This is the website for the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM). The purpose of the institute is to explore the nature and use of the subtle energies for the purpose of health. The society serves as a network for scholars, scientists, clinicians, therapists wishing to pursue the study of subtle energies colloboratively through the organization of conferences and the publication of both a quartely magazine and peer-reviewed, scientific journal. This website includes information on membership in the society, recent and upcoming events and conferences, as well as paper abstracts, and details about how to order tapes of past conference and issues of the society's journal. (Zach Rowinski 2004-10-06)
See also About ISSSEEM.
A project administered by the Canada Fund that provided 1,787 solar cookers to a total of 1,787 Tibetan and Monguor households in villages and monasteries in Qinghai, Sichuan, and Gansu Provinces and the Tibet Autonomous Region. Approximately 10,000 individuals benefited. The project was implemented by 1 Monguor and 39 Tibetan students in the English Training Program, Nationalities Department, Qinghai Normal University, Xining City; Dr. Limusishiden in Huzhu Mongghul (Tu) Autonomous County, Qinghai Province; Mr. Zhu Yongzhong, Director, Sanchuan Development Association, in Minhe Hui and Mangghuer (Tu) Autonomous County; and Snowland Service Group, in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Kevin Stuart oversaw the project for the Canada Fund. (Steven Weinberger 2004-09-24)
A project that provided 563,290.79 rmb out of a total budget of 803,036.79 rmb to assist two Tibetan schools. In Gangca Township, funds allowed for 6 classrooms, 1 reading room, 2 teachers' offices, 1 video teaching room, 8 student dormitory rooms, teaching materials, training stone builders, 40 metal double beds and school gate, and 85 spoons for students. At the Beizangmo Village Tibetan Primary School, Wendu Tibetan Township, funds allowed for the construction of 6 teachers' quarters, 2 teachers' offices, a school gate, and the purchase of 20 desks and chairs. The buildings were built by local Tibetan stone builders using local labor. The public school buildings are some of the first in Amdo to be built of local stone by local Tibetan builders. (Steven Weinberger 2004-09-24)
MeaningofLife.tv, hosted by science writer Robert Wright, asks prominent thinkers from a variety of different areas such as biology, psychology, physics, theology, philosophy, and the Buddhist and Islamic traditions fundamental questions about evolution, the mind and brain, God, mystical experience, the interface between science and religion, the problem of evil, free will, death, meditation, quantum physics, and more. Users can choose to watch speakers discuss specific topics or watch an interview in full. (Zach Rowinski 2005-01-23)
Integral Naked is a multimedia portal illuminating an integrated approach to life and living. Included are conversations, performances, live broadcasts of influential, provocative, and important thinkers and leaders in the world. Many of these events, webcasts, and dialogues are moderated by Ken Wilber, a prolific author who has pioneered, together with colleagues at Integral Institute, an integral theory which embraces all aspects of experience, culture, knowledge, and the natural world. (Note: Integral Naked is NOT an adult site.) (Zach Rowinski 2005-03-03)
The aim of the Integral Institute is the bring together of a full range of disciplines- the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, neurology, ecology), art, ethics, religion, psychology, politics, business, sociology, and spirituality- with the thought that the fragmented and piecemeal approach of any one discipline is insufficient in approaching complex human problems. The institute, and its related network of resources, multimedia, training programs, and inteconnected communities -Integral Naked and Integral University- has four distinct goals: (1) research arising from integration of wide ranging disciplines; (2) the development of practical services and products which can be used by individuals, groups, businesses, and national and international organizations; (3) the application of integral knowledge to solving practical, complex problems facing humanity; (4) the creation of an Integral Learning Community. This website outlines the history, goals, projects, and theoretical framework for institute, as well as providing information on upcoming events, links to connected online resources, and news updates. (Zach Rowinski 2005-03-03)
Indo-Iranian Journal, founded in 1957, publishes papers on ancient and medieval Indian languages, literature, philosophy, and religion; ancient and medieval Iran; and papers on Tibet. Archaeological and specific historical studies, however, are normally excluded. Recent issues have linguistic articles on Sanskrit, Middle Indian (Prakrit), New-Indo-Aryan, on Munda linguistics (including the results of field-work), old and modern Dravidian languages (including new material on little-known Central Dravidian languages). Indo-Iranian Journal also contains many reviews of new publications, and lists the many more publications received. (2006-01-09)
The Eastern Buddhist carries articles on all aspects of Mahayana Buddhism as well as English translations of classical Buddhist texts and works by modern Buddhist thinkers. This unique journal was begun in 1921 under the editorship of D. T. Suzuki. Although its publication was interrupted by World War Two, The Eastern Buddhist (New Series) was revived in 1965. After Suzuki's death in 1966, the journal was continued under the editorship of Nishitani Keiji (1900-1990), Abe Masao, and other scholars. From 1998 to 2005 Nagao Gadjin (1907-2005) served as the editor-in-chief. (Steven Weinberger 2006-01-09)
Tibetan author and intellectual Jamyang Norbu's blog.
