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Index
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Tables and Figure
List of Maps
A Note on Buddhist Languages
INTRODUCTIONI
I. THE BUDDHA: THE STORY OF THE AWAKENED ONE
The historical Buddha
The legend of the Buddha
The nature of a buddha
2. THE WORD OF THE BUDDHA: BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES AND SCHOOLS
Dharma: texts, practice, and realization
The first recitation of scriptures
Sutra and Abhidharma
The origin of the ancient Buddhist schools
The Mahāyāna sūtras
3. FOUR TRUTHS: THE DISEASE, THE CAUSE, THE CURE, THE MEDICINE
The orientation of the Buddha’s teaching
The disease of suffering
The origin of suffering: attachment, aversion, and delusion
The cessation of suffering: nirvāṇa
The way leading to the cessation of suffering
4. THE BUDDHIST COMMUNITY: MONKS, NUNS, AND LAY FOLLOWERS
The Buddha’s followers and the origin of the Buddhist order
Ordination and the Buddhist monastic ideal
The underlying concerns of the Vinaya
From wandering to settled life
The spiritual life
The lay community
Spiro’s schema: apotropaic, kammatic, and nibbānic Buddhism
5. THE BUDDHIST COSMOS: THE THRICE-THOUSANDFOLD WORLD
Of space and time: world-systems
Cosmology and psychology: macrocosm and microcosm
Cosmology, folk religion, and modern science
6. No SELF: PERSONAL CONTINUITY AND DEPENDENT ARISING
The Buddhist critique of self as unchanging
The problem of personal continuity
Ignorance, attachment, and views of the self
The elaboration of the teaching of dependent arising
Did the Buddha deny the existence of the self?
7. THE BUDDHISM PATH: THE WAY OF CALM AND INSIGHT
Introductory remarks
The role of faith
Good conduct
The practice of calm meditation
The stages of insight meditation
The relationship of calm and insight
8. THE ABHIDHARMA: THE HIGHER TEACHING
Stories, legends, texts, and authors
The Abhidharma as a system of Buddhist thought
The consciousness process, karma, and rebirth
Some Abhidharma problems
9. THE MAHĀYĀNA: THE GREAT VEHICLE
The beginnings of the Mahāyāna
The vehicle of the bodhisattva
Transcendent buddhas
Emptiness and the ‘perfection of wisdom’
Nāgārjuna and the ‘middle’ (Madhyamaka) school
‘Ideas only’ (vijñapti-mātra) and the Yogācāra
The Tathāgatagarbha
10. EVOLVING TRADITIONS OF BUDDHISM: SOUTH, EAST, NORTH, AND WEST
Theravāda Buddhism in Sri Lanka and South-East Asia: Southern Buddhism
China, Korea, and Japan: East Asian Buddhism
Tibet and Mongolia: Northern Buddhism
A final note: Buddhism in the West
Notes
Select Bibliography
Glossary
Index
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