Bernard Schopen's Books

The Thousand and One Lives of the Buddha

By: Bernard Faure

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Thousand and One Lives of the Buddha

By: Bernard Faure

Praise for the French edition “This is a book that should be read by all those who are interested, whether near or far, in Buddhism, its history and its interpretations. . . . [Faure] proposes considering the ‘Life of the Buddha’ as a kind of treasure that never ceases to be reinvented and experienced, from story to story, from language to language, from culture to culture.” —Roger-Pol Droit, Le Monde Many biographies of the Buddha have been published in the last 150 years, and all claim to describe the authentic life of the historical Buddha. This book, written by one of the leading scholars of Buddhism and Japanese religion, starts from the opposite assumption and argues that we do not yet possess the archival and archaeological materials required to compose such a biography: All we have are narratives, not facts. Yet traditional biographies have neglected the literary, mythological, and ritual elements in the life of the Buddha. Bernard Faure aims to bridge this gap and shed light on a Buddha that is not historical but has constituted a paradigm of practice and been an object of faith for 2,500 years. The Thousand and One Lives of the Buddha opens with a criticism of the prevalent historicism before examining the mythological elements in a life of the Buddha no longer constrained by an artificial biographical framework. Once the search for the “historical Buddha” is abandoned, there is no longer any need to limit the narrative to early Indian stories. The life—or lives—of the Buddha, as an expression of the creative imaginations of Buddhists, developed beyond India over the centuries. Faure accordingly shifts his focus to East Asia and, more particularly, to Japan. Finally, he examines recent developments of the Buddha’s life in not only Asia but also the modern West and neglected literary genres such as science fiction.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

332

Publisher

University of Hawaii Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0824893549

ISBN 13

9780824893545

The Affirmation of Life

Nietzsche on overcoming nihilism

By: Bernard REGINSTER,Bernard Reginster

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Affirmation of Life

Nietzsche on overcoming nihilism

By: Bernard REGINSTER,Bernard Reginster

While most recent studies of Nietzsche's works have lost sight of the fundamental question of the meaning of a life characterized by inescapable suffering, Bernard Reginster's book The Affirmation of Life brings it sharply into focus. Reginster identifies overcoming nihilism as a central objective of Nietzsche's philosophical project, and shows how this concern systematically animates all of his main ideas.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

327

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674042646

ISBN 13

9780674042643

The Rhetoric of Immediacy

A Cultural Critique of Chan/Zen Buddhism

By: Bernard Faure

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Rhetoric of Immediacy

A Cultural Critique of Chan/Zen Buddhism

By: Bernard Faure

Through a highly sensitive exploration of key concepts and metaphors, Bernard Faure guides Western readers in appreciating some of the more elusive aspects of the Chinese tradition of Chan Buddhism and its outgrowth, Japanese Zen. He focuses on Chan's insistence on "immediacy"--its denial of all traditional mediations, including scripture, ritual, good works--and yet shows how these mediations have always been present in Chan. Given this apparent duplicity in its discourse, Faure reveals how Chan structures its practice and doctrine on such mental paradigms as mediacy/immediacy, sudden/gradual, and center/margins.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

415

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400844266

ISBN 13

9781400844265

The Big Silence

By: Bernard Schopen

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Big Silence

By: Bernard Schopen

An eclectic mix of characters and a twisting plot

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

N/A

Publisher

Western Literature and Fiction

Published Date

ISBN 10

0874172543

ISBN 13

9780874172546

The Slavonic Languages

By: Professor Greville Corbett,Professor Bernard Comrie

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Slavonic Languages

By: Professor Greville Corbett,Professor Bernard Comrie

In this scholarly volume, each of the living Slavonic languages are analysed and described in depth, together with the two extinct languages - Old Church Slavonic and Polabian. In addition, the various alphabets of the Slavonic languages - particularly Roman, Cyrillic and Glagolitic - are discussed, and the relationships of the Slavonic languages to other Indo-European languages and to one another, are explored. The last chapter provides an account of those Slavonic languages in exile, for example, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech and Slovak in the USA. Each language-chapter is written by an expert in the field, in a format designed for comparative study. Information on each language includes: an introductory description of social context and development (where appropriate); a discussion of phonology; a detailed presentation of synchronic morphology, noting major historical developments; comprehensive treatment of syntactic properties; a discussion of vocabulary; an outline of main dialects; and an extensive bibliography, listing English and other sources.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

