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Having noted the absence of happiness in human life, a group of scholars began to look for a way to attain this happiness. They could put their hands on the core of happiness by means of physical laws, so that they could reach it by following such a set of laws! However… Can worldly scientific laws, however great they may be, control happiness, make it surrender to them, and allow itself to be harnessed by their reins?! Are they able to help people actually taste happiness, so that the earth will become a garden of paradise?! How great this achievement would be, if only they could do it!...

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Han-shan, the Master of Cold Mountain, and his friend Shi-te, lived in the late-eighth to early-ninth century AD, in the sacred T’ien-t’ai Mountains of Chekiang Province, south of the bay of Hangchow. The two laughing friends, holding hands, come and go, but mostly go, dashing into the wild, careless of others’ reality, secure in their own. As Han-shan himself says, his Zen is not in the poems. Zen is in the mind....

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This book introduces Buddhism by describing its approach to spiritual development and those who undertake the Buddhist path. It aims to make Buddhism more easily understood by those who might be unfamiliar with its objectives – and this task is made easier by the pragmatic ways in which Buddhism meets our enduring urge for happiness. Among the various spiritual traditions that have been developed over the past three thousand years to relieve humans of their suffering and distress, Buddhism is perhaps the most methodical, practical and comprehensive. As a function of its essential tolerance and loving kindness, the Buddhist tradition is expressed in a variety of forms that recognise different individual needs, and diverse cultural environments throughout the world. Our appreciation of this tradition, as it expands in the West, will increase as we understand some of its insights and key principles of spiritual development....

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Table of Contents Chapter 1 What is Buddhism? Understanding Human Happiness Chapter 2 What is a Buddhist? How to Recognise a Buddhist When You Meet One Chapter 3 The Buddha: The Archetype of Human Development Chapter 4 The Dharma: The True Nature of Reality and How to See It Chapter 5 The Sangha: Friendship and Inspiration for the Journey 3 Chapter 6 Ethics: Good Actions Beget Good Actions Chapter 7 Meditation: Practicing Concentration for Developing Insight Chapter 8 Buddhism in Modern Society: Addressing the Big Human Issues Some Introductory Books on Buddhism...

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Described as ‘unique and a great service to understanding’, this book is intended for three groups; Western Buddhists, that bulk of the West that have no religious affiliation yet know there is something more to life, and Buddhists in Asia who follow the encounter of the dharma with the West. It highlights the pervasive similarities in the teachings of Jesus and the Buddha as they were probably originally presented. In its six chapters and appendix, it compares the two great teachers, the Buddha and Jesus, briefly charts the process by which experts have produced words readily attributed to Jesus and presents a Buddhist ‘imitation’ of these words based on the hypothetical ‘Sayings of Jesus’. It then considers congruence between the Buddha’s and Jesus’ teachings before offering both Buddhist and Christian interpretations. An appendix re-presents the Buddhist imitation of Jesus’ words as a continuous text. Dr. Falvey introduces his work ... ‘Jesus speaking the Buddha’s words’ exudes audacity and ignorance, yet this work essentially wrote itself as a product of my socialization, a modicum of Christian theological study and its ...

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References Appendix TABLE OF CONTENTS Two Great Teachers Towards a Personal Gospel A Buddhist Imitation of Jesus’ Words The ‘Sayings of Jesus’ ‘Q’ Better Good News? A Christian Interpretation of Buddhism A Buddhist Imitation of Jesus’ Words – Continuous...

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Collections of original poetry in the mainstream European tradition.

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I: The Depths Outside Goldcrest Fences Civilisation Doorway No Silence Un-Confessional Deer Inattention City Meditation Absence All Kinds Hill-Fort Whitethorn Earth-Flame That Strain, That Churning Un-Managed Alone Find Silence Going Owl-Cries II: The Citadel of Mind Ancestral Mapping Wilderness As Selves River Things The More And Less Mind-Clothes Every Child Intense Denial Hawk in Winter Abyss To Know Is Not To Feel Patience Not As It Seems Candle Transformation Moment Beauty Yearning III: The Sacred House Going Beyond Give After Them Open, More Open Life Is Coming From Cyllene Sacred House Tangles Cycle Few Sea Voices Not For Ever Others’ Hands Face to Face Over and Under Pupa Muse Mouth Refuge Involution Poetry For those IV: Values An Die Geliebte Values of Light Dark-Light Once Only Aspire Falling Back Blade of Tao Leaves Mercy Flute Falling Time Blind Truth Deneb, Great Star Deepening She Scorpius Work It Meta-Fear Naming Moon-Fog Index Of First Lines...

