Great Saint Research Articles

Solitary Retreat in American Buddhism and Buddhist-Christian Dialogue

Intensive meditation has always been a central feature of Buddhism, even if it has been variously practiced. Such is not the case with the Christian tradition. Learning about intensive meditation in the Buddhist tradition-its history, theory, and practice-can helpfully inform Christians who may discover useful parallels. One way to begin this discovery is to read about a typical one-month Buddhist meditation retreat as a way of seeing new possibilities for Christian spiritual practice. INTENSIVE MEDITATION IN BUDDHISM AND THE CONTEXT OF DIALOGUE Meditation within Buddhism is most simply characterized as the development of awareness through the practice of silent, mindful attention to the phenomena of body and mind. As is well known, this practice is espoused throughout the tradition as the heart of Buddhist spiritual life. Most Westerners think of Buddhist meditation in terms of the relatively short periods of quiet sitting, typically carried out in the midst of other responsibilities, that characterize most lay or monastic life throughout Asia and now in the West. Yet this was not the original way in which meditation was practiced in Buddhism. In fact, for the Buddha as well as for the other great saints of the tradition, meditation meant withdrawing into solitude for extended periods of time and practicing meditation intensively. Westerners who do know about retreat practice in Buddhism tend to regard it as a more extreme version of daily meditation, which they see as the norm. However, from another viewpoint, retreat practice can be taken as the norm, and the short periods of meditation that layand settled monastic people can generally manage are a reflection and foretaste of the retreat experience. From this angle, in order to appreciate the intention of meditation in Buddhism fully, it is necessary to understand its historically original form in the context of intensive retreat. If meditation is the core of Buddhism, retreat practice is the core of meditation.1 Buddhist-Christian Studies 16 (1996). ? by University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.192 on Wed, 24 Aug 2016 04:21:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Technology and Religion in Medieval Sweden by Anna Götlind

610 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Technology and Religion in Medieval Sweden. By Anna Gotlind. Goteborg: University of Goteborg, 1993. Pp. x+262; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. Paper. In September 1993 Bert Hall gave participants at the Oxford Confer­ ence on Technological Change an overview of Lynn White’s work and its capacity to spark argument and, more important, further research to this day. Anna Gotlind’s published dissertation bears out White’s continued influence. She wishes to test, using Swedish sources, White’s claim that the worldview of the Western church gave impetus to medieval technological development. She follows White in the sorts of evidence she uses: in personal reflections penned for Technology and Culture'm October 1975 (p . 521), White described how Alfred Kroeber’s classic Anthropology pointed him to the importance of “depictions of things . . . surviving artifacts . . . the total debris of the past,” as well as written records in the recapturing of medieval life. Gotlind’s researches explore what types of source material can profitably contribute to studies of Swedish medieval technology. The dissertation consists of an introductory first chapter, six chapters which are actually self-contained articles (five of them previously published), and a concluding summary chapter. This arrangement leads to some repetition in the middle section of this volume, but it does allow for a chapter of special interest to be read independently of the other chapters. In particular, Gotlind seeks to answer the questions, “To what extent did the church, and in particular the monastic system, act as an importer, vehicle and disseminator of technical knowledge in medieval Sweden?” and “Can we find examples of and interest in (new) technol­ ogy in medieval Swedish religious art and literature?” (p. 10). The first chapter gives the intellectual background for Gotlind’s questions. The author points out that, aside from ironworking and agriculture, there has been little exploration of Sweden’s medieval technologies. The second chapter, “Cistercians and Technology in Medieval Scandinavia,” attempts to discover how many of the great claims for technological innovation by the Cistercian order after 1100 on continental Europe can be extended to Scandinavian foundations of that order. Gotlind explains that in contrast to earlier continental monasteries which had grown up in marginal lands, environments challenging them to technological creativity, Scandinavian houses were mainly founded by royalty and placed in fertile, populated areas to strengthen the power of church and dynasty. After examining the documentary and physical evidence of the technologies associated with each house, she comes to the conclusion that innovative ideas concern­ ing architecture and water supplies imported from Cistercian houses in France and Germany rarely spread beyond the monastery walls. Utilizing fiscal records and other documents, and also archaeological evidence, to examine “Iron Production on the Farms of Vadstena Abbey,” Gotlind considerably weakens claims that tenants of this abbey TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 611 of the Brigittine order had carried on large-scale iron production in the late Middle Ages. “Peder Mansson, Vadstena Abbey and the Iron Trade” discounts the claim that the 16th-century mining manual of Brigittine monk Mansson shows that Vadstena was heavily engaged in the iron industry. The fifth chapter gives a survey of what is known of “Mechani­ cal Clocks in Medieval Sweden.” The sixth explores “Images of Tech­ nology in the Revelations of St. Birgitta.” Gotlind decides that the writings of the great saint of Sweden (and founder of the Brigittines) must be used with caution in the search for evidence concerning Swedish technology of her time. The seventh chapter exhaustively explores “Technological and Workrelated Motifs in Medieval Swedish Wall Paintings.” These wonderful representations on the walls of Swedish churches do show many a tool and machine in their depiction of scripture stories, but Gotlind decides that, with the exception of hunters wearing skis, they really do not tell much about technologies of the northern lands. Indeed, they do not display an unusual interest in technology at all. In concluding, Gotlind quickly recapitulates the various arguments and her negative findings regarding the two main questions. She urges exploration of Swedish secular evidence for technologies during the Middle Ages. White would be pleased, first that his theories had their part in prompting...

