Abstract
Buddhism arose in a historical period that also saw the emergence of both a world-denying asceticism and a well-developed system of yoga. Indic religions during the Upaniṣadic period (tenth to fourth century BCE) were grappling with an array of questions concerned with how the body should be regarded: Is there some form of continuing existence after the body dies? Does liberation lie along a path of renunciation that eschews the physical and mortifies the bodily form? Is the deepest identity, the self (ātman), physical (the Jain view) or does it exist only beyond the body (a dominant Hindu view)? Does the religious path require celibacy or a full embrace of the family life?
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Notes
Mahāparinibbāna Sutta. See also, Edward J. Thomas, The Life of the Buddha as Legend and History (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1949; republished Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2000), 154–156 and David Germano and Kevin Trainor, Embodying the Dharma: Buddhist Relic Veneration in Asia. (Albany: State University of New York Press, passim).
John S. Strong, The Legend of King Aśoka: A Study and Translation of the Aśokāvadāna (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1983; republished Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989), 109–119.
Gregory Schopen, Buddhist Monks and Business Matters (University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), and Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks (University of Hawai’i Press, 1997).
John Powers, A Bull of a Man: Images of Masculinity, Sex, and the Body in Indian Buddhism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009).
Karen Christina Lang, Images of Women in Early Buddhism and Christian Gnosticism. Buddhist-Christian Studies, Volume 2 (1982), p. 98
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Elisabeth Wilson, “The Female Body as a Source of Horror and Insight in Post-Ashokan Indian Buddhism,” in Religious Reflections on the Human Body, Jane Marie Law, ed. (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1995), 76–99.
Charles Prebish, A Survey of Vinaya Literature (London: Routledge, 1994).
See, for example, Daniel Cozort, Highest Yoga Tantra: An Introduction to the Esoteric Buddhism of Tibet (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1986)
and Reginald A. Rey, Secret of the Vajra World: The Tantric Buddhism of Tibet (Boston: Shambhala, 2002).
Jeffrey Hopkins (2001) Cultivating Compassion (New York: Random House), 13.
See Jeffrey Hopkins, Meditation on Emptiness (London: Wisdom, 1983), 117–123
and Robert E. Buswell and Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 246, 587, 749–750, and 923.
Derek F. Maher and Tsering Wangchuk The Tulku Institution in Tibetan Buddhism: Past, Present, and Future Prospects of the Reincarnation System. Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism Series, Forthcoming from Wisdom Publications, 2015.
Derek F. Maher, “Two Wings of a Bird: Radical Life Extension From a Buddhist Perspective,” in Derek F. Maher and Calvin Mercer, eds., Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: How Science and Spirituality Can Serve Our World (London: Little, Brown, 2005), 5. For Stephen Jay Gould’s argument for separate magisterial, see his Rock of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 1999).
David P. Barash, Buddhist Biology: Ancient Eastern Wisdom Meets Modern Western Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Molly McElroy, “David Barash Explores Science, Religion and Meaning of Life in ‘Buddhist Biology,” UW Today, November 21, 2013. http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/11/21/david-barash-explores-science-religion-and-meaning-of-life-in-buddhist-biology/ Accessed November 30, 2013.
Mahdi La’li, A Comprehensive Exploration of the Scientific Miracles in Holy Quran (Bloomington: Trafford Publishing, 2004).
Ray Comfort, Scientific Facts in the Bible: 100 Reasons to Believe the Bible is Supernatural in Origin (Alachua, FL.: Bridge Logos Pub., 2001).
Varadaraja V. Raman, Indic Visions in an Age of Science (Bloomington: Xlibris, 2011).
Donald S. Lopez Jr., Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 12.
See also, Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Scientific Buddha: His Short and Happy Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012).
Derek F. Maher, “Two Wings of a Bird: Radical Life Extension From a Buddhist Perspective,” in Derek F. Maher and Calvin Mercer, eds., Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
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© 2014 Calvin Mercer and Derek F. Maher
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Maher, D.F. (2014). Buddhism: The Transformed Body in Buddhism. In: Mercer, C., Maher, D.F. (eds) Transhumanism and the Body. Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137342768_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137342768_2
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