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From the One and the same Light, the entire universe came into existence. How can there be good or bad among them? Sri Guru Granth Sahib is a unique religious and philosophical treatise. It contains divinely revealed Word and is written in a simple and readily understandable language. The beauty and splendour of Sri Guru Granth Sahib is that the revealed Word and reason are consistent. There are no dogmas - only universal and eternal rational beliefs and practices. The ideals, as laid down in Sri Guru Granth Sahib, are at once reasonable and desirable. These are perennial source of freedom and creativity, unique in the present day world.There are many divine messages unmistakably addressed to all mankind, which remain uniquely significant for all times, having a crucial relevance to the present time. Some of these are outlined as under....

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It is quite generally recognized that psychology has remained in the semi-mythological, semi-scholastic period longer than most attempts at scientific formulization. For a long time it has been the spook science per se, and the imagination, now analyzed by M. Ribot in such a masterly manner, has been one of the most persistent, apparently real, though very indefinite, of psychological spooks. Whereas people have been accustomed to speak of the imagination as an entity sui generis , as a lofty something found only in long-haired, wild-eyed geniuses, constituting indeed the center of a cult, our author, Prometheus-like, has brought it down from the heavens, and has clearly shown that imagination is a function of mind common to all men in some degree, and that it is shown in as highly developed form in commercial leaders and practical inventors as in the most bizarre of romantic idealists. The only difference is that the manifestation is not the same. - Albert H. N. Baron, in translator's preface to Essai sur l'imagination créatrice...

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Psychology, Religion, Philosophy

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Padre Quadrupani was an Italian priest and member of the Clerics Regular of St. Paul, also known as the Barnabites, from their association with St. Barnabas Catholic Church in Milan, Italy. Quadrupani's spirituality is based on that of the illustrious Doctor of the Church, St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622). Like St. Francis, the Padre offers spiritual advice that is practical and balanced. Perhaps it is owing to this that Quadrupani's treatise has been so well received by Catholic laypersons and has been recommended by numerous bishops over the years. This English edition, Light and Peace, is introduced by The Most Rev. Patrick John Ryan, Archbishop of Philadelphia, and bears an imprimatur. It is generously augmented with excerpts from the writings of St. Francis de Sales, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bernard, Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Philip Neri, Archbishop Francois Fenelon, Father Lorenzo Scupoli, and other spiritual authorities. (Summary by dave7)...

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Religion, Instruction

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THE TWENTY-FIRST BOOK OF THE HOLY BIBLE CONTAINING THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS TRANSLATED OUT OF THE ORIGINAL TONGUES AND WITH THE FORMER TRANSLATIONS DILIGENTLY COMPARED & REVISED SET FORTH IN 1611 AND COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE KING JAMES VERSION...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusa lem -- 2. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity -- 3. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun -- 4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever -- 5. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose -- 6. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits....

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Excerpt: The Divine Comedy, Volume Three, Paradise [Paradiso] by Dante Aligheri, trans Charles Eliot Norton.

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Contents CANTO I. Proem.?Invocation.?Beatrice and Dante ascend to the Sphere of Fire.?Beatrice explains the cause of their ascent.......................................................................................................................................................... 6 CANTO II. Proem.?Ascent to the Moon.?The cause of Spots on the Moon.?Influence of the Heavens. ........ 10 CANTO III. The Heaven of the Moon.?Spirits whose vows had been broken.?Piccarda Donati.?The Empress Constance. ............................................................................................................................................................. 13 CANTO IV. Doubts of Dante, respecting the justice of Heaven and the abode of the blessed, solved by Beatrice.? Question of Dante as to the possibility of reparation for broken vows. .............................................................. 16 CANTO V. The sanctity of vows, and the seriousness with which they are to be made or changed.?Ascent to the Heaven of Mercury.?The shade of Justinian. .........................................................................................

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Pope’s Essay on Man, a masterpiece of concise summary in itself, can fairly be summed up as an optimistic enquiry into mankind’s place in the vast Chain of Being. Each of the poem’s four Epistles takes a different perspective, presenting Man in relation to the universe, as individual, in society and, finally, tracing his prospects for achieving the goal of happiness. In choosing stately rhyming couplets to explore his theme, Pope sometimes becomes obscure through compressing his language overmuch. By and large, the work is a triumphant exercise in philosophical poetry, communicating its broad and commonplace truths in superbly balanced phrases which remind us that Pope, alas, is one of the most quoted but least read writers in English: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always To be Blest.” (Summary by Martin Geeson)...

