The State In Socialist Society

Politics & Social Sciences

N. ed. Harding

Politics & Government

SUNY Press

Tathagatagarbha -- Buddha Nature -- is a central concept of Mahayana Buddhism crucial to all the living practice traditions of Tibetan and Zen Buddhism. Its relationship to the concept of emptiness has been a subject of controversy for seven hundred years. Dr. Hookam's work investigates the divergent interpretations of these concepts and the way the Tibetan tradition is resolving them. In particular she does this with reference to the only surviving Indian commentary on the Tathagatagarbha doctrine, the Ratnagotravibhaga. This text addresses itself directly to the issue of how to relate the doctrine of emptiness (the illusory nature of the world) to that of the truly existing, changeless Absolute (the Buddha Nature). This is the first work by a Western writer to present an analysis of the Shentong tradition based on previously untranslated sources. The Shentong view rests on meditative experience that is inaccessible to the conceptualizing mind. It is deeply rooted in the sutra tradition of Indian Buddhism and is central to an understanding of the Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions and Tantric practice among Kagyupas and Hyingmapas.

The Buddha Within (Suny Series in Buddhist Series)

Religion & Spirituality

Hookham, Susan K.

Buddhism

"This book represents a needed resource in the field of curriculum -- a handbook on research methodology. No other such book exists with a specific focus on curriculum research --does one exist with any such specific focus within the field of education to my knowledge. It will undoubtedly become a well-used reference book by students and scholars in curriculum. Two other very important strengths of the book are the extensive bibliography at the end of each chapter and its international scope. The individual chapters are very competently written by recognized scholars who have established a good degree of expertise and recognition in the methodologies they discuss." -- M. Frances Klein, University of Southern California This book presents an overview of seventeen forms of inquiry used in curriculum research in education. Conventional disciplinary forms of inquiry, such as philosophical, historical, and scientific, are described, as well as more recently acknowledged forms such as ethnographic, aesthetic, narrative, phenomenological, and hermeneutic. Interdisciplinary forms such as theoretical, normative, critical, deliberative, and action research are also included. These forms of inquiry are distinguished from one another in terms of purposes, types of research questions addressed, and the processes and logic of procedure employed in arriving at knowledge claims. "There is no other place one can turn right now to find a single work that sets out these different approaches to education inquiry. This book answers a need. The past ten years have seen an incredible expansion in the approaches to inquiry in education in general and in curriculum in particular. No one else has tried to survey these approaches for others in the field, probably because no one but Edmund Short has figured out what they all are, their similarities and differences and relationships to each other." -- Nathalie J. Gehrke, University of Washington

Forms of Curriculum Inquiry (Suny Series, Curriculum Issues and Inquiries)

Education & Teaching

Short, Edmund C.

Schools & Teaching

The present volume of al-Tabari's monumental history covers the years 255-265/869-878, the first half of the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tamid in Samarra. Although the decade was one of relative calm in the capital, compared with the anarchy of the years immediately preceding, danger signals were flashing in territories adjacent to the imperial heartlands. Chief among them was the revolt of the Zanj, the narrative of which occupies the bulk of the present volume. A people of semi-servile status, the Zanj, who were based in the marshlands of southern Iraq, were led by a somewhat shadowy and mysterious figure claiming Shi'ite descent, 'Ali b. Muhammad. Their prolonged revolt against the central authorities was not crushed until 269/882. Al-Tabari's account of these momentous events is unique in both the quality and the quantity of his information. He himself was present in Baghdad during the years of the revolt, and he was thus able to construct his story from reports by numerous eyewitnesses. The result is a detailed narrative that brings alive for the modern reader the main personalities and engagements of the revolt.

The History of al-Tabari Vol. 36: The Revolt of the Zanj A.D. 869-879 / A.H. 255-265

Al-Tabarī

"It provides in one place and under one cover useful studies featuring the important interrelationship between religion and society, or -- to put it more correctly-- Japanese religio-social reality." -- Richard B. Pilgrim, Syracuse University "This is a solid piece of work, and the topic is significant, in fact, timely, in several regards. First, there is much attention today on Japan and the secret of its cultural and social makeup. Second, there is the question of whether to accept the 'uniqueness' argument of Japan's mystique (which Davis rejects), or if so, which theory is best able to account for the nature of Japan--to which question Davis provides some interesting insights. This book offers a thoroughly researched, carefully analyzed, and thoughtfully interpreted and sustained critical assessment of Japanese religion and the Japanese and Western scholarship on the subject. It not only opens up the Japanese phenomenon in an insightful way, but also raises interesting theoretical questions about the study of religion and society." -- Byron Earhart, Western Michigan University

