{"product_id":"buddhism-and-the-senses-a-guide-to-the-good-and-bad-9781614298908","title":"Buddhism and the Senses: A Guide to the Good and Bad","description":"\u003cb\u003eAcross Buddhist traditions, the five senses--sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch--are perceived both positively and negatively. Share our eminent scholars' fascination and deep insight into what makes a sensuous experience good or bad.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFollowing on the exhibition \u003ci\u003eEncountering the Buddha: Art and Practice across Asia\u003c\/i\u003e at the National Museum of Asian Art, ten eminent scholars present their insights into Buddhism's fascinating relation with the five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch), which careens between delight and disgust, rarely finding a middle way. While much of Buddhist literature is devoted to overcoming the attachment that dooms us to rebirth in samsara, primarily by deprecating sense experience and showing that whatever brings us sensual pleasure leads only to physical and mental pain, in texts such as the \u003ci\u003eLotus Sutra\u003c\/i\u003e, sensory powers do not offer sensory pleasure but rather knowledge, clear observation, and ability to teach the Dharma. Considering such religiously and historically contingent ambiguity, this volume presents each of the five senses in two instantiations, the good and the bad, opening up the discourse on the senses across Buddhist traditions. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Just as the museum departed from tradition to incorporate sensory experiences into the exhibition, this volume is a new direction in scholarship to humanize Buddhist studies by foregrounding sensory experience and practice, inviting the reader to think about the senses in a focused manner and shifting our understanding of Buddhism from the conceptual to the material or practical, from the idealized to the human, from the abstract to the grounded, from the mind to the body.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRobert DeCaroli is a professor of South and Southeast Asian Art History at George Mason University. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eHaunting the Buddha: Indian Popular Religions and the Formation of Buddhism\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eImage Problems: The Origin and Development of the Buddha's Image in Early South Asia\u003c\/i\u003e, as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Recently, he co-curated \u003ci\u003eEncountering the Buddha: Art and Practice across Asia\u003c\/i\u003e at the National Museum of Asian Art. He has been awarded a Getty Research Institute Fellowship and the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Research Fellowship. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDonald Lopez is an Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. He is the author of numerous monographs, translations, and edited volumes on South Asian Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, and the European encounter with Buddhism. In 2014 his \u003ci\u003ePrinceton Dictionary of Buddhism\u003c\/i\u003e (with Robert Buswell) was awarded the Dartmouth Medal of the American Library Association for best reference work of the year. In 2000 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Wisdom Publications","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50900968898834,"sku":"9781614298908","price":28.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_0509cb98-82e2-4c0b-9b05-007e733d72c2.jpg?v=1738407767","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/buddhism-and-the-senses-a-guide-to-the-good-and-bad-9781614298908","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}