Bhikkhu Bodhi

Karel Werner

Peter Skilling

David McMahan

Jeffrey Samuels

Bhikkhu Anālayo

This book brings together six essays on the origin and history of the bodhisattva ideal and the emergence of the Mahāyana. The essays approach the subject from different perspectives—from scholarly examinations of the terms in the Nikayas and Agamas to the relationship of the bodhisattva ideal and the arahant ideal within the broader context of the social environment in which Mahayana formed and further developments that lead to the formulation of the fully fledged bodhisattva path. As such, the collection provides a good overview for a wider Buddhist readership of the history of changes that eventually led to the emergence of the Mahayana. “Arahants, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas”, by Bhikkhu Bodhi“The Bodhisattva Ideal in Theravāda Theory and Practice”, by Jeffrey Samuels“Bodhi and Arahattaphala From Early Buddhism to Early Mahāyāna”, by Karel Werner“Vaidalya, Mahāyāna, and Bodhisatva in India: An Essay Towards Historical Understanding”, by Peter Skilling“The Evolution of the Bodhisattva concept in Early Buddhist Canonical Literature”, by Bhikkhu Anālayo“Orality, writing and authority in South Asian Buddhism: Visionary Literature and the Struggle for Legitimacy in the Mahāyāna”, by David McMahan

Essays on the Emergence of Mahayana

The Bodhisattva Ideal

Erik Braun

The scientific study of Buddhist forms of meditation has surged in recent years, capturing the popular imagination and reshaping conceptions of what meditation is and what it can do. For perhaps the first time in history, meditation has shifted from Buddhist monasteries and practice centers to some of the most prominent and powerful modern institutions in the world, as well as non-institutional settings. As their contexts change, so do the practices-sometimes drastically. New ways of thinking about meditation are emerging as it moves toward more secular settings, ways that profoundly affect millions of lives all over the world. To understand these changes and their effects, the essays in this volume explore the unaddressed complexities in the interrelations between Buddhist history and thought and the scientific study of meditation. The contributors bring philosophical, cultural, historical, and ethnographic perspectives to bear, considering such issues as the philosophical presuppositions behind practice, the secularization of meditation, the values and goods assumed in clinical approaches, and the sorts of subjects that take shape under the influence of these transformed and transformative practices-all the more powerful for being so often formulated with the authority of scientific discourse.

Meditation, Buddhism, and Science

David McMahan

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