Meditations of the Pali Tradition

Illuminating Buddhist Doctrine, History, and Practice

By L. S. Cousins
Edited by Sarah Shaw

$24.95
SKU
9781611809879
- Paperback
Available
Shambhala Publications
09/27/2022
Pages: 336
Size: 5.5 x 8.5
ISBN: 9781611809879
Details

This book is included in our guide to some of the great books on the Buddhism from the Pali tradition


A groundbreaking and detailed presentation of the systems of meditation that have come to us through the Pali tradition of Buddhism.

The meditation practices associated with modern Theravāda Buddhism derive from a lineage that dates to the time of the Buddha himself, yet the development and transmission of these practices across centuries is varied and not widely understood. Drawing on a lifetime of research, scholar L. S. Cousins untangles the complex history. With authoritative explication of a range of Buddhist texts preserved primarily in the Pali language—canonical discourses, commentarial treatises, and rare meditation manuals—Cousins explores a multiplicity of meditation practices that have developed over the past two and a half millennia, from the jhāna (absorption) and vipassanā (insight) methods that constitute the core of modern Theravāda practice to lesser-known, esoteric practice lineages of Central and Southeast Asia that were nearly lost to history.