Insight meditation; which claims to offer practitioners a chance to escape all suffering by perceiving the true nature of reality; is one of the most popular forms of meditation today. The Theravada Buddhist cultures of South and Southeast Asia often see it as the Buddha’s most important gift to humanity. In the first book to examine how this practice came to play such a dominant—and relatively recent—role in Buddhism; Erik Braun takes readers to Burma; revealing that Burmese Buddhists in the colonial period were pioneers in making insight meditation indispensable to modern Buddhism.Braun focuses on the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw; a pivotal architect of modern insight meditation; and explores Ledi’s popularization of the study of crucial Buddhist philosophical texts in the early twentieth century. By promoting the study of such abstruse texts; Braun shows; Ledi was able to standardize and simplify meditation methods and make them widely accessible—in part to protect Buddhism in Burma after the British takeover in 1885. Braun also addresses the question of what really constitutes the “modern†in colonial and postcolonial forms of Buddhism; arguing that the emergence of this type of meditation was caused by precolonial factors in Burmese culture as well as the disruptive forces of the colonial era. Offering a readable narrative of the life and legacy of one of modern Buddhism’s most important figures; The Birth of Insight provides an original account of the development of mass meditation.
#728421 in Books 2016-09-28Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x 1.30 x 6.00l; .0 #File Name: 022638831X336 pages
Review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Impact of Change on NewarkBy Donald RabigHaving grown up in Newark's neighboring city of Elizabeth in a public housing project built just prior to WWII; a city that shared many of the same issues of suburban flight; loss of manufacturing jobs; and areas of stubborn poverty. It was significantly smaller with a population just over 100;000. There were distinctive ethnic and racial neighborhoods as in Newark. As a child growing up in the 1950's I recall it being a treat to take the bus to Newark for occasional shopping trips to Bamberger's or S. Klein's. My first job out of high school was in the mail department in the headquarters building of Prudential Insurance Co. By the time of the period covered in the book I no longer lived in Elizabeth but still had relatives who did.I think the author presented a very well-documented account of the impact of the civil rights movement; migration to the city; the flight of long time residents to the suburbs and the effect of the politics on the outcomes of the war on poverty; as well as; the election of black leaders to the position of mayor.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A Magisterial Study of Urban HistoryBy R. StuartJulia Rabig's 'The Fixers -- Devolution; Development Civil Society in Newark; 1960-1990' -- complellingly written and conceptually sophisticated -- is a magisterial study of the confluence of the Black civil rights struggle and urban history. Though the book is the well-told story of a single city -- with sidebars on Chicago; Cleveland; and other cities with similar problems; Dartmouth Professor Rabig has as well brought forth a superb comparative history of American urban politics in the last half of the 20th century.Newark provides the ideal case study of the Civil Rights Movement as it moved North; encountering more subtle forms of crypto-racism and de facto segregation embedded in the urban fabric. The city experienced Black migration; urban ghettoization; suburbanization; white flight; and crippling de-industrialization. In the ensuing Black struggle with white power structures -- for decent housing and jobs -- the ultimate prize was power itself; the political power to deliver the goods.Federal funding for low income public housing; nominally labeled 'urban renewal' became -- in fact -- urban removal; while good jobs on the construction sites still eluded Blacks due to the collusion of a white troika -- building trades unions; contractors; and the developers. LBJ's attention was divided; he had chosen to fight a costly two-front war -- in Vietnam and on the domestic poverty front. Added to the problem; the federal War on Poverty as well as state legislation enacted to alleviate the disparities; often fell victim to implementation sabotage -- with even the courts unable to assure timely compliance.Over time; the cumulative erosive effects of discrimination; displacement; and high Black unemployment; combined with familiar police repression; led in '67 to the Newark uprising; a collective act of deep socio-political grievance. Enter the fixers; the activists at the heart of Julia Rabig's study. She has employed the term 'fixer' positively as a constructive factor in Newark's story. Fixers represented human agency in the political and legal labyrinths of urban politics. They served as reform advocates; navigators of racial and class divides; forgers of alliances; and; when necessary; agitators.A fixer needed the social skills to tack between street and conference room and moderates and radicals as well as utopian ideals and pragmatic outcomes. In the aftermath of the Newark uprising; concessions made to the Black community created new space for political maneuver into which the fixers moved. The author profiles a number of fixers in depth; including Gustav Heningburg and Pat Foley. Heningburg skillfully shuttled between Black moderates and radicals; as well as white progressives and government bureaucrats. Foley; a white Catholic activist and mother of 8; worked tirelessly to narrow the gap between Newark's suburban whites and urban Blacks; epitomizing the art of the fixer as immersion activism.Concluding her monumental study; Professor Rabig argues persuasively that Newark's fixers "altered the calculus of urban policy" (19); engendering a "fixer ethos that shaped urban development on a national scale even as they remained locally focused." (232)