Van beroep “Chemiker”: De opkomst van de industriële chemicus en het polytechnische onderwijs in Duitsland (1790–1850) by Ernst Homburg

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 611 of the Brigittine order had carried on large-scale iron production in the late Middle Ages. “Peder Mansson, Vadstena Abbey and the Iron Trade” discounts the claim that the 16th-century mining manual of Brigittine monk Mansson shows that Vadstena was heavily engaged in the iron industry. The fifth chapter gives a survey of what is known of “Mechani­ cal Clocks in Medieval Sweden.” The sixth explores “Images of Tech­ nology in the Revelations of St. Birgitta.” Gotlind decides that the writings of the great saint of Sweden (and founder of the Brigittines) must be used with caution in the search for evidence concerning Swedish technology of her time. The seventh chapter exhaustively explores “Technological and Workrelated Motifs in Medieval Swedish Wall Paintings.” These wonderful representations on the walls of Swedish churches do show many a tool and machine in their depiction of scripture stories, but Gotlind decides that, with the exception of hunters wearing skis, they really do not tell much about technologies of the northern lands. Indeed, they do not display an unusual interest in technology at all. In concluding, Gotlind quickly recapitulates the various arguments and her negative findings regarding the two main questions. She urges exploration of Swedish secular evidence for technologies during the Middle Ages. White would be pleased, first that his theories had their part in prompting such detailed investigations, and second that his example influenced Gotlind’s interdisciplinary approach to the elucidation of the history of medieval technology. Brian O’Donnell Mr. O’Donneli. is a doctoral student in the STS Program at the Massachusetts institute of Technology. In the fall of 1992 he was a visiting instructor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. y Van beroep “Chemiker”: De opkomst van de industriele chemicus en het polytechnische onderwijs in Duitsland (1790-1850). By Ernst Homburg. Delft: Delft University Press, 1993. Pp. 581; illustrations, tables, notes, appendixes, bibliography, indexes, f 84.80 (paper). The social history of chemistry in Germany during the 18th and 19th centuries can be divided into three phases. In the first period, charac­ terized by Enlightenment utilitarianism, chemistry emancipated itself from being an auxiliary to medicine. According to K. Hufbauer, this movement resulted in the formation of a German chemical community around 1790. The year 1867, when the Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft was established, marks the beginning of the well-investigated third period, the heyday of the German chemical profession and the florescence of science-based industry. Literature on the intermediate period is sparse. Traditional treatments of the establishment of the German chemical profession expounded 612 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE the leading role ofJustus Liebig. Of late, following B. Gustin (1975), the heroic role of Liebig has been questioned, and he has been made part of a reform movement in pharmacy that gained momentum at the end of the 18th century. The reformers made practical laboratory training in chemistry an important part of the education of apothecaries, and Liebig built on this practice. Then in 1831 Liebig discovered the organic analysis apparatus, which was to have a revolutionary impact on laboratory training. Liebig’s denial of a watershed between scientists and “higher technicians” eventually made him the founder of the German chemical profession. But, according to Gustin, it was already clear by the 1840s that the university training in chemistry for apothecary appren­ tices and physicians had important potential applications in industry. Ernst ffomburg further tones down Liebig’s role. He concludes that even without Liebig’s intervention, a “Chemiker von Fach” would have arisen in Germany. Homburg also argues that the context in which Liebig operated is incompletely understood if one focuses—as so many scholars did in the last decade—on the reform movement in pharmacy. What enables Homburg to draw such far-reaching conclusions? His starting point is rather simple. If in the first half of the 19th century the occupational structure of German chemists changed, then it must be possible to trace this change in the educational system. Now, although university education has been studied rather well, a thorough investiga­ tion of the evolution of chemical education at German polytechnics had not been carried out before. Homburg’s...