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Literature, Poetry, Religion

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Excerpt: Preface to Fanny?s First Play. Fanny?s First Play, being but a potboiler, needs no preface. But its lesson is not, I am sorry to say, unneeded. Mere morality, or the substitution of custom for conscience was once accounted a shameful and cynical thing: people talked of right and wrong, of honor and dishonor, of sin and grace, of salvation and damnation, not of morality and immorality. The word morality, if we met it in the Bible, would surprise us as much as the word telephone or motor car. Nowadays we do not seem to know that there is any other test of conduct except morality; and the result is that the young had better have their souls awakened by disgrace, capture by the police, and a month?s hard labor, than drift along from their cradles to their graves doing what other people do for no other reason than that other people do it, and knowing nothing of good and evil, of courage and cowardice, or indeed anything but how to keep hunger and concupiscence and fashionable dressing within the bounds of good taste except when their excesses can be concealed....

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THE THIRTY-SEVENTH BOOK OF THE HOLY BIBLE CONTAINING THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS TRANSLATED OUT OF THE ORIGINAL TONGUES AND WITH THE FORMER TRANSLATIONS DILIGENTLY COMPARED & REVISED SET FORTH IN 1611 AND COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE KING JAMES VERSION...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying -- 2. Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the LORD?s house should be built -- 3. Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying -- 4. Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? -- 5 Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways....

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Kalimát-i-Maknúnih or The Hidden Words is a book written in Baghdad around 1857 by Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith. This work is written partly in Arabic and partly in Persian. The Hidden Words is written in the form of a collection of short utterances, 71 in Arabic and 82 in Persian, in which Bahá'u'lláh claims to have taken the basic essence of certain spiritual truths and written them in brief form. Bahá'ís are advised by `Abdu'l-Bahá, the son of Bahá'u'lláh to read them every day and every night and to implement its latent wisdom into their daily lives. He also said that The Hidden Words is a treasury of divine mysteries and that when one ponders its contents, the doors of the mysteries will open. The text of the Hidden Words is divided up into two sections: one from Arabic, and another from Persian. Each consist of several short, numbered passages. The Arabic has 71 passages, and the Persian has 82. This audiobook only contains the Arabic section. Each passage begins with an invocation, many of which repeat. Some common invocations include O Son of Spirit, O Son of Man, and O Son of Being. Bahá'í prayers are writte...

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Religion, Philosophy, Advice

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The history of Israel from the final years of King David's life, through the reign of his son, Solomon, to the rule of King Jehoshaphat of Judah and King Ahaziah of Israel. (Summary by Joy Chan)...

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Religion, Philosophy

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Excerpt: The First Book of Samuel, otherwise Called The First Book of the Kings, the Ninth Book of the King James Version of the Bible.

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Strauss was an early pioneer in the ongoing 'Quest of the Historical Jesus' movement, and his Life of Jesus is one of the few landmarks in the field. The first edition of Strauss' book was published in Germany in 1835, when he was only 27 years old. He focused his attention on battling two theological fronts which were current at the time - the biblical Literalists who believed the miracles in the Gospels were to be taken as literal history, and the Rationalists, who believed that the Gospel miracles were true but could be explained by natural and rational causes. Strauss rejected both camps and, in a historical analysis of the Gospels that was scrupulous and exhaustive, concluded that our knowledge of the Historical Jesus is hopelessly buried under layers of legend and myth.The price that Strauss paid for publication was high – his book scandalized Europe, and cost him his job as Chair of Theology at the University of Zurich, and ultimately his career. Dozens of books, mostly from Germany, were written in rebuttal. The school of Rationalism died in the 19th century, due in no small part to Strauss' criticism. The school of Literali...

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Philosophy, Religion

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In this book, Schweitzer traces the historical progress of 'Historical Jesus' research, from Hermann Reimarus in the mid 18th century, to William Wrede at the turn of the 20th. Schweitzer showed how Jesus' image had changed with the times and with the personal proclivities of the various authors. He concluded with his own synopsis and interpretation of what had been learned over the course of the previous century. He took the position that the life of Jesus must be interpreted in the light of Jesus' own convictions, which he characterized as those of late Jewish eschatology. (Introduction from Wikipedia, modified by JoeD)...

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Philosophy, Religion

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Christopher Kit Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564―30 May 1593) was an English dramatist, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. The foremost Elizabethan tragedian before William Shakespeare, he is known for his magnificent blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his own untimely death. The Jew of Malta (1589) is an original story of religious conflict, intrigue, and revenge, set against a backdrop of the struggle for supremacy between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean. The Jew of Malta is considered to have been a major influence on William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice . The play contains a prologue in which the character Machiavel, a Senecan ghost based on Niccolò Machiavelli, introduces the tragedy of a Jew. Thomas Heywood: The well-known dramatist of the time has included Prologues and Epilogues both for the court and the Cock-Pit theatre ...making choice of you unto whom to devote it; . (summary by David Lawrence)...

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Play, Fiction, Literature, Philosophy, Religion, Tragedy

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Excerpt: The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy, the Fifty-fourth Book of the King James Version of the Bible.