Though fascinated with the land of their tradition's birth, virtually no Japanese Buddhists visited the Indian subcontinent before the nineteenth century. In the richly illustrated "Seeking Sakyamuni", Richard M. Jaffe reveals the experiences of the...

The past couple of decades have witnessed Buddhist communities both continuing the modernization of Buddhism and questioning some of its limitations. In this fascinating portrait of a rapidly changing religious landscape, Ann Gleig illuminates the as...

Leading Buddhist scholar Sam van Schaik explores the history and essence of Zen, based on a new translation of one of the earliest surviving collections of teachings by Zen masters. These teachings, titled "The Masters and Students of the Lanka", wer...

An essential collection of Stephen Batchelor's most probing and important work on secular Buddhism. As the practice of mindfulness permeates mainstream Western culture, more and more people are engaging in a traditional form of Buddhist meditation....

How did the U.S. government make use of a "Buddhist policy" in Southeast Asia during the Cold War despite the American principle that the state should not meddle with religion? To answer this question, Eugene Ford delved deep into an unprecedented ra...

To the Western imagination, Tibet evokes exoticism, mysticism, and wonder: a fabled land removed from the grinding onslaught of modernity, spiritually endowed with all that the West has lost. Originally published in 1998, "Prisoners of Shangri-La" pr...

In the year 721, a young Buddhist monk named Hyecho set out from the kingdom of Silla, on the Korean peninsula, on what would become one of the most extraordinary journeys in history. Sailing first to China, Hyecho continued to what is today Vietnam,...

Over the past few decades, Daoism has become a recognizable part of Western "alternative" spiritual life. Now, that Westernized version of Daoism is going full circle, traveling back from America and Europe to influence Daoism in China. "Dream Tri...

For curious readers young and old, a rich and colorful history of religion from humanity's earliest days to our own contentious times In an era of hardening religious attitudes and explosive religious violence, this book offers a welcome antidote. Ri...

Written in Kashmir around 400 CE, Haribhatta's Jatakamala is a remarkable example of classical Sanskrit literature in a mixture of prose and verse that for centuries was known only in its Tibetan translation. But between 1973 and 2004 a large portion...