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The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects PDF

156 Pages·1967·15.04 MB·English
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1i9JlmlII SS I ill ■ 11 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/secretoralteachiOOdavi_0 The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects Alexandra David-Neel and Lama Yongden Translated by Capt. H. N. M. Hardy Foreword by Alan Watts CITY LIGHTS BOOKS San Francisco ©1967 by Alexandra David-Neel CITY LIGHTS BOOKS are edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Nancy J. Peters and published atijt|ie City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133. The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects 'SHI yr i K ,k' i li I . i FOREWORD by Alan Watts For several years I have referred to this, hitherto, rare and inaccessible work as the “I-told-you-so-book,” because it has often been implied that I have invented my ex- planations of Buddhism out of thin air, thus falsifying its authentic teachings. Mme. Alexandra David-Neel is a Frenchwoman now (in 1967) one hundred years old who has travelled and studied extensively in Tibet, who adopted the lately deceased Lama Yongden as her son, and who has recorded her experiences m such ro- mantically entitled works as Initiations and Initiates in Tibet and Mystics and Magicians in Tibet, both of which first appeared in English translation in 1931. The present volume has a similarly “esoteric” title, rem- iniscent of the fantasies of fd. P. Blavatskv, Talbot Mundy, James Hilton, and “Lobsang Rampa,” who— with a very superficial knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism— have given us an image of Tibet as the secret stronghold of the most mysterious and adept masters of the occult and magical sciences, depicting the high-ranking Bud- dhist monks, or lamas, as super-tedmicians in the exer- cise of psychic powers far heyond the reach of ordinary mortals. Yet, despite the occultist flavor of its title. The Secret Oral Teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist Sects is the most direct, no-nonsense, and down-to-earth ex- planation of Mahayana Buddhism which has thus far been written. Specifically, it is a wonderfully lucid account of the Madhyamika (or “middle-way”) School of Buddhism, a method of meditation and enlightenment which was worked out sometime between 150 and 250 A.D. by the great Indian sage and pandit, Nagar- juna. More detailed and scholarly studies of this method may be found in T. R. V. Murti’s Central Philosophy of Buddhism (Allen and Unwin, London, 1955) and in Edward Conze’s marvellous translations of the Prajna- paramixa literature, published by the Buddhist Society of London. Mme. David-Neel, however, writes for the non-academic student who wants simply to practice

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This is an account of the Madhyamika (Middle Way) school of Buddhism, a method of mediation and enlightenment that was developed by the great Indian teacher Nagarjuna. In a collaboration between the Frenchwoman Alexandra David-Neel and her friend, the Tibetan lama Aphur Yongden, these teaching are p
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