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Spiritual disciplines often seen remote from the realities of our daily lives. Yet there is a Mahayana Scripture which presents a model of enlightened practice in the midst of urban living, the Vimalakirti Sutra. This teaches a nondualistic wisdom and reconciliation of dichotomies. It challenges ordinariness and reveals systematic and effective ways of tapping higher potentials while upholding one's usual responsibilities and enriching long-term relationships. Robert Thurman examines one of the most sacred texts of Mahayana Buddhism, The Vimalakirti-nirdesha Sutra. To any Buddhist practitioner, particularly those of Vajrayana Buddhism and Zen, this sutra is of the utmost importance. Unlike most sutras, its central figure is not a Buddha, but an ordinary man, who, in his mastery of the doctrine and religious practice, personifies the ideal lay believer, assuring commoners that they can reach levels of spiritual attainment comparable to those accessible to monks. The sutra teaches, among other subjects, the meaning of non-duality Thurman discusses the background of the sutra, its place in the development of Buddhist thought, and the profundities of its principal doctrine: emptiness. The Yoga of Ordinary Living, Robert Thurman, Better Listen!, 6 CD, 7 Hours 4 Minutes, 2014, $19.99
Robert A. F. Thurman is Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University in New York City, where he has taught since 1988. He holds the first endowed chair in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in America. He received Upasika ordination in 1964 and Vajracharya ordination in 1971, both from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Among the foremost Buddhologists and interpreters of Tibet and its Buddhist civilization; he is also an ordained Buddhist layman. He is a cofounder of Tibet House in New York City, a cultural nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the endangered civilization of Tibet. Robert Thurman is the author of Essential Tibetan Buddhism (1996); Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness (1998), Circling the Sacred Mountain (1999), Why the Dalai Lama Matters (2008), and many other original books and translations of sacred Tibetan texts.
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