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Can metta take me all the way to Enlightenment? How much meditation is good for you? Why visualize an Enlightened being? Can you tell if meditation is changing you? All of these questions and very many more are tackled in this substantial compilation of Sangharakshita's teachings on meditation. First published in 2012, this volume draws from previously published works and from the unpublished transcripts of seminars on a wide range of Buddhist texts, from the Pali canon to the songs of Milarepa. The dialogue form is a reminder that teaching is a communication, a creative meeting between the depth and breadth of Sangharakshita's knowledge and experience and the willingness of students to ask the kinds of questions any meditator would like to ask if they had the chance (or the nerve). Discussions reveal how Sangharakshita learned the practices on which his system of meditation - 'an organic, living system' - is based and how that system has evolved over the years. Amid much curiosity about dhyana and Insight, and explorations of how to deal with fear or distraction, doubt, drowsiness or desire, topics also include such matters as whether it's good to meditate in the open air and whether to include your least favourite politician in your metta bhavana. To this edition some extra material on 'just sitting' and the guru yoga has been added. Whether dipped into, consulted on a specific subject or read from cover to cover, the collection offers practical, inspiring and encouraging advice for new and experienced meditators alike. It is deeply imbued with the Buddhist vision of the role of meditation in the quest for Enlightenment.

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Sangharakshita's arrival in India in 1944 marked the beginning of a period of prodigious literary and intellectual output. This was the base from which he would begin his life's work for the future of Buddhism. The essays gathered here, first published in journals such as Stepping Stones, The Maha Bodhi and The Middle Way, were written between 1944 and 1964. Ranging from The Unity of Buddhism, written in London at the age of only 18, to the panoramic A Bird's Eye View of Indian Buddhism, published on his return from India, all that distinguishes Sangharakshita's thought as teacher, synthesizer and translator is already evident here. We see the unity underlying all Buddhist schools, the inspiring ideal of the Bodhisattva, and the certainty that the Dharma is urgently needed in the modern world. This volume contains the previously published collections Crossing the Stream and Early Writings, plus other articles long since out of print. In the groundbreaking Ordination and Initiation in the Three Yanas (1959), Sangharakshita first comes close to recognizing Going for Refuge as the unifying factor in all of Buddhism. In Krishna's Flute (1944), the mind of the philosopher combines with the poet, and in A Visit to a Tibetan Monastery (1946), Sangharakshita the insightful traveller appears, seen later in his memoirs and travel letters. All the essays are fully annotated, and those previously published in Early Writings come with a detailed commentary and extensive introduction by Kalyanaprabha. A foreword by Nagabodhi introduces the collection. The insights and ideas expressed in these brief passages are as illuminating, as stimulating and as indispensable as anything Sangharakshita was ever to produce.

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This companion to volume 9 begins with a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Dr Ambedkar's conversion to Buddhism, together with a rejoicing in his merits. Then we follow the dramatic history of the Buddhist revival in India, beginning with a commentary on Dr Ambedkar's article 'Buddha and the Future of His Religion', which prompted Sangharakshita's initial contact with him. Articles on the mass conversion in 1956 and Sangharakshita's crucial visit to Nagpur at the time of Dr Ambedkar's death are followed by the story of Sangharakshita's teachings among the new Buddhists in 1959 to 61, together with notes from some of the hundreds of talks he gave. Sangharakshita did not forget India after returning to England in 1964, giving talks to raise awareness of Dr Ambedkar, and in 1979 returning to perform the first ordinations of the Indian wing of the Order, later the Triratna Buddhist Order. In a sequence of talks (from 1979 to 1992) he tells his Indian audiences about the Buddhist movement he has founded in the West and his western audiences about the Indian sangha, thus weaving together the two communities of new Buddhists. The volume culminates in a commentary on the Pali canon's Udana, edited from two much-loved seminars from the early days of the FWBO and including new translations of the verses (udanas) by Dhivan Thomas Jones. Inspiring us to imagine the time when Buddhism was so new it didn't have a name, the text includes famous teachings - the taste of salt, in the seen only the seen - and declares the first question the Buddha was asked after his Enlightenment: who is the true brahmin? The Buddha's answer, rejecting the caste system and asserting the spiritual values to which he has awakened, takes us to the heart of Dr Ambedkar's revival of Buddhism in India.