1056

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1136861440

ISBN 13

9781136861444

The Fluid Pantheon

Gods of Medieval Japan, Volume 1

By: Bernard Faure

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Fluid Pantheon

Gods of Medieval Japan, Volume 1

By: Bernard Faure

Written by one of the leading scholars of Japanese religion, The Fluid Pantheon is the first installment of a multivolume project that promises to be a milestone in our understanding of the mythico-ritual system of esoteric Buddhism—specifically the nature and roles of deities in the religious world of medieval Japan and beyond. Bernard Faure introduces readers to medieval Japanese religiosity and shows the centrality of the gods in religious discourse and ritual; in doing so he moves away from the usual textual, historical, and sociological approaches that constitute the “method” of current religious studies. The approach considers the gods (including buddhas and demons) as meaningful and powerful interlocutors and not merely as cyphers for social groups or projections of the human mind. Throughout he engages insights drawn from structuralism, post-structuralism, and Actor-network theory to retrieve the “implicit pantheon” (as opposed to the “explicit orthodox pantheon”) of esoteric Japanese Buddhism (Mikkyō). Through a number of case studies, Faure describes and analyzes the impressive mythological and ritual efflorescence that marked the medieval period, not only in the religious domain, but also in the political, artistic, and literary spheres. He displays vast knowledge of his subject and presents his research—much of it in largely unstudied material—with theoretical sophistication. His arguments and analyses assume the centrality of the iconographic record, and so he has brought together in this volume a rich and rare collection of more than 180 color and black-and-white images. This emphasis on iconography and the ways in which it complements, supplements, or deconstructs textual orthodoxy is critical to a fuller comprehension of a set of medieval Japanese beliefs and practices. It also offers a corrective to the traditional division of the field into religious studies, which typically ignores the images, and art history, which oftentimes overlooks their ritual and religious meaning. The Fluid Pantheon and its companion volumes should persuade readers that the gods constituted a central part of medieval Japanese religion and that the latter cannot be reduced to a simplistic confrontation, parallelism, or complementarity between some monolithic teachings known as “Buddhism” and “Shinto.” Once these reductionist labels and categories are discarded, a new and fascinating religious landscape begins to unfold.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

498

Publisher

University of Hawaii Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

082485702X

ISBN 13

9780824857028

The Sense of the Past

Essays in the History of Philosophy

By: Bernard Williams

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Sense of the Past

Essays in the History of Philosophy

By: Bernard Williams

Before his death in 2003, Bernard Williams planned to publish a collection of historical essays, focusing primarily on the ancient world. This posthumous volume brings together a much wider selection, written over some forty years. His legacy lives on in this masterful work, the first collection ever published of Williams's essays on the history of philosophy. The subjects range from the sixth century B.C. to the twentieth A.D., from Homer to Wittgenstein by way of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Sidgwick, Collingwood, and Nietzsche. Often one would be hard put to say which part is history, which philosophy. Both are involved throughout, because this is the history of philosophy written philosophically. Historical exposition goes hand in hand with philosophical scrutiny. Insights into the past counteract blind acceptance of present assumptions. In his touching and illuminating introduction, Myles Burnyeat writes of these essays: "They show a depth of commitment to the history of philosophy seldom to be found nowadays in a thinker so prominent on the contemporary philosophical scene." The result celebrates the interest and importance to philosophy today of its near and distant past. The Sense of the Past is one of three collections of essays by Bernard Williams published by Princeton University Press since his death. In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument, selected, edited, and with an introduction by Geoffrey Hawthorn, and Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline, selected, edited, and with an introduction by A. W. Moore, make up the trio.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

416

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400827108

ISBN 13

9781400827107

Latins and Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean After 1204

By: Benjamin Arbel,Bernard Hamilton,David Jacoby

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Latins and Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean After 1204

By: Benjamin Arbel,Bernard Hamilton,David Jacoby

First published in 1989. This volume includes twelve of the main papers given at the Joint Meeting of the XXII Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies and of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East held at the University of Nottingham from 26-29 March 1988. The Conference brought together a wide range of scholars and dealt with four main themes: relations between native Greeks and western settlers in the states founded by the Latin conquerors in former Byzantine lands in the wake of the Fourth Crusade; the Byzantine successor states at Nicaea, Epirus, and Thessalonica; the influence of the Italian maritime communes on the eastern Mediterranean in the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance; and the impact on Christian societies there of the Mongols and the Ottoman Turks, as well as the perception of Greeks and Latins by other groups in the eastern Mediterranean.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

