Isvarapratyabhijna-Vimarsini (3 Vols. Set)

An understanding of emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality, lies at the heart of Buddhist view and practice. The Heart Sutra, one of the best known and most popular of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures, contains the essence of Buddha's teachings on emptiness and the methods to develop the wisdom that understands this ultimate reality. In this explanation of the Sutra, Geshe Kelsang reveals its explicit and implicit meanings, and relates them to the five Mahayana paths that lead to full enlightenment. He also explains how an initial understanding of emptiness can be used in conjunction with the Sutra to overcome both internal and external obstacles to our happiness.

About the Author
Geshe Kelsang Gyatso was born in Tibet and is a fully accomplished meditation master and internationally renowned teacher of Buddhism. Living in the West since 1977, he is the author of a series of highly acclaimed books that transmit perfectly the ancient wisdom of Buddhism to our contemporary life. He has also founded over 300 Centres throughout the world for the study and practice of Mahayana Buddhism. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
'An excellent book... for the serious student of Buddhism a better book would be hard to come across'. - The Middle Way 'Geshe Kelsang's introduction is both excellent and comprehensive'. - North American Board for East West Dialogue --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Practical Buddhism is a collection of insights and tales about practicing dharma in everyday life. These humorous accounts of the mundane successes and failures of the author and his friends offer practical guidance for anyone wishing to align their daily lives with Buddhist values and ideas. Stories about answering the door, quarreling dogs, coping with city traffic, living with cellphones, greeting others, etc. employ wit and irony to demonstrate that really effective progress in improving one s character is often made in mundane ways. The anecdotes and reflections that the author shares in this book is straight from his own life. Of course, each of us has grown up in different circumstances and encounters different situations in our lives, but no matter what culture or historical era we're from, our human minds function in very similar ways. Each of us wants to be happy and avoid suffering although different people, possessions, and places may bring us happiness or suffering. Despite this desire for happiness not misery, we lack the knowledge of what the causes for each are. In fact, we often find that the words we said or deeds we did with the conviction that they would bring us joy resulted in the opposite. The moment we get the gorgeous new car we've craved, we've entered "car hell" for the car will surely break down at the most inopportune times. The repairs will cost more than we like and may not completely fix the problem. Alongside "car hell" are situated "computer hell," "iPod and Blackberry hell," "relationship hell," and on and on. We keep looking outside of ourselves for someone or something that will bring us the satisfaction and joy we seek, yet these continually elude us. And to the contrary, the difficulties we shun find us anyway.

About the Author
Kenneth Liberman is Professor Emeritus at the University Oregon. He is the author of Dialectical Practice in Tibetan Philosophical Culture (Rowman & Littlefield), Husserl's Criticism of Reason (Lexington Books) and More Studies in Ethnomethodology (SUNY Press). He presently divides his time among Sera Jey Monastic University in Bylakuppe, India, where he serves as the Phd Proctor/Professor, and research assignments as the Hans Christian Anderson Visiting Professor at Suddansk Universitet in Denmark and University Research Fellow at the Universita di Trento in Italy.

The Cheng weishi lun (=CWSL; T.1585), purporting to be a composite commentary on Vasubandhu's Trimsika Vijnaptimatratasiddhi, is a translation-compilation by Xuanzang (600-664 CE). with the assistance of his pupil Kuiji (632-682 CE). Xuanzang's main mission in this endeavour appears to be twofold: (i) the establishment and elucidation of the thesis of vijnaptimatra, and this predominantly on the basis of Dharmapala-Silabhadra's expositions; (ii) the harmonization of the earlier yogacara doctrinal interpretations, and in so doing also the definitive establishment of the superiority of the Mahayana bodhisattva ideal. The CWSL may be said to be one of the most precious gems in the whole of the Chinese Tripitaka. In the preface to his Shuji, Kuiji eulogizes the CWSL thus: This treatise purifies true cognition. Its expositions include the provisional as well as the ultimate teachings, going far beyond the early teachings of the historical Buddha. Its doctrines penetrate into the subtlest. They catch hold of the Prajnaparamita tenets and ride on their colourful brilliance. The treatise summarizes the essential teachings of the sutras, seeking out their hidden teachings and assimilating their purposes. It further incorporates the best of all the sastras, gathering up the most wonderful. The CWSL is a compilation containing the ten individual commentaries on Vasubandhu's Trimsika by 1. Dharmapala; 2. Gunamati; 3. Sthiramati; 4. Bandhusri; 5. Nanda; 6. Suddhacandra; 7. Citrabhanu; 8. Visesamitra; 9. Jinaputra and 10. Jnanacandra which are herewith collected together and translated in detail in a single text.

About the Author
XUANZANG (600 664) is one of the most illustrious figures in the history of scholastic Chinese Buddhism. In the Cheng weishi lun, completed in 659, Xuanzang presents Vasubandhu s Tri?sika in the context of its Indian commentaries and on the background of Yogacara works such as the Yogacarabhumi, Dasabhumi and bhidharmasamuccaya. Xuanzang had brought these and many other texts back to China in 645 after studying in India for fifteen years. He subsequently translated seventy-five works, making him the most productive of all Chinese translators from the Sanskrit, and by completing what Bodhiruci/Ratnamati and Paramartha had started out, he was the first to make the Yogacara systematically available in China. VASUBANDHU (ca. 350 430 A.D.) was born in Puru?apura in Gandhara and is, next to his half-brother Asa?ga (ca. 330 405 A.D.), the most famous personage of the Yogacara school. He originally belonged to the Sravakayana school of the Sarvastivadins and had already made a name for himself through the composition of numerous treatises when he was won over to the Mahayana by Asanga, sometime in his forties. Vasubandhu counts as the great systematizer of Buddhism and is one of the six great ornaments six great commentators of the Buddha s teaching.

This short treatise explains in detail the principle of Radical Pluralism which asserts that the elements alone are realities while every combination of them is a mere name covering a plurality of separate elements. The principle has been elucidated by its contrast with Arambhavada which maintains the reality of the whole as well as of the elements and with Parinama-vada which ascribes absolute reality to the whole. The work is divided into sixteen sections dealing with Skandhas, Ayatanas, Dhatus, Elements of mind, Pratityasamutpada, Karma, Impermanence in Sankhya-Yoga, Theory of Cognition, Pre-Buddhaic Buddhism etc. It has two appendices dealing with the views of Vasubandhu on the fundamental principles of Sarvastivada and the classification of all elements of existence according to the Sarvastivadins. The two indices appended to the work record proper names and Sanskrit terms occurring in the work.

About the Author
Th. Stcherbatsky (1866-1942) was one of the pioneering scholars of Buddhist Studies whoe wrote, edited and translated several works.