Thursday, April 24TRUSTED FEARLESS,FAIR,FRESH,FIRST NATIONAL INTERNATIONAL NEWS PORTAL

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The Global Refugee Crisis: Regional Destabilization and Humanitarian Protection
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The Global Refugee Crisis: Regional Destabilization and Humanitarian Protection

Policy-makers often mistakenly view host state security and refugee security as unrelated–or even opposing–factors. In reality, refugee protection and state stability are linked together; undermining one factor weakens the other. Policies to protect refugees, both physically and legally, reduce potential threats from the crisis and bolster state security. In general, risks of conflict are higher when refugees live in oppressive settings, lack legal income-generation options, and are denied education for their youth. Source link
Historically Rice-Farming Societies Have Tighter Social Norms in China and Worldwide
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Historically Rice-Farming Societies Have Tighter Social Norms in China and Worldwide

Premodern rice farming could plausibly create strong social norms because paddy rice relied on irrigation networks. Rice farmers coordinated their water use and kept track of each person’s labor contributions. Rice villages also established strong norms of reciprocity to cope with labor demands that were twice as high as dryland crops like wheat. In line with this theory, China’s historically rice-farming areas had tighter social norms than wheat-farming areas, even beyond differences in development and urbanization. Source link
Modern Buddhist Murals in Northern Thailand: A Study of Religious Symbols and Meaning
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Modern Buddhist Murals in Northern Thailand: A Study of Religious Symbols and Meaning

We very much doubt that most Thai Buddhists would be bothered by any need to distinguish a “miraculous” category. Their traditional religion teaches that at the highest level of enlightenment all forms are illusions; thus the whole world and everything in it can be interpreted as metaphors or “names” ultimately. Nothing in such a world can, in essence, ever be real or unreal, illogical or logical in the Western Aristotelian sense. The murals are an assertion of certain core values expressed in ancient Buddhist symbols as a defense of the totality of the religious system against perceived threats from competing modern values. [These] murals help to make Buddhist ideas concrete Source link
Hungry Ghosts
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Hungry Ghosts

@book{rotman-andy2021-hungry-ghosts, title={{H}ungry {G}hosts}, author={Andy Rotman}, publisher={Wisdom Publications}, address={Boston}, year=2021, pagecount=224, keywords={pv,avadana}, olid={OL34695884M}, ranking={rank3}, url={https://buddhistuniversity.net/content/monographs/hungry-ghosts_rotman-andy} } Source link
Verses on the Buddha’s Previous Lives
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Verses on the Buddha’s Previous Lives

May I too accomplish the transcendent perfectionOf ethical discipline, just like you! This prayer for accomplishing the transcendent perfections, attributed to Āryaśūra, is adapted from Dharmakirit’s commentary on the Jātakamālā. Covering the first four perfections, additional verses for the remaining perfections and birth stories were composed by the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje. Source link
Gleanings from the Mahāvastu
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Gleanings from the Mahāvastu

This article presents important terms found in the Mahāvastu and the varied meanings they have, which allow for a better understanding of the text. The Mahāvastu is a canonical text of early Buddhism, containing a multi-life hagiography of the Buddha Shakyamuni. Source link
Justice in the Jatakas
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Justice in the Jatakas

@article{roy-kumkum1996-justice-in-the-jatakas, title={{J}ustice in the {J}atakas}, author={Kumkum Roy}, year=1996, journal={Social Change}, volume=24, pages={23--40}, keywords={jataka,justice}, ranking={rank3}, url={https://www.academia.edu/44190461/Justice_in_the_Jatakas} } Source link
Domesticating the King: The Royal Household in Early North India
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Domesticating the King: The Royal Household in Early North India

