This book argues for the central role played by absorption in the functioning of the human mind. The importance of absorption makes itself felt in different ways; the two studies combined in this book concentrate on two of them. The first study, 'The Symbolic Mind', argues that, largely as a result of language acquisition, humans have two levels of cognition, which in normal circumstances are simultaneously active. Absorption is a (or the) means to circumvent some, perhaps all, of the associations that characterize one of these two levels of cognition, resulting in what is sometimes referred to as mysitcal experience, but which is not confined to mysticism and plays a role in various "religious" phenomena, and elsewhere. In the second st...
Publisher description: As David White explains in the Introduction to Tantra in Practice, Tantra is an Asian body of beliefs and practices that seeks to channel the divine energy that grounds the universe, in creative and liberating ways. The subsequent chapters reflect the wide geographical and temporal scope of Tantra by examining thirty-six texts from China, India, Japan, Nepal, and Tibet, ranging from the seventh century to the present day, and representing the full range of Tantric experience--Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and even Islamic. Each text has been chosen and translated, often for the first time, by an international expert in the field who also provides detailed background material. Students of Asian religions and general reader...
The human voice is one of the principal conveyers of social and affective communication. Yet relatively little is known about the neural circuitry that supports the recognition of different vocally expressed emotions. We conducted an FMRI study to examine the brain responses to vocal expressions of anger and happiness, and to test whether specific brain regions showed preferential engagement in the processing of one emotion over the other. We also tested the extent to which simultaneously presented facial expressions of the same or different emotions would enhance brain responses, and to what degree such responses depend on attention towards the vocal expression. Forty healthy individuals were scanned while listening to vocal expressions...
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.
An outline of the play Lokanandanataka by Candragomin, one of the oldest extant products of Indian stage works. (Mark Turin 2004-06-16)
A description of the formation of the 'Tibetan Bonpo Foundation' and its teachings. (Mark Turin 2004-06-15)
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)
In the past century, the Western view of Tibet has evolved from an exotic Shangri-la filled with golden idols and the promise of immortality, to a peaceful land with an enlightened society now ravaged by outside aggression. How and why did our perception change? How accurate are our modern conceptions of Tibet?
Imagining Tibet is a collection of essays that reveal these Western conceptions. Providing an historical background to the West's ever-changing relationship with Tibet, Donald Lopez, Jeffrey Hopkins, Jamyang Norbu, and other noted scholars explore a variety of topics—from Western perceptions of Tibetan approaches to violence, monastic life, and life as a nation in exile, to representations of Tibet in Western literature, art, environmentalism, and the New Age movement. (from the publisher)
The essays in this volume were originally presented as papers at the international symposium "Mythos Tibet" held in Bonn, Germany, in 1996.
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