262

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

113628916X

ISBN 13

9781136289163

The Essential Agus

The Writings of Jacob B. Agus

By: Jacob Bernard Agus

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Essential Agus

The Writings of Jacob B. Agus

By: Jacob Bernard Agus

A sampling of the writing of the American rabbi and scholar Agus (1911-86), who was born and raised in an orthodox environment but was highly influenced by American liberalism, and critiqued both traditions wile seeking to integrate them. The 25 selections demonstrate his work in modern and medieval Jewish philosophy, Jewish- Christian dialogue, American Judaism, the concept of God, Jewish law as standards, and other areas. Includes a complete primary bibliography. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

588

Publisher

NYU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0814746926

ISBN 13

9780814746929

The Longing for Total Revolution

Philosophic Sources of Social Discontent from Rousseau to Marx and Nietzsche

By: Bernard Yack

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Longing for Total Revolution

Philosophic Sources of Social Discontent from Rousseau to Marx and Nietzsche

By: Bernard Yack

Bernard Yack seeks to identify and account for the development of a form of discontent held in common by a large number of European philosophers and social critics, including Rousseau, Schiller, the young Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche. Yack contends that these individuals, despite their profound disagreements, shared new perspectives on human freedom and history, and that these perspectives gave their discontent its peculiar breadth and intensity. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

416

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520375866

ISBN 13

9780520375864

You Never Can Tell

By: George Bernard Shaw

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

You Never Can Tell

By: George Bernard Shaw

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. 1st World Library-Literary Society is a non-profit educational organization. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - In a dentist's operating room on a fine August morning in 1896. Not the usual tiny London den, but the best sitting room of a furnished lodging in a terrace on the sea front at a fashionable watering place. The operating chair, with a gas pump and cylinder beside it, is half way between the centre of the room and one of the corners. If you look into the room through the window which lights it, you will see the fireplace in the middle of the wall opposite you, with the door beside it to your left; an M.R.C.S. diploma in a frame hung on the chimneypiece; an easy chair covered in black leather on the hearth; a neat stool and bench, with vice, tools, and a mortar and pestle in the corner to the right. Near this bench stands a slender machine like a whip provided with a stand, a pedal, and an exaggerated winch. Recognising this as a dental drill, you shudder and look away to your left, where you can see another window, underneath which stands a writing table, with a blotter and a diary on it, and a chair. Next the writing table, towards the door, is a leather covered sofa.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

176

Publisher

1st World Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1595403043

ISBN 13

9781595403049

Chinese Poetry and Prophecy

The Written Oracle in East Asia

By: Michel Strickmann,Bernard Faure

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Chinese Poetry and Prophecy

The Written Oracle in East Asia

By: Michel Strickmann,Bernard Faure

This book argues that the most profound and far-reaching effects of Buddhism on Chinese culture occurred at the level of practice, specifically in religious rituals designed to cure people of disease, demonic possession, and bad luck. This practice would leave its most lasting imprint on the liturgical tradition of Taoism. In focusing on religious practice, the book provides a corrective to traditional studies of Chinese religion, which overemphasize metaphysics and spirituality.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

246

Publisher

Stanford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0804743347

ISBN 13

9780804743341

The Perfect Wagnerite

A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring

By: Bernard Shaw

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Perfect Wagnerite

A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring

By: Bernard Shaw

The famous playwright's enlightening and provocative criticism surveys the four Wagner operas known as The Ring. Shaw explores the works' philosophic and social ideology as well as Wagner's life, music drama versus grand opera, the role of the Leitmotif in unifying the cycle, Siegfried's character, and many other fascinating subjects.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