The website of the Tibetan Museum Society has resources on Mongolian and Tibetan art, and also a smaller amount of resources on these cultures in general. It features galleries of Tibetan and Mongolian Art, and listings of museums and exhibits that feature Mongolian and Tibetan Art. The website is also currently working to publish academic essays on topics relating to Mongolian and Tibetan art and culture. (Ben Deitle 2006-04-11)
The Society's mission statement reads: "The Tibetan Museum Society is a recently formed, civic league of concerned international citizens who wish to advocate museum exhibition of Asian art from ancient Mongolia and the Greater Himalayan Region. Through a broad range of programs and projects, the Society's two primary focuses are: 1) to provide financial support to selected museums that enrich the arts with display of historically significant representations of Buddhist culture and 2) to protect sacred, religious shrines, from which Buddhist art is gathered for public sale or display against removal without consent, artifact s of any kind. Though not allied with any political group or religious sect, the Tibetan Museum Society supports the fundamental humanitarian right to freedom of religious expression and is organized exclusively for charitable and educational purposes."
The Scottish Centre for Himalayan Research unites staff from across Scotland in a collaborative and interdisciplinary area studies centre at the University of Aberdeen. They offer two taught postgraduate programmes, an MRes in Himalayan Studies and an MSc in Himalayan Ethnobotany. PhD research is possible in a wide range of fields and along the entire length of the Himalayas. Researchers draw on expertise and resources from all the Scottish universities. (from the Center's website)
While the main focus of Access to Adventures's business is adventure tourism in India, they do provide services to popular Tibetan sites such as Lhasa, Shigatse, Gyantse and areas around Mt. Everest and Kailash. Leaving from Kathmandu by air, tours typically last 4 to 8 days and are lead by a Chinese tour guide. Travelers must be part of a group of at least 5 people. Individual travelers or groups smaller than 5 can opt to join in an existing group.The website offers concise travel information about the major towns and cities visited by Access to Adventure's tours, as well as details concerning visa and airline fees, accommodations in Tibet, recommended clothing, and health information. In addition to Tibetan areas in the P.R.C., Access to Adventure also provides tours to culturally Tibetan parts of India, including Dharamsala and Ladakh.
An interactive, electronic herbal database provides hyperlinked access to the scientific data underlying the use of herbs for health. It is an evidence-based information resource for professionals, researchers, and general public. (Frances Garrett 2003-01)
The U.S. Agricultural Research Service has several phytochemical and ethnobotanical databases allowing searches for plants. Plants searches can be limited by chemical activities of a plant, high concentration chemicals, chemicals with one activity, ethnobotanical uses, and other categories. The site's "documents" area offers access to an ethnobotanical dictionary and mini-courses in the field. (Frances Garrett 2003-01)
There are currently 116 herbs in this on-line materia medica. The names listed are of the following format: Pharmaceutical Name, Common Name (Pin-yin Name). (Wyith 2007-08-30)
An on-line database of Chinese medical herbs. (Bill McGrath 2008-01-30)
A free, but limited version of the Traditional Chinese Herbal Sciences CD-ROM. (Bill McGrath 2008-01-30)
The Dzongkha language version of the Bhutan Observer. The first newspaper to have its Dzongkha edition on the web.
Born in Woodstock, New York, to a Danish mother and Tibetan father, the young musician sought out inspiration that was as varied as her cultural background. With artists like David Bowie, Patsy Cline, Ani DiFranco, and classical artists, both Eastern and Western, to guide her, she began to write her own songs and to explore the possibilities her guitar and voice offered her.
This article traces some of the changes that have taken place within Mongolia's religious culture since the end of communism in 1990. It looks at the impact that the reinvigoration of Buddhism and monasticism has had in Mongolia from such vantage points as economics and cultural identity. (Ben Deitle 2006-04-11)
The Center for Research on Tibet is located at Case Western Reserve University. Its co-directors are Melvyn Goldstein and Cynthia Beall. (Steven Weinberger, 2011-09-23)
"The Canada Tibet Committee (CTC) is an independent non-governmental organisation of Tibetans and non-Tibetans living in Canada, who are concerned about the continuing human rights violations and lack of democratic freedom in Tibet."The CTC homepage hosts the World Tibet Network News Archive. It is one of the best internet resources for obtaining news about Tibetan issues, containing the complete texts of 15000 articles dating back to 1992. The archive can be searched by word or phrase and will score responses.
Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center provides an excellent reference resource for efficiently looking up titles for classical Tibetan literature, as well as for looking up Tibetan religious figures; it has more limited resources on Tibetan places. It is without question the preeminent site in the world for looking up a Tibetan title or person on-line and reflects the impressive scholarly knowledge of Gene Smith, its founder.Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center is the largest project in the world aimed at scanning Tibetan Buddhist literature in massive amounts. Some bodies of literature are available over the Web, but most are sold over the Web at a modest cost. One of the jewels of the collection is the 103 volumes of the Dege (sde dge) edition of the Kangyur (bka' 'gyur), the main scriptural canon of Tibetan Buddhism. It also provides a free on-line bibliography for classical Tibetan literature, and an outstanding biographical database on Tibetan religious figures. It is an excellent resource to do quick searches on Tibetan titles and personages. There is a modest selection of other types of resources, such as images and bibliographies of secondary literature.
Comprehensive bibliography on death and dying in Buddhist countries, including Tibet.
Orchid Press, established in Thailand in 1981 as White Orchid Press, is a specialized publishing house devoted to books related to Asia-books of general interest, scholarly texts, fiction, and poetry, both new works and reprints. Their catalog includes numerous books on the languages and cultures of Tibet and the Himalayas.
Palpung Monastery was arguably the most vital cultural institution in Kham during the 18 and 19th centuries. In the middle of the 18th century it was the homebase for the editing of the Derge edition of the Buddhist canon and the center of groundbreaking developments in Tibetan painting. During the second half of the 19th century Palpung was the epicenter of the Ecumenical (Rimay) movement.This website offers a brief history of the monastery and discusses a recent and heroic effort to restore the monastery.
An illustrated timeline of the major periods and events in Buddhist scriptural production and canon formation that culminated in the various editions of the Tibetan Kangyur and Tengyur.
THF is a non-governmental international organization dedicated to the preservation of Tibetan cultural heritage. In particular, it has been focused on historic Himalayan building and traditional construction skills. THF's web site at present has extensive materials on Lhasa buildings and neighborhoods, including intertactive maps, images and building databases.
Victor Mansfield is trained as an astrophysicist and is the author of numerous works on physics, Tibetan Buddhism, and Jungian psychology. His webpage includes information on his publications, full length papers, as well as his current lecture schedule, univeristy activities, and curriculum vitae. (Zach Rowinski 2004-06-07)
Susan Blackmore has conducted research in and published on a variety of areas of inquiry including consciousness studies, the paranormal, neuroscience, psychology, Zen meditation, lucid dreaming, and memes. A central interest guiding some of her research has been why people come to believe in the paranormal. Her website includes information on her current and past research, a list of publications, recent media coverage, biographical information, and her curriculum vitae. (Zach Rowinski 2004-06-14)
Albert Ellis is the leading figure behind cognitive behavior therapy, a type of therapy that asks patients to confront their habitual ways of thinking to overcome a variety of emotional and cognitive disorders. Ellis, who many hold up with Freud for his influence on the field of psychology, is credited with founding cognitive behavior therapy and acting as its most vocal and colorful advocates. (Ellis himself calls his psychology Rational-Emotive-Behavior-Therapy (REBT) rather than Cognitive Behavior Therapy, its more common designation). The Albert Ellis Institute provides patient counseling, training in REBT, and conducts research using REBT methods. The website provides information on publications by Albert Ellis and others, additional background on REBT, short biographies of psychologists working with REBTat the institute, information on patient counseling, the institute's contact information, and latest news on the happenings and activities of it's members and founder. (Zach Rowinski 2004-08-01)
A detailed examination of the state of Tibetan culture in North America.