Japanese Religion and Society

Davis, Winston

Social Sciences

Among Asian languages, Tibetan is second only to Chinese in the depth of its historical record, with texts dating back as far as the eighth and ninth centuries, written in an alphabetic script that preserves the contemporaneous phonological features of the language. The Classical Tibetan Language is the first comprehensive description of the Tibetan language and is distinctive in that it treats the classical Tibetan language on its own terms rather than by means of descriptive categories appropriate to other languages, as has traditionally been the case. Beyer presents the language as a medium of literary expression with great range, power, subtlety, and humor, not as an abstract object. He also deals comprehensively with a wide variety of linguistic phenomena as they are actually encountered in the classical texts, with numerous examples of idioms, common locutions, translation devices, neologisms, and dialectal variations. "Beyer's work is the first grammar of classical literary Tibetan that adopts a genuinely fresh approach to the language, abandoning the tired (and often inaccurate) conventions of Indo-European grammar that dominate the available textbooks. Though some of his conclusions and assertions may be controversial, Beyer forces us to think about the distinctive features of Tibetan in a challenging and animated fashion. His many examples, drawn from all branches of the literature, are superb. "The fields of Buddhist Studies, Asian History, and Comparative Literature have all suffered as a result of the limited access to Tibetan primary sources. Beyer's book will significantly contribute to rectifying this state of affairs."– Matthew Kapstein, Columbia University

SUNY Series in Buddhist Studies: The Classical Tibetan Language

Reference

Stephan Beyer

Foreign Language Study & Reference

This book presents a philosophical rethinking of the meaning and nature of spiritual discipline. It offers a new way of describing and justifying practices like praying, meditating, fasting, and yoga, and it provides an innovative case for their contemporary importance. Spiritual discipline is especially effective at combatting Pascalian diversion, the pursuit of activities that occupy the mind just enough to avoid thinking about important things; and Nietzschean decadence, the proclivity for extirpating instinctive drives instead of satisfying or sublimating them. In addition to overcoming diversion and decadence in contemporary consumerist culture, VanNess recommends spiritual discipline as a means of political resistance to powerful institutions which seek to exercise social control in democratic societies by promulgating addictive patterns of consumption. Finally, he argues that regimens of spiritual discipline can serve healthful and liberating purposes, and generally promote fullness of life, only insofar as they are shaped by an ethos of intellectual criticism and aesthetic experimentation.

Spirituality, Diversion, and Decadence: The Contemporary Predicament (SUNY Series in Religious Studies)

Van Ness, Peter H.

This volume brings together leading philosophers of Judaism on the issue of autonomy in the Jewish tradition. Addressing themselves to the relationship of the individual Jew to the Jewish community and to the world at large, some selections are systematic in scope, while others are more historically focused. The authors address issues ranging from the earliest expressions of individual human fulfillment in the Bible and medieval Jewish discussions of the human good to modern discussions of the necessity for the Jew to maintain both a Jewish sensibility as well as an active engagement in the modern pluralistic state. Contributors include Eugene Borowitz, Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel H. Frank, Robert Gibbs, Lenn E. Goodman, Ze'ev Levy, Kenneth Seeskin, and Martin D. Yaffe.

Autonomy and Judaism: The Individual and Community in Jewish Philosophical Thought (SUNY series in Jewish Philosophy)

History

World

History and Evolution (SUNY Series in Philosophy and Biology)

The studies of evolutionary biology and of human history face the same kinds of problems and deal with the same processes. Both disciplines deal with similar questions in similar ways, but do the methods used produce comparable knowledge, and are the differences and similarities between these disciplines real? This book examines the philosophy of historical and evolutionary studies; the objectivity and meanings of human and evolutionary histories; the evolutionary approaches to and the anlysis of history, historical approaches, and utilization of evolution; the logic of historical and evolutionary thinking and explanations; the identification of similarities, differences, and common problems of evolutionary biology and history; and what constitutes the major historical and evolutionary events.

History and Evolution (SUNY series in Philosophy and Biology)

Americas

Critical Literacy: Politics, Praxis, and the Postmodern (Suny Series, Teacher Empowerment and School Reform)

Critical Literacy: Politics, Praxis, and the Postmodern (SUNY Series, Teacher Empowerment and School Reform)

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