@article{roy-kumkum1996-domesticating-the-king, title={{D}omesticating the {K}ing: {T}he {R}oyal {H}ousehold in {E}arly {N}orth {I}ndia}, author={Kumkum Roy}, year=1996, month=jun, journal={Social Change}, volume=26, number=2, pages={34--44}, keywords={jataka,setting}, doi={10.1177/0049085719960204}, ranking={rank3}, url={https://www.academia.edu/44190402/Domesticating_the_king_the_royal_household_in_early_north_India} } Source link
The Suttanipāta: An Ancient Collection of the Buddha’s Discourses Together with Its Commentaries
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The Suttanipāta: An Ancient Collection of the Buddha’s Discourses Together with Its Commentaries

WorldCat™ This fine, Copyrighted work cannot be shared directly, however WorldCat™ can help you find a copy at a nearby library or wherever you get books. 1600 pages A complete and beautiful translation of the Suttanipāta and its traditional, Pāḷi commentaries which add interesting context to the poems and explain their sometimes opaque metaphors. Source link
Lasting Inspiration
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Lasting Inspiration

For most of the women who became foremost leading disciples, or etadagga sāvikā, of the Buddha Gotama, it was not only their meeting with a past buddha, but also their seeing the Buddha together with an awakened woman, a leading bhikkhunī disciple of the Buddha, that truly stimulated their inspiration and galvanized their aspiration. This article explores the mental and emotional states of awakened women disciples of the Buddha, as recorded in the Therī Apadāna. It examines words expressing their aspiration to awakening, the resolve supporting it, and the intention’s character, drawing parallels with the Pali Canon’s equivalent of bodhicitta development. Source link
Four Apadānas
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Four Apadānas

The Buddhāpadāna further develops the concept of Buddha-field, in that it speaks of innumerable Buddha-fields in all ten directions in the multiverse. Thus the Apadānas clearly show the line of development from the concept of merit-field in the early Suttas to the Pure Land systems of later Mahāyāna. This essay features translations by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu of four Apadānas: the Buddhāpadāna, Therāpadāna 502, Therāpadāna 80, and Therāpadāna 21. He provides a concise yet insightful introduction to Apadānas in general and explains the rationale behind his selection of these particular narratives. Source link
Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imagination
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Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imagination

early Buddhist literature depicts the animal rebirth as a most “unfortunate destiny” (durgati), won through negative karma and characterized by violence, fear, suffering, and a lack of wisdom, moral agency, or spiritual potential. … major animal characters within the life-story of the Buddha [however] can be seen as “doubles” of the Buddha… For an interview with the author about this book, see The New Books Network Episode. Source link
Language, Conscious Experience and the Self in Early Buddhism A Cross-cultural Interdisciplinary Study
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Language, Conscious Experience and the Self in Early Buddhism A Cross-cultural Interdisciplinary Study

@article{polak-grzegorz2018-language-conscious-experience-and-self, title={{L}anguage, {C}onscious {E}xperience and the {S}elf in {E}arly {B}uddhism {A} {C}ross-cultural {I}nterdisciplinary {S}tudy}, author={Grzegorz Polak}, publisher={The Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies}, year=2018, month=may, journal={The Journal of the Oxford Center for Buddhist Studies}, volume=14, pages={37--76}, keywords={intellect,language}, openalex_id={W2803876787}, ranking={rank4}, url={http://jocbs.org/index.php/jocbs/article/view/181/216} } Source link
Avadāna: The Traditions about the Bodhisattva
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Avadāna: The Traditions about the Bodhisattva

@book{anandajoti2019-traditions-about-the-bodhisattva, title={{A}vadāna: {T}he {T}raditions about the {B}odhisattva}, author={Bhikkhu Ānandajoti}, editor={Handaka Vijjānanda}, publisher={Ehipassiko Foundation}, year=2019, pagecount=288, keywords={avadana,borobudur,mahayana-roots}, olid={OL57081797M}, ranking={rank3}, url={https://photodharma.net/Books/Avadana.pdf} } Source link
Of Theras and Therīs: Visions of liberation in the Early Buddhist Tradition
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Of Theras and Therīs: Visions of liberation in the Early Buddhist Tradition

