
Religion of No Religion is part of the Eastern Wisdom Collection. Philosophies of Asia was one of the first Essential Lecture series compiled in 1972 after Alan’s son Mark began to assemble a collection of core talks. The series serves an inspired introduction to Far Eastern ways of liberation, including Hinduism, Taoism, and Zen Buddhism.
Originally mastered for cassette the series was updated and remastered for CD in the mid-90’s and was also released to public radio as part of the Love is Wisdom program.
2.2.12 Transcending Duality
Now I want to go today into the subject of the male-female symbolism in tantric yoga. You will find that in the tantric forms, that every aspect of the Buddha has a feminine counterpart. And that not only do they have feminine counterparts, but they also have various...
2.2.11 Diamond Web
Now you know, those people you've just been listening to, chanting the sutras on Poyason [sic]. Which is the sort of ultimate center retreat in our sanctuary of Japanese practice of budgeting on a monthly on a Buddhism. [They] are a bunch of boys, who are just like...
2.2.8 Religion of No Religion Part 2
You start from noticing all the particular things and being baffled by the multiplicity and dealing with the multiplicity of things but as you go into this you discover as you understand things what do you mean when you understand things it means you become aware of...
2.2.7 Religion of No Religion Part 1
I was discussing last night, the Bodhisattva doctrine in Mahayana Buddhism, and comparing it, or relating it to, the two great tendencies in Indian spirituality. Anti worldliness,or other worldliness. Affirmation and showing how, the idea that the highest kind of a...
2.2.6 Buddhism as Dialogue Part 2
And so, all these powers are projected upon the Zen Master. He is a Buddha, he is a master of life. And if he is, the reason why is this, that he has discovered the unreality of the whole problem. There is not life on the one hand, and you on the other. It's all the...
2.2.5 Buddhism as Dialogue Part 1
Now I hope you remember that this morning, I was trying in the brief space of fifteen minutes, to give you a basic introduction to Mahayana Buddhism. The kind of Buddhism that is found in China and Japan, and the kind of Buddhism of which Zen Buddhism in particular is...
2.2.4 The Middle Way Part 2
But if you see that it's futile, then you can let go. Don't try to cling. Relax. And if you do that, you're in the state of nirvana. And you become a Buddha. And of course it means that you become a rather astonishing person. You may of course be subtle about it and...
2.2.3 The Middle Way Part 1
I want to start by reemphasizing the point that what are called the religions of the east, the ones we're discussing Hinduism, Buddhism and Chinese Taoism, they don't involve that you believe in anything specific. And they don't involve any idea obedience to...
2.2.2 Journey to India Part 2
In talking about Buddhism in past seminars, I explain that it's absolutely fundamental to an understanding of Buddhism to recognise that its whole method of teaching is dialectic. That is to say, it consists of a dialogue between a teacher and a student. And the...
2.2.1 Journey to India Part 1
Now then, we have to get on to Buddhism. And in order to introduce Buddhism, it's necessary to remember the whole background of the world view of India. In other words, what we're going to study first of all to understand Buddhism, is Indian cosmology. Just as you...
2.2.10 Wisdom of the Mountains Part 2
I want to draw your attention to the fact that um, very vivid Tibetan painting has a curious way of creating a state of mind if you really start looking at it, that I can only call psychedelic. I don't know anything else quite like it. As you get into the detail of it...
2.2.9 Wisdom of the Mountains Part 1
Now this seminar this weekend concerns a subject which is so alien from anything that we understand in the West, that it may stretch our skulls a little. I don't know. That as Westerners face certain forms of Mahayana Buddhism from the outside, they see what reminds...