A01=Stephen Batchelor
Author_Stephen Batchelor
buddha
buddhas inner circle
buddhas teachings
buddhist history
buddhist philosophy
buddhist teachings
Category=QDHC
Category=QRAX
Category=QRF
critical reading
culture
culture of awakening
eightfold path
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
ethical buddhism
ethicists
globalized world
historical context
human existence
metaphysics
modern buddhism
noble truths
philosophy
religion and spirituality
religious practices
secular buddhism
secular society
spread of buddhism
theravada tradition
thought provoking
tibetan tradition
understanding buddhism
zen tradition
Product details
- ISBN 9780300224344
- Weight: 544g
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 04 Apr 2017
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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A renowned Buddhist teacher’s magnum opus, based on his fresh reading of the tradition’s earliest texts
Some twenty-five centuries after the Buddha started teaching, his message continues to inspire people across the globe, including those living in predominantly secular societies. What does it mean to adapt religious practices to secular contexts?
Stephen Batchelor, an internationally known author and teacher, is committed to a secularized version of the Buddha’s teachings. The time has come, he feels, to articulate a coherent ethical, contemplative, and philosophical vision of Buddhism for our age. After Buddhism, the culmination of four decades of study and practice in the Tibetan, Zen, and Theravada traditions, is his attempt to set the record straight about who the Buddha was and what he was trying to teach. Combining critical readings of the earliest canonical texts with narrative accounts of five members of the Buddha’s inner circle, Batchelor depicts the Buddha as a pragmatic ethicist rather than a dogmatic metaphysician. He envisions Buddhism as a constantly evolving culture of awakening whose long survival is due to its capacity to reinvent itself and interact creatively with each society it encounters.
This original and provocative book presents a new framework for understanding the remarkable spread of Buddhism in today’s globalized world. It also reminds us of what was so startling about the Buddha’s vision of human flourishing.
Some twenty-five centuries after the Buddha started teaching, his message continues to inspire people across the globe, including those living in predominantly secular societies. What does it mean to adapt religious practices to secular contexts?
Stephen Batchelor, an internationally known author and teacher, is committed to a secularized version of the Buddha’s teachings. The time has come, he feels, to articulate a coherent ethical, contemplative, and philosophical vision of Buddhism for our age. After Buddhism, the culmination of four decades of study and practice in the Tibetan, Zen, and Theravada traditions, is his attempt to set the record straight about who the Buddha was and what he was trying to teach. Combining critical readings of the earliest canonical texts with narrative accounts of five members of the Buddha’s inner circle, Batchelor depicts the Buddha as a pragmatic ethicist rather than a dogmatic metaphysician. He envisions Buddhism as a constantly evolving culture of awakening whose long survival is due to its capacity to reinvent itself and interact creatively with each society it encounters.
This original and provocative book presents a new framework for understanding the remarkable spread of Buddhism in today’s globalized world. It also reminds us of what was so startling about the Buddha’s vision of human flourishing.
An internationally known author, teacher, and scholar of Buddhism, Stephen Batchelor leads secular Buddhist retreats worldwide, is a founding member of the Bodhi College, and a contributing editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. He lives in southwest France.