@article{roy-kumkum1998-of-theras-and-theris, title={{O}f {T}heras and {T}herīs: {V}isions of liberation in the {E}arly {B}uddhist {T}radition}, author={KumKum Roy}, year=1998, journal={Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences}, volume=5, number=2, pages={5--23}, keywords={tg,characters}, ranking={rank3}, url={http://14.139.58.200/ojs/index.php/shss/article/view/591/560} } Source link
Prince Sudhana And The Kinnarī: An Indian Love-story in Ajanta
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Prince Sudhana And The Kinnarī: An Indian Love-story in Ajanta

Visiting the caves of Ajanta in October 1969, I had the pleasure to identify another artistic representation of the Sudhana story. Once upon a time the country of Pāñcāla was divided into two kingdoms. The king of North Pāñcāla was righteous, while the king of South Pāñcāla was wicked. … Source link
Fields of Life and Death: Cholangiocarcinoma, Food Consumption, and Masculinity in Buddhist Rural Thailand
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Fields of Life and Death: Cholangiocarcinoma, Food Consumption, and Masculinity in Buddhist Rural Thailand

The Mekong region presents a record incidence of cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer). Scientists identify correlations between the development of this aggressive disease and the consumption of raw fish in local dishes. While made aware of these correlations by comprehensive health campaigns, some villagers in Thailand’s notoriously neglected Northeast refuse to cook the fish before consumption Based on ethnographic data, this paper suggests that practices surrounding the consumption of raw food in the area have become taboo. Rather than disappearing, they now play a key role in bonding rituals where rural masculinities are expressed via spectacles of risk taking that transgress normative ideals of manhood as epitomised by urban men and Buddhist monks. Source link
The Fourth Decade of the Avadānaśataka
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The Fourth Decade of the Avadānaśataka

I here present a translation of the fourth decade (stories 31-40) of the Avadānaśataka, using Speyer’s 1906-1909 edition as my base text. While the jātakas of the second decade focus upon karmic backstories for positive events in the Buddha’s final life, in the fourth decade we find a stronger focus on the character of the Buddha-to-be as he practices the many virtues required for the attainment of Buddhahood. In that sense the stories are much closer to the jātakas of the Pāli tradition, and indeed several of the stories are also found in the Jātakatthavaṇṇanā as well as other early Buddhist narrative collections. Source link
Nirvāṇa in Early Buddhist Inscriptions
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Nirvāṇa in Early Buddhist Inscriptions

Surveying pre-Gupta inscriptions, it becomes clear that the aspiration for nirvana has one recurring feature attached to it; the aspiration of the donor for the attainment of nirvana occurs when the donation is connected in some way or another to the relics or figural or non-figural representations of the historical Buddha. The same ideas can be seen emerging in the later canonical Pali Apadana, and connect to developments in the emergence of Mahayana. Source link
The Second Decade of the Avadānaśataka
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The Second Decade of the Avadānaśataka

Despite its richness as a source for one of the lost schools of Indian Buddhism (the Sarvāstivāda), and its potential contributions to our understanding of the development of narrative and ideology in early Buddhism more generally, the Avadānaśataka has never been fully translated into English. Source link
Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults
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Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults

The more people used Facebook at one time point, the worse they felt the next time we text-messaged them; the more they used Facebook over two-weeks, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time. On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. Rather than enhancing well-being, however, these findings suggest that Facebook may undermine it. Source link
Latina/o Conversion and Miracle-Seeking at a Buddhist Temple
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Latina/o Conversion and Miracle-Seeking at a Buddhist Temple

like the Soka Gakkai cases, our respondents appear to be searching for miracles and spiritual fulfillment that they were not receiving by engaging solely in Christian practices. Although they might be considered “free riders” through a rational choice lens, Master Chu actually encourages this behavior How a Vietnamese monk in Houston, Texas successfully attracted a Latino following. Source link