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Khentrul Rinpoché (2015), A Joyful Ocean of Precious Diversity

Khentrul Rinpoche, 2015. Ocean of Diversity.Shar Khentrul Jamphel Lodrö (ཤར་མཁན་སྤྲུལ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་འཇམ་དཔལ་བློ་གྲོས); Joe Flumerfelt, ed. 2015. A Joyful Ocean of Precious Diversity: An unbiased summary of views and practices, gradually emerging from the teachings of the world’s wisdom traditions (སྣ་ཚོགས་ནོར་བུའི་རོལ་མཚོ། །རིས་མེད་འཛམ་གླིང་རིག་པའི་གཞུང་ལུགས་བྱུང་རིམ་ལྟ་གྲུབ་ཉིང་བསྡུས།།). Belgrave, Australia: Tibetan Buddhist Rimé Institute, ISBN: 9780994445308. US$24.95.

OCLC: 978641292. Official site: rimebuddhism.com

Contents:
Acknowledgments … vii
Editor’s Preface … ix
Introduction … 1

PART ONE: WORKING WITH DIVERSITY
1 The Nature of Belief … 15
2 The Rimé Philosophy … 29

PART TWO: THE WORLD'S BELIEF SYSTEMS
Systems with an Extrinsic Focus
3 Ancient Wisdom Traditions … 49
4 Hinduism … 67
5 J​udaism … 89
6 Christianity … 107
7 I​slam … 129 Continue reading “Khentrul Rinpoché (2015), A Joyful Ocean of Precious Diversity”

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Science: animals are sentient (7/7/2012)

Guess what, theists? Animals have feelings too. That’s what Cambridge scientists are now confident in saying in the wake of the recent Francis Crick Conference. Science and reason are important in a modern society, so it just became that much harder to inflict scripturally sanctioned harm on sentient beings.

This reminds me of a discussion I once had in Germany. Prof. Schmithausen, you were right to think that something was up with theistic contempt for animals. The priests you knew may have been accurate on the detail – animals don’t have souls – but they were wrong on the big picture: they don’t either. Both humans and animals have “homologous subcortical brain networks” and share “primal affective qualia”. Every body hurts; and that suppressed observation was obvious long before it became a hipster anthem.

‘Are you hungry, Buddha? Because I know how that feels.’ Ancient Buddhist story of animal sentience, illustrated in an 11th-century Newar manuscript now kept at Cambridge.
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Query: Deposit libraries for Buddhist studies

Which public libraries accept donations of scholarly books on Buddhism? I hope to facilitate the building of collections in institutions that are open to the public and support Buddhist studies. I am looking specifically for information on collections in Asia: India, peninsular Southeast Asia, China and Korea.

Please send me your recommendations, together with contact details (if you have any). This information may be compiled, entirely at my discretion, into an open list of Buddhist studies deposit libraries, unless you ask for it to be kept private. Feel free to reply either by email or in the comments.

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Ohkado et al, ‘Xenoglossy in Hypnosis’ (2010)

Inexplicable irruptions.
Inexplicable irruptions.
Xenoglossy, ‘speaking in tongues’, a phenomenon considered by some to offer evidence for reincarnation, is not widely discussed — because not widely accepted — in the scientific literature. Nonetheless, articles have recently been published on the case of a Japanese woman who converses in Nepali, a language that she has (apparently) not learned, while under hypnosis. Here’s one:

大門 正幸, 稲垣 勝巳, 末武 信宏, 岡本 聡 「退行催眠時に生じる異言とそれが示唆するもの(第29回生命情報科学シンポジウム」 (OHKADO Masayuki, INAGAKI Katsumi, SUETAKE Nobuhiro, and OKAMOTO Satoshi. On Xenoglossy Occurring in Hypnosis and What It Suggests (The 29th Symposium on Life Information Science).) Journal of International Society of Life Information Science 28 (1), 128–139, 2010.
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