The Birth of Insight

Erik Braun

45 ratings by Goodreads

Language: English

Published by The University of Chicago Press, US, 2016

022641857X / 9780226418575

Series: Book 10 of 19 - Buddhism and Modernity

  • Softcover
  • New
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Seller: Rarewaves USA, HEBRON, KY, U.S.A.Rarewaves USA

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Insight meditation, which claims to offer practitioners a chance to escape all suffering by perceiving the true nature of reality, is one of the most popular forms of meditation today. The Theravada Buddhist cultures of South and Southeast Asia often see it as the Buddha's most important gift to humanity. In the first book to examine how this practice came to play such a dominant and relatively recent role in Buddhism, Erik Braun takes readers to Burma, revealing that Burmese Buddhists in the colonial period were pioneers in making insight meditation indispensable to modern Buddhism. Braun focuses on the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw, a pivotal architect of modern insight meditation, and explores Ledi's popularization of the study of crucial Buddhist philosophical texts in the early twentieth century. By promoting the study of such abstruse texts, Braun shows, Ledi was able to standardize and simplify meditation methods and make them widely accessible in part to protect Buddhism in Burma after the British takeover in 1885.Braun also addresses the question of what really constitutes the "modern" in colonial and postcolonial forms of Buddhism, arguing that the emergence of this type of meditation was caused by precolonial factors in Burmese culture as well as the disruptive forces of the colonial era. Offering a readable narrative of the life and legacy of one of modern Buddhism's most important figures, The Birth of Insight provides an original account of the development of mass meditation.

Seller Inventory # LU-9780226418575

Title
The Birth of Insight
Author
Erik Braun
Publisher
The University of Chicago Press, US
Publication year
2016
Condition
New
Binding
Paperback
Language
English
ISBN 10
022641857X
ISBN 13
9780226418575
Item weight
397 grams
Series
Book 10 of 19: Buddhism and Modernity

Rarewaves USA

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