body of Truth" of the Buddha himself, is promulgated in a number of Mahayana sutras and in various tantras as well.

Occasionally, this principle is presented as manifesting in a more personalised form as a primordial buddha, such as Samantabhadra , Vajradhara , Vairochana , and Adi-Buddha , among others. The text refers to Vairocana Buddha as the "Bhagavat" "Blessed One," a term traditionally linked in Indian discourse with "the Divine" , "Master of the Dharma , the Sage who is completely perfect, who is all-pervasive, who encompasses all world systems, who is All-Knowing, the Lord Vairocana".

He is without beginning or end Protector of the world, the sky, the earth The elements, the good benefactor of beings, All things The Self of all the Buddhas Pre-eminent over all, and master of the world. However, all these seemingly godlike figures Samantabhadra, Vairochana, Vajradhara, etc. Some Buddhists see the above quote from Samantabhadra Buddha as radically subjective psychology, while still others will insist that the words mean what they say and do communicate the sense of an actual sustaining force or spiritual essence behind and within all phenomena.

One of the Mahayana Sutras , the Lankavatara Sutra , states that the notions of a sovereign God, Atman are figments of the imagination or manifestations of the mind and can also be an impediment to perfection as this leads to attachment to the concept of God:. Instead of a personal creator God, the sutra speaks of creative Mind, and of Suchness tathata - universal Truth-as-it-is , which is defined as: Moreover, the same sutra also sees the Buddha reveal that he is the unrecognised One who is actually being addressed when beings project from their unawakened minds notions of Divinity and address themselves to "God".

The many names for such ultimate Being or Truth are in fact said by the Buddha to be unwitting appellations of the Buddha himself. Some recognize me as Sun, as Moon; some as a reincarnation of the ancient sages; some as one of "ten powers"; some as Rama, some as Indra, and some as Varuna. Still there are others who speak of me as The Un-born, as Emptiness, as "Suchness," as Truth, as Reality, as Ultimate Principle; still there are others who see me as Dharmakaya, as Nirvana, as the Eternal; some speak of me as sameness, as non-duality, as un-dying, as formless; some think of me as the doctrine of Buddha-causation, or of Emancipation, or of the Noble Path; and some think of me as Divine Mind and Noble Wisdom.

Thus in this world and in other worlds am I known by these uncounted names, but they all see me as the moon is seen in the water. Though they all honor, praise and esteem me, they do not fully understand the meaning and significance of the words they use; not having their own self-realization of Truth they cling to the words of their canonical books, or to what has been told to them, or to what they have imagined, and fail to see that the name they are using is only one of the many names of the Tathagata.

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In their studies they follow the mere words of the text vainly trying to gain the true meaning, instead of having confidence in the one "text" where self-confirming Truth is revealed, that is, having confidence in the self-realization of noble Wisdom. In the "Sagathakam" section of the sutra which contains some striking statements contradictory of earlier chapters of the sutra , one also reads of the reality of the pure Self atman , which while not identical to the atman of the Hindus is equated with the Tathagatagarbha Buddha-Essence:. This Tathagatagarbha is in the Lankavatara Sutra identified with the root or all-containing Consciousness of all beings, the Alaya-vijnana.

This Tathagatagarbha-Alayavijnana is stated not to belong to the realm of speculation, but can be understood directly by. Such an all-containing Buddhic Matrix Tathagatagarbha or basis of universal consciousness Alayavijnana has resonances with a conception of divinity which posits the latter as the underlying reality behind and within all things.

This "Self" is in some Mahayana Buddhist scriptures and tantras equated with the original, primal, all-sustaining cosmic Buddha himself viewed either as Samantabhadra or Mahavairochana. Though not believing in a creator God, Buddhists inherited the Indian cosmology of the time which includes various types of 'god' realms such as the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, the Four Great Kings, and so on. Deva-realms are part of the various possible types of existence in the Buddhist cosmology. Rebirth as a deva is attributed to virtuous actions performed in previous lives.

Beings that had meditated are thought to be reborn in more and more subtle realms with increasingly vast life spans, in accord with their meditative ability.

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In particular, the highest deva realms are pointed out as false paths in meditation that the meditator should be aware of. Like any existence within the cycle of rebirth samsara , a life as a deva is only temporary. At the time of death, a large part of the former deva's good karma has been expended, leaving mostly negative karma and a likely rebirth in one of the three lower realms.

Therefore, Buddhists make a special effort not to be reborn in deva realms. Schopenhauer claimed that Buddhism is atheistic. In the "Sinology" chapter of his On the Will in Nature , he cited the reasons for this claim. Sign In Don't have an account? Contents [ show ]. In Buddhism, this supreme victory of the human ability for perfect gnosis is celebrated in the concept of human saints known as Arahants which literally means "worthy of offerings" or "worthy of worship" because this sage overcomes all defilements and obtains perfect gnosis to obtain Nirvana.

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. Preceded by perception are mental states. All mental phenomena are preceded by mind, Mind is their master, they are produced by mind. Their existence is assumed, but the truths of religion are not dependent on them, and attempts to use their influence by sacrifices and oracles are deprecated as vulgar practices similar to juggling. The creative power of the universe is not a human being; it is Buddha. The one who sees, and the one who hears, is not this eye or ear, but the one who is this consciousness.

This One is Buddha. This One appears in every mind. This One is common to all sentient beings, and is God. At the outset, let me state that Buddhism is not atheistic as the term is ordinarily understood. It has certainly a God, the highest reality and truth, through which and in which this universe exists. However, the followers of Buddhism usually avoid the term God, for it savors so much of Christianity , whose spirit is not always exactly in accord with the Buddhist interpretation of religious experience To define more exactly the Buddhist notion of the highest being, it may be convenient to borrow the term very happily coined by a modern German scholar, 'panentheism', according to which God is As I mentioned before, Buddhists do not make use of the term God, which characteristically belongs to Christian terminology.

An equivalent most commonly used is Dharmakaya When the Dharmakaya is most concretely conceived it becomes the Buddha, or Tathagata He is universal Goodness, beneficial, destroyer [of suffering], the great Lord of Happiness, sky womb, Great Luminosity I am the core of all that exists. I am the seed of all that exists. I am the cause of all that exists. I am the trunk of all that exists. I am the foundation of all that exists. I am the root of existence. I am "the core" because I contain all phenomena. I am "the seed" because I give birth to everything. I am "the cause" because all comes from me.

I am "the trunk" because the ramifications of every event sprout from me. I am "the foundation" because all abides in me. I am called "the root" because I am everything. All such notions as causation, succession, atoms, primary elements, that make up personality, personal soul, Supreme Spirit, Sovereign God, Creator, are all figments of the imagination and manifestations of mind. The same can be said of myself as I appear in this world of patience before ignorant people and where I am known by uncounted trillions of names.