The Life of Milarepa

Author:
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0140193502
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
The Life of Milarepa is the most beloved story of the Tibetan people amd one of the greatest source books for the contemplative life in all world literature. This biography, a true folk tale from a culture now in crisis, can be read on several levels: a personal and moving introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, it is also a profoundly detailed guidebook in the search for consciousness. It presents the quest for spiritual perfection, tracing the path of a great sinner who became a great saint. But it is also a powerful and graphic folk tale, full of magic, disaster, feuds, deceptions, and humor. This definitive translation, originally published in 1977, was the first to appear in any Western language in half a century and renders this classic of spiritual literature into a simple modern English that reflects the direct power of the original.

Tibet's Great Yogī Milarepa

Author: W. Y. Evans-Wentz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199840172
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
This life story of Milarepa--the important Tibetan religious leader who lived over 800 years ago--is part of a remarkable four-volume series on Tibetan Buddhism produced by the late W.Y. Evans-Wentz, all four of which are being published by Oxford in new editions. While there are many parochial differences among the several sects of Tibetan Buddhism, each holds the Great Yogi Milarepa in the highest reverence and esteem. For exemplified in Milarepa's life, as we discover in these pages, are all of the teachings of the great yogis of India--including those of Gautama the Buddha, the greatest yogi known to history. Amid his detailed introductory and explanatory notes for this text, Evans-Wentz also reveals compelling similarities between the life and thought of Milarepa and those of Jesus, Gandhi, and "saints...in ancient China, or India, or Babylonia, or Egypt, or Rome, or in our own epoch." In composing this translation from the original Tibetan, the late Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup, who was Evans-Wentz's guru for many years, aimed to show Western readers "one of our great teachers as he actually lived...much of which is couched in the words of his own mouth, and the remainder in the words of his disciple Rechung, who knew him in the flesh." For this third edition, Donald S. Lopez, author of Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West, has written a critical foreword that updates and contextualizes this crucial part of Evans-Wentz's scholarship within the yoga tradition.

The Life of Milarepa

Author: Tsangnyön Heruka
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101459042
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
One of the most beloved stories of the Tibetan people and a great literary example of the contemplative life The Life of Milarepa, a biography and a dramatic tale from a culture now in crisis, can be read on several levels. A personal and moving introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, it is also a detailed guide to the search for liberation. It presents a quest for purification and buddhahood in a single lifetime, tracing the path of a great sinner who became a great saint. It is also a powerfully evocative narrative, full of magic, miracles, suspense, and humor, while reflecting the religious and social life of medieval Tibet. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa

Author: Tsangnyön Heruka
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834840502
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 838

Book Description
An authoritative new translation of the complete Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, the teaching songs and stories from Tibet's most beloved Buddhist yogi, poet, and saint. Powerful and deeply inspiring, there is no book more beloved by Tibetans than The Hundred Thousand Songs, and no figure more revered than Milarepa, the great eleventh-century poet and saint. An ordinary man who, through sheer force of effort, faith, and perseverance, overcame nearly insurmountable obstacles on the spiritual path to achieve enlightenment in a single lifetime, he stands as an exemplar of what it is to lead a spiritual life. Milarepa, a cotton-clad yogi, wandered and taught the dharma, most famously through spontaneously composed songs, a colorful and down-to-earth way to convey the immediacy and depth of the Buddhist teachings. In this work, the songs are woven into a narrative that tells the stories of his most famous encounters with his students, including Gampopa and Rechungpa, and recount his victories over supernatural forces in the remote Himalayan mountains and caves where he meditated. In this authoritative new translation, prepared under the guidance of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Christopher Stagg brilliantly brings to life the teachings of this extraordinary man. This classic of world literature is important for its narrative alone but is also a key contribution for those who seek inspiration for the spiritual path.

The Life of Marpa the Translator

Author: Tsangnyön Heruka
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834840987
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
Marpa the Translator, the eleventh-century farmer, scholar, and teacher, is one of the most renowned saints in Tibetan Buddhist history. In the West, Marpa is best known through his teacher, the Indian yogin Nâropa, and through his closest disciple, Milarepa. This lucid and moving translation of a text composed by the author of The Life of Milarepa and The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa documents the fascinating life of Marpa, who, unlike many other Tibetan masters, was a layman, a skillful businessman who raised a family while training his disciples. As a youth, Marpa was inspired to travel to India to study the Buddhist teachings, for at that time in Tibet, Buddhism had waned considerably through ruthless suppression by an evil king. The author paints a vivid picture of Marpa's three journeys to India: precarious mountain passes, desolate plains teeming with bandits, greedy customs-tax collectors. Marpa endured many hardships, but nothing to compare with the trials that ensued with his guru Nâropa and other teachers. Yet Marpa succeeded in mastering the tantric teachings, translating and bringing them to Tibet, and establishing the Practice Lineage of the Kagyüs, which continues to this day.