Folklore concerning Tsong-kha-pa

The article is a selective translation of tales centering around Tson-kha-pa (1357-1419), the great Tibetan Buddhist reformer, and Taer Temple, the monastery near Xining, Qinghai, located on the spot where Tsong-kha-pa is believed to have been born and where his remains are kept and venerated. The tales, from the regions surrounding Taer Temple, relate the circumstances of Tsong-kha-pa's birth, his youth and development, and some of the miracles he performed. They also recount the origin of the highest offices of Tibetan Buddhism - those of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama - and of some of the main rituals heald annually at Taer Temple. The tales present a picture of how the common people view the great Tibetan saint. A brief introduction describes the ethnic and geographical setting of the tales.

'Mysteriousy Come Together': Dickens, Chaucer, and Little Dorrit

In the opening chapter of the second book of Little Dorrit, the narrator turns for a moment from those 'living travellers'—including the Dorrits, the Gowans, and Rigaud —who have just arrived at 'the great Saint Bernard' on their way to Italy, in order to reflect upon 'dead travellers' who will forever remain 'in a grated house' adjacent to the monastery: " The mother, storm-belated many winters ago, still standing in the corner with her baby at her breast; the man who had frozen with his arm raised to his mouth in fear or hunger, still pressing it with his dry lips after years and years. An awful company, mysteriously come together!" The tableau provides a vivid though grim variation upon Dickens's intention, stated in a letter written to John Forster when he was at work on the second number of Little Dorrit: 'to shew people corning together, in a chance way, as fellow-travellers, and being in the same place ignorant of one another, as happens in life; and to connect them afterwards, and to make the waiting for that connection a part of the interest.' No amount of waiting will see vital connections among this novel's 'dead travellers': they remain 'in the same place ignorant of one another,' as sometimes happens in death.

The authenticity of the Caitanyacaritāmṛtamahākāvya

Until recently, Kavi Karṇapūra has generally been accepted without question as the author of a book on the life of Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya entitled ŚrīCaitanyacaritāmṛtamahākāvya [CCMK]. The date of this work is given as 1542 by the author himself in its final verse. In the two penultimate verses of the work, he identifies himself as the youngest son of Śivānanda Sena and as a mere child (śiśu). If Kavi Karṇapūra is indeed the author, it is certainly a matter of great interest as he is one of the most prolific and authoritative writers amongst the followers of Caitanya. His father, Śivānanda Sena, was a rich and influential devotee of Caitanya, responsible for the management of the yearly trips to Puri which played such an important role in the latter part of the great saint's life. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few such autobiographical words in Karṇapūra's own compositions, such as the Ānandavṛndāvanacampū [AVC], Caitanyacandrodayanāṭaka [CCN] and Gauragaṇoddeśadīpikā [GGD] the only information that we have about Karṇapūra's life is from Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja's Caitanyacaritāmṛta [CC].

