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No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2007. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Includes bibliographical references (p. 295-326).

This study concerns itself with the characterization of Ananda, the Buddha's personal attendant, in the Pali Canon of the Theravada. Its purpose is to describe and analyze Ananda's characterization in this literature from an hagiographical perspective. Our study undertakes for the first time a thorough analysis of every instance in which Ananda's name appears in the sources we have utilized. This approach enables us to see how even seemingly insignificant events have often contributed to Ananda's characterization. While the study is centered in the Pali sources, we have also utilized Buddhist sources from the Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan where these have contributed to our understanding of Ananda's place in the Theravada. The result of our study is to cast important light on such problems as Ananda's late arahanthood, his characterization as bahussuta, his attendance on the Buddha, his relationship to Sariputta and his place at the Council of Rajagaha. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Buddhism is believed to have all but died out in India following the thirteenth century Muslim invasion. However, in Bengal groups of non-Bengali people have continued to practice Therāvada Buddhism, which they are said to have imported from nearby Burma, or which they were converted to from other forms of Buddhism after migrating to Bengal. Their practices were "reformed" in 1856 by Burmese monks. An analysis of the historical material reveals a tendency by non-Buddhist Bengalis to downplay any relationship between the Buddhist traditions of Burma and Bangladesh, and to represent Buddhism as a phenomenon of the past. This reinterpretation of historical data is part of the formation process of a Bangladeshi national identity. That this process is in progress is confirmed by the existence in Bangladesh of a centralised and standardised educational system, having among its aims the integration of the national population. Religious education, in Bangladesh as elsewhere, plays within this system an important role in national integration. On the other hand, certain institutions of Bangladeshi Buddhism, such as temporary ordination, and features like the importance attributed to the Mahāmuni temple (which houses a replica of a very sacred Buddha image from Burma) confirm the historical connection between the Bangladeshi and the Southeast Asian Buddhist traditions. Any remaining doubts about the nature of Bangladeshi Buddhism are dispelled by the reading of a devotional song belonging to the genre known as Bauddha pālā kīrtana. The kīrtana, a ballad originating within the Hindu devotional movements, is very popular among all Bengalis, with no distinction of faith. The subject of this text, deriving from an apocryphal birth-story of the Buddha of Southeast Asian origin, reveals once again a link between the Buddhist traditions of Southeast Asia and Bangladesh, its Indian style just indicating regional taste.

An assertion that psychotherapy is an independent science and a self-authority on human mind and behaviour has uprooted its connection with philosophy and religion. In practice, the scientist-practitioner model of psychotherapy, a seemingly dualistic model, prefers determinism of science to free will of choice in humans. In particular, the model does not see reason and emotion as co-conditioning causes of human behaviour and suffering within the interdependent aggregates of self, other, and environment. Instead, it argues for wrong reasoning as the cause of emotional suffering. In Western thought, such narrative began at the arrival of scripted language and abstract thought in Greek antiquity that has led psychotherapy to think ignorantly that emotions are un-reasonable therefore they are irrational. Only rational thinking can effectively remove un-reasonable emotions. This belief creates confusion between rational theory and rational method of studying change in emotion because of the belief that science cannot objectively measure emotions. As a result, rational epistemologies that are ignorant of moral and metaphysical issues in human experience have multiplied. These epistemologies not only construct an unchanging rational identity, but also uphold the status of permanent self-authority. Fortunately, recent developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience research have quashed such ideas of permanent self-identity and authority. Buddhist theory of Interdependent Arising and Conditional Relations sees such identity and authority as arisen together with deluded emotional desires of greed and hatred. These desires co-condition interdependent states of personal feeling and perception (metaphysics), conceptual thinking and consciousness (epistemology) and formation of (moral) emotion and action within the context of self other-environment matrix. Moral choices particularly highlight the intentional or the Aristotelian final cause of action derived from healthy desires by valued meaning makings and interpretations. Theravada formulation aims to end unhealthy desires and develop the healthy ones within the matrix including the client-clinician-therapeutic environment contexts. Theravada treatment guides a tripartite approach of practicing empathic ethics, penetrating focus and reflective understanding, which integrates ecologically with Western rational analysis. It also allows scientific method of studying change in emotion by applying the theory of defective desires. In addition, interdependent dimensions of thinking and feeling understood from Theravada perspective present a framework for developing theory and treatment of self disorders. Thus, Theravada treatment not only allows scientific method of studying change in emotion and provides an interdependent theory and treatment but also ecologically integrates with Western rational analysis. Moreover, Theravada approach offers an open framework for further development of theoretical and treatment models of psychopathology classified under Western nomenclature.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rijkuniversiteit te Utrecht, 1992. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rijkuniversiteit te Utrecht, 1992.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

<i>The Unravelers</i> is a Buddhist novel of literary fiction, which to my knowledge is the first in the last one hundred years to synthesize the Buddhist teachings and values found in the suttas of the <i>Pāli</i> Canon, the theory of ancient Indian <i>kāvya</i> literature, and the latest stylistic and structural innovations of contemporary literary fiction. The narrative follows four characters from the moment of their deaths as they manipulate the process of becoming—the mental act of creating and entering into “worlds”. The novel depicts the characters’ development of dispassion for a variety of realms, resulting in their eventual return to the human world with the motivation necessary to practice the Buddhist path. My critical essay opens with an introduction to <i>kāvya </i>and Theravāda Buddhist concepts that are particularly relevant to the process of creating a fictional world— namely, <i>saṅkhāra </i>(fabrication) and <i>bhava </i>(becoming)—and the inherent karma of writing. Section II “Literary Review” explores narrative modes from Theravāda Buddhist literature and develops them through experimental narrative modes of contemporary literary fiction. Section III discusses the depiction of becoming, fabrication, and dispassion through the novel’s characters. Section IV “<i>Rasa</i>,” explains the theory of how a reader experiences the work’s savor, while relating the use of <i>rasa </i>in<i> The Unravelers</i> to the early Buddhist <i>kāvyas </i>(the <i>Pāli </i>Canon’s <i>Udāna </i>and <i>Dhammapada</i>, and two works by Aśvaghoṣa). Section V evaluates the classic use of Buddhist concepts and metaphors in Aśvaghoṣa’s <i>Handsome Nanda</i> as compared to<i> The Unravelers</i>. Section VI examines Jack Kerouac’s <i>The Dharma Bums</i> as a forerunner to the genre of the Buddhist novel and Keith Kachtick’s <i>Hungry Ghost</i> as archetypal. Section VII concludes by detailing<i> The Unravelers</i>’ contribution to the Buddhist novel.