Laboratory researchers in Korea hold a ceremony to honor animals used in experiments over a ten month period. The practice of honoring the passed animals is part of the Buddhist culture and helps ease the scientists minds, although the article mentions that the ceremony is also connected to older shamanic beliefs about animal spirits. (Zach Rowinski 2004-08-03)
The introductory notes to the first issue of the Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies (JIATS) published in October, 2005, by its editor, José Cabezón. (Than Garson 2005-09-22)
Presidential address by Janet Gyatso to the Tenth Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies (IATS) held in Oxford, England in 2003. (Than Garson 2005-09-22)
This paper outlines a methodology that makes possible a nuanced understanding of past Tibetan societies by exploring the tensions between structure and agency. Ethnographic data from a recent project on the historical demography of Skyid grong District is used to demonstrate how one can move beyond normative descriptions of a past society by using interviewees as both informants (who impart normative views) and respondents (who reflect on their own individual circumstances). In this way one can gain a perspective on the widely accepted rules of a society, while also using case studies to illustrate how individuals negotiated these rules in practice. This paper details the process by which one particular anthropologist came to know what he claims to know, and as such is a commentary on the reliability and validity of ethnographic data. (Than Garson 2005-09-22)
This essay examines the consequences of Said's critique of orientalism for Tibetan studies, particularly in relation to Lopez's claim that we are all "prisoners of Shangrila." The paper takes up this critique in relation to Lopez's treatment of the present Dalai Lama, arguing that although his critique is useful, it exaggerates the scope and power of orientalism, and in the process ends up de-historicizing and reifying Tibetan culture into a closed totality that either remains unchanged or becomes debased through the intervention of the West. This, the essay argues, leaves little room for alternatives to orientalism, both in the West and among Tibetans, and thus ends up repeating the exclusionary gesture that this critique had sought to debunk. (Than Garson 2005-09-22)
The Great Perfection (Rdzogs chen) is one of the most important tantric traditions to develop in Tibet, but much of its early history has been obscured by the tradition's visionary narratives of revelation, concealment, and excavation regarding its core scriptures. In addition, the over-reliance on the rubric "Great Perfection" itself obscures a broad diversity of distinct traditions, each with its own distinct rubric of self-identification and often quite divergent characteristics. This includes at the most general level the Three Series (Sde gsum,/i>), Four Cycles (Skor bzhi), Crown Pith (Spyi ti), and Ultra Pith (Yang ti). The present essay utilizes a simple hermeneutic of two trajectories – labeled "pristine" and "funerary," respectively – to offer a developmental history of these movements in broad strokes from the eighth to fourteenth century. In doing so, it interprets the major variants of the Great Perfection historically in terms of their interrelations via development, influence, and criticism. (Than Garson 2005-09-22)
Though compositional structure – which here means specifically the placement of divine figures – is an essential aspect of Tibetan painting, this theme has rarely been discussed or described by scholars. The conventions for depicting lineages of teachers in particular must be carefully taken into account when documenting thang kas that contain lineages with inscriptions. The historian should carry out, if possible: (1) decipherment of inscriptions, recording names; (2) historical identification of individual masters, furnishing dates if known; (3A) identification of the lineage, and (3B) listing its members in chronological order (i.e., following the sequence of lineal descent); (4) diagramming the position of all figures, following the numbering of step three. The present article classifies and describes the lineage structures found in the vast majority of paintings with lineages. Understanding lineage structure through these four steps allows the historian to identify the religious teacher and approximate generation of the patron who commissioned the painting, essential steps toward restoring the painting to its lost historical context. (Than Garson 2005-09-22)
With this thang ka one can categorically identify 'Jig rten mgon po, also known as 'Bri gung rin chen dpal or 'Jig rten gsum mgon (1143-1217), as the principal subject of a thang ka due to the fact that the inscription is written on the reverse of the canvas. Initially studied by the present writer prior to its inclusion in the exhibition "Himalayas: An Aesthetic Adventure," the full text of the inscription, an edited transcription and translation are here published for the first time. The identification is made possible by the fact that 'Jig rten mgon po's name is found in the Tibetan and Sanskrit inscriptions on the reverse of the painting. The identification of this thang ka sheds light on the history and identification of contemporary bla ma portraits in mural paintings in Alchi, Ladakh. (Than Garson 2005-09-22)
Kurtis Schaeffer provides an in-depth review of Tsering Gyalbo, Guntram Hazod, and Per K. Sørensen, Civilization at the Foot of Mount Sham-po: The Royal House of lHa Bug-pa-can and the History of g.Ya'-bzang: Historical Texts from the Monastery of g.Ya'-bzang in Yar-stod (Central Tibet). (Than Garson 2005-09-22)
In this short article, Templeman reviews the historical writings of Tāranātha (tA ra nA tha), particularly his work on the Siddhas of India, the Bka' babs bdun ldan gyi brgyud pa'i rnam thar ngo mtshar rmad du byung ba rin po che'i khungs lta bu'i gtam, and his history of the cult of Tārā, the Sgrol ma'i rgyud kyi byung khungs gsal bar byed pa'i lo rgyus gser gyi 'phreng ba. Templeman argues that Tāranātha's writings, while often fantastic, are nonetheless a critical resource for the study of the history of Buddhism. (Ben Deitle 2006-01-27)
The introductory notes to the second issue of the Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies (JIATS) published in August, 2006, by its editor, David Germano. (Than Garson 2006-08-07)
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