Merton as Zen Clown

“Modern investigators of miraculous history have solemnly admitted that a characteristic of the great saints is their power of ‘levitation.’ They might go further; a characteristic of the great saints is their power of levity. Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.” —G. K. Chesterton1

THE MUSIC IN FAITH AND MORALITY

Many of the greatest achievements of Western music are also monuments of the Christian faith: Bach's cantatas and passions, Brahms' and Mozart's requiems, masses from Machaud to Stravinsky, and much else. But in the daily lives of most Westerners, music seems to belong in quite a different category from the life of faith, and is even more distant from the realm of ethics. These divisions in the cultural universe depend upon assumptions we imbibe at an early age. In my own childhood, for example, it did not take many years of churchgoing to sense that music was tolerated as a sort of amusing stepchild in the family of religion. The bond between faith and morality was clear enough, for the pulpits of the Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches in which I was tutored often thundered with moral exhortation; but those same pulpits seemed to stand at a safe distance from the organ and choir. Often, in fact, a great aisle ran down the center of the sanctuary as if to symbolize the bifurcation, with the preacher on one side and the choir on the other. The two rarely called to one another in happy antiphon; sometimes, in fact, they clashed. In this essay I would like to investigate a tradition in which such a bifurcation between music on the one hand and faith and morality on the other does not exist. This is a tradition in which people are accustomed to hearing preachers sing, so they might well be shocked to find that in Protestant churches preachers and choirmasters frequently quarrel, or to learn that when such disputes erupt, it is inevitably the preacher who has the power to fire the musician, never the other way around. And they would be puzzled to find that all our Wesleyan Universities are dedicated to the memory of John Wesley rather than his musical brother Charles, or that so many religious buildings bear Luther's name, and none Bach's. For theirs is a heritage in which many of the great saints are singers, and the values for which they stand are not merely moral and doctrinal ones but musical ones as well.

The Ait Sukhmann of the moroccan central Atlas : an ethnographie survey and a case study in Sociocultural Anomaly

The Ait Sukhmann of the moroccan central Atlas : an ethnographie survey and a case study in Sociocultural Anomaly

The Life of Milarepa

The Life of Milarepa is one of the most beloved stories of the Tibetan people and a great literary example of the contemplative life. This biography, a dramatic tale from a culture now in crisis, can be read on several levels. A personal and moving introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, it is also a detailed guide to the search for liberation. It presents a quest for purification and buddhahood in a single lifetime, tracing the path of a great sinner who became a great saint. It is also a powerfully evocative narrative, full of magic, miracles, suspense, and humor, while reflecting the religious and social life of medieval Tibet.

The Founding of the Ramanandi Sect

Scholars disagree on the role of the Hindu saint Ramanand in the founding of the Ramanandi sect. In this essay I present four different spiritual genealogies of the guru-disciple succession of Ramanand which were compiled at different periods of time in the development of the sect and I analyze these genealogies as records of strategies in which the sect reinterpreted its past in order to perpetuate itself in the present. In conclusion I propose that the so-called founding of the Ramanandi sect was not an act initiated by Ramanand but instead an act of the imagination initiated by Ramanand's followers. The Ramanandi sect, which is said to have been founded by Swami Ramanand in the 14th century, performed a particularly significant role in the development of both Hindu religion and Hindi literature. The ascetics of the Ramanandi sect led a minor social revolution in the Ganges basin by recruiting women and members of servant and untouchable castes into their sect. Moreover, the followers of Swami Ramanand wrote much of their sectarian literature in the vernacular languages of upper India rather than in Sanskrit. The study of modern Hindi literature, as it is taught in the schools and colleges of India today, usually begins with the devotional stories and poems written by such great saints as Tulsi Das, Mira Bai, and Kabir whom the Vaisnavite bards claim were spiritual descendants of Swami Ramanand. Given the historical importance of the Ramanandi sect, it is surprising to find so little information in the sectarian literature on the events which led to the formation of the sect. Drawing upon these sectarian sources, scholars have sought to reconstruct the early history of the Ramanandi sect. The facts, however, are meager and the inferences which scholars have used to interpret ETHNOHISTORY 25/2 (Spring 1978) 121

The Ornament of the Saints: The Religious Situation in Iran in Pre-Safavid Times

Shortly after the year 1000, Abū Nuᶜaym al-Iṣfahānī (948-1037), the author of a historical study about his hometown, called a ten volume work on Muslim hagiography with a poignant title, Ḥilyat al-auliyā, “The Ornament of the Saints.” At that moment, the learned and pious author, grandson of a noted aesthetic, could scarcely foresee that Iran would indeed deserve the epithet of being “decorated by saints” during the centuries to come even more than before Abū Nuᶜaym's lifetime. Therefore, it seems not improper to take this charming title as a starting point for some deliberations about the religious situation in early Muslim Iran.Abū Nuᶜaym was one of the numerous disciples of Ibn Khafīf, the great saint of Fars who died, a centenarian, in 982 in his hometown Shiraz. We may single out this mystic for our purpose to give a short survey of pre-Safavid religious life in Iran.