Read more less

Can metta take me all the way to Enlightenment? How much meditation is good for you? Why visualize an Enlightened being? Can you tell if meditation is changing you? All of these questions and very many more are tackled in this substantial compilation of Sangharakshita's teachings on meditation. First published in 2012, this volume draws from previously published works and from the unpublished transcripts of seminars on a wide range of Buddhist texts, from the Pali canon to the songs of Milarepa. The dialogue form is a reminder that teaching is a communication, a creative meeting between the depth and breadth of Sangharakshita's knowledge and experience and the willingness of students to ask the kinds of questions any meditator would like to ask if they had the chance (or the nerve). Discussions reveal how Sangharakshita learned the practices on which his system of meditation - 'an organic, living system' - is based and how that system has evolved over the years. Amid much curiosity about dhyana and Insight, and explorations of how to deal with fear or distraction, doubt, drowsiness or desire, topics also include such matters as whether it's good to meditate in the open air and whether to include your least favourite politician in your metta bhavana. To this edition some extra material on 'just sitting' and the guru yoga has been added. Whether dipped into, consulted on a specific subject or read from cover to cover, the collection offers practical, inspiring and encouraging advice for new and experienced meditators alike. It is deeply imbued with the Buddhist vision of the role of meditation in the quest for Enlightenment.

Read more less

Sangharakshita's arrival in India in 1944 marked the beginning of a period of prodigious literary and intellectual output. This was the base from which he would begin his life's work for the future of Buddhism. The essays gathered here, first published in journals such as Stepping Stones, The Maha Bodhi and The Middle Way, were written between 1944 and 1964. Ranging from The Unity of Buddhism, written in London at the age of only 18, to the panoramic A Bird's Eye View of Indian Buddhism, published on his return from India, all that distinguishes Sangharakshita's thought as teacher, synthesizer and translator is already evident here. We see the unity underlying all Buddhist schools, the inspiring ideal of the Bodhisattva, and the certainty that the Dharma is urgently needed in the modern world. This volume contains the previously published collections Crossing the Stream and Early Writings, plus other articles long since out of print. In the groundbreaking Ordination and Initiation in the Three Yanas (1959), Sangharakshita first comes close to recognizing Going for Refuge as the unifying factor in all of Buddhism. In Krishna's Flute (1944), the mind of the philosopher combines with the poet, and in A Visit to a Tibetan Monastery (1946), Sangharakshita the insightful traveller appears, seen later in his memoirs and travel letters. All the essays are fully annotated, and those previously published in Early Writings come with a detailed commentary and extensive introduction by Kalyanaprabha. A foreword by Nagabodhi introduces the collection. The insights and ideas expressed in these brief passages are as illuminating, as stimulating and as indispensable as anything Sangharakshita was ever to produce.

Read more less

This companion to volume 9 begins with a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Dr Ambedkar's conversion to Buddhism, together with a rejoicing in his merits. Then we follow the dramatic history of the Buddhist revival in India, beginning with a commentary on Dr Ambedkar's article 'Buddha and the Future of His Religion', which prompted Sangharakshita's initial contact with him. Articles on the mass conversion in 1956 and Sangharakshita's crucial visit to Nagpur at the time of Dr Ambedkar's death are followed by the story of Sangharakshita's teachings among the new Buddhists in 1959 to 61, together with notes from some of the hundreds of talks he gave. Sangharakshita did not forget India after returning to England in 1964, giving talks to raise awareness of Dr Ambedkar, and in 1979 returning to perform the first ordinations of the Indian wing of the Order, later the Triratna Buddhist Order. In a sequence of talks (from 1979 to 1992) he tells his Indian audiences about the Buddhist movement he has founded in the West and his western audiences about the Indian sangha, thus weaving together the two communities of new Buddhists. The volume culminates in a commentary on the Pali canon's Udana, edited from two much-loved seminars from the early days of the FWBO and including new translations of the verses (udanas) by Dhivan Thomas Jones. Inspiring us to imagine the time when Buddhism was so new it didn't have a name, the text includes famous teachings - the taste of salt, in the seen only the seen - and declares the first question the Buddha was asked after his Enlightenment: who is the true brahmin? The Buddha's answer, rejecting the caste system and asserting the spiritual values to which he has awakened, takes us to the heart of Dr Ambedkar's revival of Buddhism in India.

Read more less