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Indestructible Truth: The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism |
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| Author |
Ray, Reginald Alden
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| Date | 2002.07 |
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| Pages | 512 |
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| Publisher | Shambhala Publications |
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| Publisher Url |
http://www.shambhala.com/
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| Location | Boston, MA, US [波士頓, 麻薩諸塞州, 美國] |
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| Content type | 書籍=Book |
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| Language | 英文=English |
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| Keyword | Karma=Kamma; 小乘佛教=Hinayana; 尸羅=戒=command=Precept=sila=morality=rule=discipline=prohibition; 中觀學派=龍樹學=中觀佛教=Madhyamaka=Madhyamika; 心靈=Spiritual; 止觀=Shamatha and Vipashyana; 四諦=四聖諦=cattari ariyasaccani=The Four Noble Truths; 尼陀那=因緣=Nidana; 布施=宗教捐獻=寺廟募款=Dana=Donation; 布教=弘化=Transmission of Buddhism=Propagation; 印度佛教=Indian Buddhism; 地獄=Hell=Naraka ; 西藏佛教=藏傳佛教=Tibetan Buddhism; 佛教人物=Buddhist; 佛教史=Buddhist History; 佛教哲學=Buddhist Doctrines=Buddhist Philosophy; 佛教教義=Buddhist Doctrines=Buddhist Teachings; 佛學研究=佛教學=Buddhist Studies=Buddhology; 波羅蜜多=paramita; 金剛乘=Vajra-yana=Vajrayana; 金剛乘=真言教=瑜伽宗=坦特羅佛教=密教=密宗=Tantric Buddhism=Esoteric Buddhism=Vajrayana Buddhism; 韋馱菩薩=Skanda=Khanda; 修行方法=修行法門=Practice; 菩薩=Bodhisattva; 靜坐=Meditation; 禪修=Meditation; 藏傳佛教史=西藏佛教史=Tibetan Buddhist History; 轉世=輪迴=Samsara=Rebirth=Reincarnation |
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| Abstract | Reginald Ray, a senior teacher in the lineage of Trungpa Rimpoche, is Professor of Buddhist Studies at Naropa University whose last book was the acclaimed Buddhist Saints in India. His new book sets out to introduce Tibetan Buddhism, meaning the general Buddhism that was inherited by Tibetan Buddhism from India rather than tantric Buddhism in particular. He wants to 'strike a balance between a western scholar writing about Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetans speaking about their tradition in their own voices'.
He starts with Tibetan Buddhist views of the cosmos (which were actually carried over from medieval Indian Buddhism) which has Mount Meru at the centre, and features realms of gods, titans, humans, animals, ghosts and hells, manifestations of the Buddhas ... right down to local spirits of land or water. This is a lot for westerners to take on, so Ray supports it with voices from the Tibetan tradition. For instance, we hear of an American with an undiagnosable illness stumbling upon a Tibetan healer who enquired if he had worked on any streams. As it happened the man had moved rocks from a stream on his property. The healer told him to move them back as he had offended the local water spirit; he did so and his illness was cured!
Maybe so, but to a sceptical mind the story is as hard to swallow as the ideas it tries to prove. Sometimes westerners resist anything that can't be proved; sometimes they react the other way, naively accepting a world of ghosts and ghouls. Is either healthy or truly Buddhist? We need openly to explore these things, not be forced into a cleft stick of acceptance or rejection. Here, Ray the scholar has given way too easily to the confident voices of tradition.
Next come several chapters on Tibetan Buddhist history. They cover the transmission of Buddhism from India to Tibet and the creation of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism, with short biographies of the teachers who were responsible for this flowering of Buddhism. The founders' lives are given in enough detail to be enjoyable and often inspiring, but their subsequent lineages seem like a long list of names. This appears to be aimed not at the general reader, for whom it is surely too detailed, but at adherents to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition who want to know their relationship with their own history.
Then come the core teachings of the Hinayana and Mahayana (but not the Vajrayana, which is dealt with in a companion volume). This includes a skilful clarification of the relative nature of these terms, which are both a classification of the various historical schools and a way of naming stages on the individual's spiritual path. Such general Buddhist teachings as the Four Noble Truths, karma and rebirth, going for Refuge, the ethical precepts, shamatha and vipashyana meditation, the Bodhisattva vow and the six paramitas are all dealt with, but one would like greater acknowledgement that these are common Buddhist practices. Ray says, 'A practice done by many Tibetan Buddhists ... is that of the four immeasurables', but he does not point out that this is also true of other Buddhist traditions. This is not Tibetan Buddhist practice, just a Buddhist one.
The last section on Buddhist philosophy is necessarily closely argued and all the better for that. It explains the five skhandas or constituents of the person and the twelve nidanas or causal links very well (though this, too, is basic Buddhism, not just Tibetan Buddhism). The Madhyamaka and Buddha-nature philosophies of the Mahayana are treated even more fully, this time with the use of an exegetical tradition that arose in India but clearly developed further in Tibet.
He presents these aspects of Buddhist philosophy as three turnings of the Dharma, successive teachings the Buddha gave during his lifetime. This is the view of Tibetan Buddhist tradition, but it won't stand up to modern textual scholarship, which understands that not all these texts were the word of |
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| ISBN | 9781570629105 |
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| Hits | 890 |
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| Created date | 2008.07.18 |
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| Modified date | 2008.07.18 |
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