The Yogin and the Madman

Author: Andrew Quintman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231535538
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 331

Book Description
Tibetan biographers began writing Jetsun Milarepa's (1052–1135) life story shortly after his death, initiating a literary tradition that turned the poet and saint into a model of virtuosic Buddhist practice throughout the Himalayan world. Andrew Quintman traces this history and its innovations in narrative and aesthetic representation across four centuries, culminating in a detailed analysis of the genre's most famous example, composed in 1488 by Tsangnyön Heruka, or the "Madman of Western Tibet." Quintman imagines these works as a kind of physical body supplanting the yogin's corporeal relics.

Drinking the Mountain Stream

Author: Jetsun Milarepa
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0861718372
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
Jetsun Milarepa, Tibet's renowned and beloved saint, is known for his penetrating insights, wry sense of humor, and ability to render any lesson into spontaneous song. His songs and poems exhibit the bold, inspirational leader as he guided followers along the Buddhist path. More than any other collection of his stories and songs, Drinking the Mountain Stream reveals Milarepa's humor and wisdom. Faithfully translated by Lama Kunga Rinpoche and Brian Cutillo, this rare collection - never before available in any Western language - cuts across the centuries to bring Milarepa's most inspiring verses, in all their potency, to today's reader.

Liberation in One Lifetime

Author: Francis V. Tiso
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583947949
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 433

Book Description
Milarepa (1052-1135), a major figure in the history of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and known as one of Tibet's greatest lamas and poets, continues to inspire Buddhist practitioners worldwide to the present day. Liberation in One Lifetime explores the history and spirituality of the Kagyu lineage in relationship to the narratives and teachings attributed to Milarepa by studying some of the earliest versions of these materials. Offering a detailed analysis of the biographical material that has been written about Milarepa (who was also a student of Marpa, a major figure in the development of the Bka'-brgyud-pa school of Tibetan Buddhism), author, theologian, and well-respected Tibetan Buddhist scholar, Francis V. Tiso, describes the historical context of the tradition of hagiography (biography) in Buddhism and other spiritual traditions, and provides a history of Milarepa's influence in Tibet. Part One explains the tradition of composing stories about Milarepa's life and teachings (there have been many throughout the centuries) and includes outlines of the contents of some of them as well as an explanation of the oral versions that have been transmitted via oral epic songs and poems that Milarepa composed. Describing the spiritual components of Bka'-brgyud-pa, Part Two includes tantric practices, an outline for the path of liberation, definitions of "voidness," and the characteristics of fully enlightened Buddhahood. Part Three includes translated biographies and oral teachings of Milarepa (in poetic form) that are considered sacred texts. The book also includes a foreword by Roberto Vitali, a prominent Tibetan Buddhist scholar as well as an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

The Life of Gampopa

Author: Jampa Mackenzie Stewart
Publisher: Snow Lion
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 204

Book Description
A concluding essay on mahamudra introduces Vajrayana buddhism to beginners, while simultaneously supporting advanced practitioners with fresh insights.

Rainbow Body and Resurrection

Author: Francis V. Tiso
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583947957
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 409

Book Description
A leading authority on the rainbow body traces its history in the encounter of religions in medieval Central Asia, exploring a previously unimagined connection between early Dzogchen and the resurrection of Jesus Francis V. Tiso, a noted authority on the rainbow body, explores this manifestation of spiritual realization in a wide-ranging and deeply informed study of the transformation of the material body into a body of light. Seeking evidence on the boundary between physical science and deep spirituality that might elucidate the resurrection of Jesus, he investigates the case of Khenpo A Chö, a Buddhist monk who died in eastern Tibet in 1999. Rainbow Body and Resurrection chronicles the dissolution of Khenpo's material body within a week of his death, including eye-witness interviews. Tiso describes the spiritual practices that give rise to the rainbow body and traces their history deep into the encounter of religions in medieval Central Asia. His erudite exploration of the Tibetan phenomenon raises the fascinating question of whether there is a connection between the rainbow body and the dying and rising of Jesus. Drawing on a wealth of recent research, Tiso expands his discussion to include the contemplative geography out of which Dzogchen arose some time in the eighth century along the great Silk Road across Central Asia. The result is an illuminating consideration of previously unimagined relationships between spiritual practices and beliefs in Central Asia.