Bøker av John Powers

This is the most comprehensive and authoritative introduction to Tibetan Buddhism available to date, covering a wide range of topics, including history, doctrines, meditation, practices, schools, religious festivals, and major figures. The revised edition contains expanded discussions of recent Tibetan history and tantra and incorporates important new publications in the field. Beginning with a summary of the Indian origins of Tibetan Buddhism and how it eventually was brought to Tibet, it explores Tibetan Mahayana philosophy and tantric methods for personal transformation. The four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as Bön, are explored in depth from a nonsectarian point of view. This new and expanded edition is a systematic and wonderfully clear presentation of Tibetan Buddhist views and practices.

Historical Dictionary of Tibet, Second Edition contains a chronology, a glossary, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on important personalities as well as aspects of the country's politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture.

In this unique city, itΓÇÖs less ΓÇ£Welcome to BostonΓÇ¥ and more welcome Boston to you. From street names to driving customs to weather, nothing is as it is wherever you call home, and the locals are proud of it. Boston writer, John Powers, turned his experience of living in Boston for over fifty years into this fun yet practical guide which brings visitors into the real Boston. Fresh with Peter WallaceΓÇÖs animated illustrations, The Boston Handbook gives the inside scoop on everything from transportation to cuisine to architecture to weather. From front to back, there are tips on how to navigate the city (the West End doesnΓÇÖt exist), how to understand Bostonians (Harvard Yard is Hahvid Yahd, and no, youΓÇÖre the one with the accent), and how and why Boston has always been ahead of the rest of the USA

The androgynous, asexual Buddha of contemporary popular imagination stands in stark contrast to the muscular, virile, and sensual figure presented in Indian Buddhist texts. In early Buddhist literature and art, the Buddha s perfect physique and sexual prowess are important components of his legend as the world s ultimate man. He is both the scholarly, religiously inclined brahman and the warrior ruler who excels in martial arts, athletic pursuits, and sexual exploits. The Buddha effortlessly performs these dual roles, combining his society s norms for ideal manhood and creating a powerful image taken up by later followers in promoting their tradition in a hotly contested religious marketplace. In this groundbreaking study of previously unexplored aspects of the early Buddhist tradition, John Powers skillfully adapts methodological approaches from European and North American historiography to the study of early Buddhist literature, art, and iconography, highlighting aspects of the tradition that have been surprisingly invisible in earlier scholarship. The book focuses on the figure of the Buddha and his monastic followers to show how they were constructed as paragons of masculinity, whose powerful bodies and compelling sexuality attracted women, elicited admiration from men, and convinced skeptics of their spiritual attainments."