On Eastern Meditation - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook On Eastern Meditation write by Thomas Merton. This book was released on 2012-06-20. On Eastern Meditation available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A great introduction to the religions of the East by a monk from the West. Merton’s biographer, George Woodcock, once wrote that “almost from the beginning of his monastic career, Thomas Merton tentatively began to discover the great Asian religions of Buddhism and Taoism.” Merton, a longtime social justice advocate, first approached Eastern theology as an admirer of Gandhi’s beliefs on non-violence. Through Gandhi, Merton came to know the great Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita and in time came to have dialogues with the Dalai Lama and Taoist leader D. T. Suzuki. Merton then became deeply interested in Chuang Tzu and Zen thought. On Eastern Meditation, edited by Bonnie Thurston (author of Merton and Buddhism), gathers the best of his Eastern theological writings into a gorgeously designed gift book edition.
Principles of Meditation
Principles of Meditation - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Principles of Meditation write by C. Alexander Simpkins. This book was released on 1996-04-15. Principles of Meditation available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This simple, step-by-step guide to the art of meditation offers ways of using this timeless practice to relax, to focus and to clarify thoughts. It explores the roots of meditation in the Eastern tradition and explains how to apply its principles to everyday life.
Compassion and Meditation
Compassion and Meditation - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Compassion and Meditation write by Jean-Yves Leloup. This book was released on 2009-06-25. Compassion and Meditation available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A profound reflection on how complementary themes in Buddhism and Christianity could serve as the basis for a truly ecumenical faith • Compares Zen meditation with the Greek Orthodox practice of Hesychasm (prayer of the heart) • Shows how Buddha and Jesus represent the distinct yet complementary values of meditation and compassion In Asian spiritual traditions the mountain traditionally symbolizes meditation while the ocean signifies compassion. Jean-Yves Leloup uses this metaphor to compare Buddhist and Christian approaches to meditation and compassion to reveal the similarities and divergences of these profound practices. Emphasizing their complementary nature, Leloup describes how Jesus and Buddha are necessary to one another and how together they form a complete system: Jesus as awakening through love, and Buddha as awakening through meditation. Where Buddha represents the forests, Jesus represents the trees. Buddha is brother to the universe, whereas Jesus is brother to humanity. Nevertheless, these two religious traditions have a profound common ground. Compassion is central to Buddhism, and meditation practices have been central to many Christian traditions. Both view murder, theft, and the destructive use of sexuality as great barriers to realizing our essential being, and both agree on the need to rise above them. Here, however, Leloup suggests that both faiths could benefit from the precepts of the other. The complementary aspects of Christianity and Buddhism offer the possibility for a truly profound ecumenical religion whose interfaith relations are based on deep understanding of the true meaning and practice of meditation and compassion and not merely shared goodwill.
Meditative Prayer
Meditative Prayer - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Meditative Prayer write by Richard J. Foster. This book was released on 1983-09-01. Meditative Prayer available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Richard J. Foster teaches readers how to use the classical Christian techniques of meditation to enhance times of prayer.
Early Buddhist Meditation
Early Buddhist Meditation - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Early Buddhist Meditation write by Keren Arbel. This book was released on 2017-03-16. Early Buddhist Meditation available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This book offers a new interpretation of the relationship between 'insight practice' (satipatthana) and the attainment of the four jhànas (i.e., right samàdhi), a key problem in the study of Buddhist meditation. The author challenges the traditional Buddhist understanding of the four jhànas as states of absorption, and shows how these states are the actualization and embodiment of insight (vipassanà). It proposes that the four jhànas and what we call 'vipassanà' are integral dimensions of a single process that leads to awakening. Current literature on the phenomenology of the four jhànas and their relationship with the 'practice of insight' has mostly repeated traditional Theravàda interpretations. No one to date has offered a comprehensive analysis of the fourfold jhàna model independently from traditional interpretations. This book offers such an analysis. It presents a model which speaks in the Nikàyas' distinct voice. It demonstrates that the distinction between the 'practice of serenity' (samatha-bhàvanà) and the 'practice of insight' (vipassanà-bhàvanà) – a fundamental distinction in Buddhist meditation theory – is not applicable to early Buddhist understanding of the meditative path. It seeks to show that the common interpretation of the jhànas as 'altered states of consciousness', absorptions that do not reveal anything about the nature of phenomena, is incompatible with the teachings of the Pàli Nikàyas. By carefully analyzing the descriptions of the four jhànas in the early Buddhist texts in Pàli, their contexts, associations and meanings within the conceptual framework of early Buddhism, the relationship between this central element in the Buddhist path and 'insight meditation' becomes revealed in all its power. Early Buddhist Meditation will be of interest to scholars of Buddhist studies, Asian philosophies and religions, as well as Buddhist practitioners with a serious interest in the process of insight meditation.