Bede and medieval civilization

The mortal remains of the Venerable Bede rest today in the cathedral church of Christ and Blessed Mary the Virgin, Durham. They were brought there in the early eleventh century by one Ælfred Westou, priest and sacrist of Durham and an enthusiastic amateur of that characteristically medieval form of devotion expressed in the acquisition, by fair means or foul, of the relics of the saints to the greater glory of God. The removal of Bede's remains to Durham, involving as it did considerable preliminary planning and solitary nocturnal vigil before the final successful snatch, was one of his more brilliant coups, upon which he seems especially to have preened himself. The bones were first kept in the coffin of St Cuthbert, being subsequently removed to a reliquary near the saint's tomb. In 1370 they were placed in the Galilee Chapel, where they now lie under a plain table-tomb of blue marble, made in 1542 after the medieval shrine had been defaced. Bede himself would certainly have preferred that his body should have been left in its grave among his brethren at Jarrow, there to await the coming of Christ which he so ardently desired to see; but if a removal had to be made, we need not doubt that he would have been content to lie at Durham, near but not too near the shrine of St Cuthbert, the great saint and patron of the north, under a modest tombstone, so much more in keeping with his nature than the earlier and richer shrine, despoiled by the commissioners of Henry VIII.

Berceo's "Milagros de Nuestra Señora" and the Virgin of Yuso

Gonzalo de Berceo's Vidas de Santos have naturally been considered in the light of their relationship with the monastery of San Millan de la Cogolla (Logrono). The Vida de San Millan concerns the life and miracles of the founder of the monastery (474–574), and the Vida de Santa Oria describes the life and visions of a famous eleventh-century emparedada who lived and died there. The Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos tells the story of the great saint (1000–1073) who became a monk in San Millan, was made prior and later had to leave through the enmity of the king of Navarre; finally as abbot of Silos, he restored this monastery, linked to Sant Millan by two Cartas de hermandad.

Greater Saint Louis Society of Radiologists

Greater Saint Louis Society of Radiologists

Greater Saint Louis Society of Radiologists

Greater Saint Louis Society of Radiologists

The Greater Saint Louis Society of Radiologists

The Greater Saint Louis Society of Radiologists

Greater Saint Louis Society of Radiologists

Greater Saint Louis Society of Radiologists

Greater Saint Louis Society of Radiologists

Greater Saint Louis Society of Radiologists

The Role of the Independent in the U.S. Oil Industry

"Independent" Difficult to Define A precise definition of an "independent" oil producer is difficult because he actually defies description. The usual measurement is that he is a non-major, which then brings up the problem of where "majorhood" sets in on a scale of barrelage, income, degree of integration, etc. The literature and legend of the industry abound with fabulous stories of a daring, colorful, venturesome breed of American businessman known as the oil independent and wildcatter. A number started enterprises which today are known as major companies. One of the Society's great patron saints and now elder statesman, John Suman, used to say that when he started out before World War 1, "The mark of a real independent that did a good job was one who had an automobile about a block long, a diamond stick pin, a big bull-dog and a kept woman". Unfortunately, except for a change in some of the status symbols, this type of mythical character still persists in the folklore of our industry and in that of the general public. One economics professor has said of independents, "The independent, as the non-integrated producer is called, developed into a veritable institution - a typically American phenomenon. The blinding success of the lucky ones hides the tragedy of many losers and large losses". He said also, "The unique feature of the American petroleum industry is the existence of the thousands of independent producers of crude oil, large and small. These represent a basic element of the industry nowhere except in the United States and in Canada. They not only constitute a unique feature of the petroleum industry in North America but materially affect the position and policies of the large integrated companies. Their mere presence indicates that integration in the petroleum industry of North America is decidedly limited. The more or less complete self-sufficiency in basic raw materials which is typical in other basic mineral industries simply does not exist in the mineral petroleum industry of North America."