180

Publisher

Courier Corporation

Published Date

ISBN 10

0486217078

ISBN 13

9780486217079

The Power of Denial

Buddhism, Purity, and Gender

By: Bernard Faure

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Power of Denial

Buddhism, Purity, and Gender

By: Bernard Faure

Innumerable studies have appeared in recent decades about practically every aspect of women's lives in Western societies. The few such works on Buddhism have been quite limited in scope. In The Power of Denial, Bernard Faure takes an important step toward redressing this situation by boldly asking: does Buddhism offer women liberation or limitation? Continuing the innovative exploration of sexuality in Buddhism he began in The Red Thread, here he moves from his earlier focus on male monastic sexuality to Buddhist conceptions of women and constructions of gender. Faure argues that Buddhism is neither as sexist nor as egalitarian as is usually thought. Above all, he asserts, the study of Buddhism through the gender lens leads us to question what we uncritically call Buddhism, in the singular. Faure challenges the conventional view that the history of women in Buddhism is a linear narrative of progress from oppression to liberation. Examining Buddhist discourse on gender in traditions such as that of Japan, he shows that patriarchy--indeed, misogyny--has long been central to Buddhism. But women were not always silent, passive victims. Faure points to the central role not only of nuns and mothers (and wives) of monks but of female mediums and courtesans, whose colorful relations with Buddhist monks he considers in particular. Ultimately, Faure concludes that while Buddhism is, in practice, relentlessly misogynist, as far as misogynist discourses go it is one of the most flexible and open to contradiction. And, he suggests, unyielding in-depth examination can help revitalize Buddhism's deeper, more ancient egalitarianism and thus subvert its existing gender hierarchy. This groundbreaking book offers a fresh, comprehensive understanding of what Buddhism has to say about gender, and of what this really says about Buddhism, singular or plural.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

479

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

140082561X

ISBN 13

9781400825615

A Third Collection

Volume 16

By: Bernard Lonergan,Lonergan Research Institute

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

A Third Collection

Volume 16

By: Bernard Lonergan,Lonergan Research Institute

A Third Collection, prepared for the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan by editors Robert M. Doran and John D. Dadosky, is a helpful companion to volumes four and thirteen in the series. The volume contains fifteen papers, written between 1974 and 1982, and includes some of his most important shorter writings such as "Prolegomena to the Study of the Emerging Religious Consciousness of Our Time" and "Natural Right and Historical Mindedness." The relevant archival entries are specified, so that readers can consult them. The papers in this volume rehearse in a new key the themes of a lifetime. Without in any way going back on the major emphases of Lonergan's early work–cognitional theory and then the exploration of a fourth, existential level of consciousness– they are focused more on love and on the movement from above downwards in consciousness. Community is emphasized as the context and the fruit of the emergence of authentic subjects.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

266

Publisher

University of Toronto Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1487513674

ISBN 13

9781487513672

The Atom in the History of Human Thought

By: Bernard Pullman

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Atom in the History of Human Thought

By: Bernard Pullman

The concept of the atom is very close to scientific bedrock, the deepest and most fundamental fact about the nature of reality. This book presents the whole panorama of the atomic hypothesis, and its place in Western civilization, from its origins in early Greek philosophy 2500 years ago to the definitive proof through direct microscopic imaging of since atoms, about ten years ago.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

420

Publisher

Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195150406

ISBN 13

9780195150407

The Red Thread

Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality

By: Bernard Faure

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Red Thread

Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality

By: Bernard Faure

Is there a Buddhist discourse on sex? In this innovative study, Bernard Faure reveals Buddhism's paradoxical attitudes toward sexuality. His remarkably broad range covers the entire geography of this religion, and its long evolution from the time of its founder, Xvkyamuni, to the premodern age. The author's anthropological approach uncovers the inherent discrepancies between the normative teachings of Buddhism and what its followers practice. Framing his discussion on some of the most prominent Western thinkers of sexuality--Georges Bataille and Michel Foucault--Faure draws from different reservoirs of writings, such as the orthodox and heterodox "doctrines" of Buddhism, and its monastic codes. Virtually untapped mythological as well as legal sources are also used. The dialectics inherent in Mahvyvna Buddhism, in particular in the Tantric and Chan/Zen traditions, seemed to allow for greater laxity and even encouraged breaking of taboos. Faure also offers a history of Buddhist monastic life, which has been buffeted by anticlerical attitudes, and by attempts to regulate sexual behavior from both within and beyond the monastery. In two chapters devoted to Buddhist homosexuality, he examines the way in which this sexual behavior was simultaneously condemned and idealized in medieval Japan. This book will appeal especially to those interested in the cultural history of Buddhism and in premodern Japanese culture. But the story of how one of the world's oldest religions has faced one of life's greatest problems makes fascinating reading for all.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

345

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400822602

ISBN 13

9781400822607

Book's by Bernard Schopen

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email