Charles Prebish
Daniel Cozort
Damien Keown
Charles Hallisey
David W. Chappell
Christopher Ives
Mavis Fenn
McMaster University
The paper is divided into two sections. The first focuses on an analysis of the Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta, a sutta that provides the most extensive discussion of poverty as deprivation in the Nikāyas. Poverty in this text is primarily a socio-political issue that effects the spiritual development of all members of society. The second section of the paper focuses on the notion of poverty as simplicity, a notion associated with renouncers who are akiñcana, “without anything,” “lacking possessions.” Central to this section is an analysis of the Aggañña Sutta.
L. S. Cousins
University of Manchester
This paper examines the use of kusala in the commentarial sources and finds that, although the commentators are aware of various senses of the word kusala, they tend to give primacy to meanings such as “good” or “meritorious.” A detailed examination of the canonical Pāli sources gives a rather different picture. The original meaning of kuśala (Sanskrit) in the sense with which we are concerned would then be “intelligent.” Its sense in early Buddhist literature would be “produced by wisdom.” The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the concept of puñña—”fortune-bringing action” rather than “merit.”
Gregory K. Ornatowski
Boston University
This paper offers an outline of the development of Buddhist economic ethics using examples from early Theravāda Buddhism in India and the Mahāyāna tradition as it evolved in India, medieval China, and medieval and early modern Japan, in order to illustrate the pattern of continuities and transformations these ethics have undergone. By “economic ethics” the paper refers to four broad areas: (1) attitudes toward wealth, i.e., its accumulation, use, and distribution, including the issues of economic justice and equality/ inequality; (2) attitudes toward charity, i.e., how and to whom wealth should be given; (3) attitudes toward human labor and secular occupations in society; and (4) actual economic activities of temples and monasteries which reflect the lived-practice of Buddhist communities’ economic ethics.
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Reviewed by John Powers
Zen and the Way of the Sword: Arming the Samurai Psyche. By Winston L. King. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, 265 pages, $10.95 (paper).
Reviewed by Charles B. Jones
Buddhism and Bioethics. By Damien Keown. London: Macmillan Press, and New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995, xvi+208 pages, £40 / $50.
Reviewed by James P. McDermott
Desire, Death, and Goodness: The Conflict of Ultimate Values in Theravāda Buddhism. By Grace G. Burford. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1991, xii, 213 pages, $38.95.
Reviewed by Mavis Fenn
The Five Aggregates: Understanding Theravāda Psychology and Soteriology. By Mathieu Boisvert, Editions SR Vol.17: Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion/Corporation Canadienne des Sciences Religieuses, Wilfred Laurier Press, 1995, xii +166 pages, ISBN: 0-88920-257-5, US$24.95.
Reviewed by Peter Harvey
Visions of Sukhāvatī: Shan Tao’s Commentary on the Kuan Wu-Liang-Shou-Fo. By Julian F. Pas. Albany: SUNY Press, 1995, xviii, 452 pages.
Reviewed by Charles B. Jones
The Experience of Buddhism: Sources and Interpretations. By John S. Strong. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1995, xv + 367 pages, $22.95 (paper).
Reviewed by Roger Corless
Commentary on the Thirty Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva. By HH the Dalai Lama, translated by Acārya Nyima Tsering. Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1995, x+106 pages, ISBN: 81-85102-97-X, Rs 120.
Reviewed by Jay L.Garfield
Buddhism and Language: A Study of Indo-Tibetan Scholasticism. By José Ignacio Cabezón (Foreword by Frank E. Reynolds), SUNY Series, Toward a Comparative Philosophy of Religions, Frank E. Reynolds and David Tracy, editors. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1994, xiii + 299 pages, ISBN 0-7914-1900-2 (paper).
Reviewed by Mark Siderits
The Presence of the Past: Chronicles, Politics and Culture in Sinhala Life. By Steven Kemper, The Wilder House Series in Politics, History and Culture. Ithaca, N.Y. and London: Cornell University Press, 1991, xiv +244 pages, ISBN: 0-8014-2395-3, US$29.95.
Reviewed by Nirmala S. Salgado
The Buddhists in Australia. By Enid Adam and Philip J Hughes. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1992, xii + 71 pages, ISBN 0 644 35805 X, A$9.95.
Buddhism in Western Australia: alienation or integration? By Enid Adam, published by the author (eadam@echidna.stu.cowan.edu.au), x + 224 pages, ISBN 0 646 25136 8, A$19.95.
Reviewed by Helen Waterhouse
Sexuality in Ancient India: A Study Based on the Pali Vinayapiṭaka. By L.P.N. Perera. Kelaniya, Sri Lanka: The Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies, 1993.
Reviewed by Tessa Bartholomeusz
Ethics in Early Buddhism. By David J. Kalupahana. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995, ix +171 pages, ISBN: 0-8248-1702-8, US$27.00, cloth.
Reviewed by Peter Harvey
Old Wisdom in the New World. By Paul Numrich. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press, 1996, xxiv + 181 pages, ISBN 0-87049-905-X, $25 (cloth).
Reviewed by Martin Baumann
Buddhism in a Foreign Land: Essays on Meditation. By Robert Mann. Bradford on Avon: Aukana, 1996, 160 pages, £7.50.
Reviewed by Amadeo Solé-Leris
The Awakening of the West: The Encounter of Buddhism and Western Culture. By Stephen Batchelor. London: Aquarian, 1994, xvi, 416 pages, ISBN 0-938077-69-4 (paper), $ 18.00, 0-938077-68-6 (cloth), $ 30.00.
Reviewed by Adriano Lanza