Was Jesus fully enlightened?

Yes, he was fully enlightened. But because he lived amidst a people who were absolutely ignorant about enlightenment, he had to speak in a language which may indicate he was not. He had to use such language because, at that particular time and place, there was no other possibility only this could be understood. Languages differ. When a buddha speaks, he uses a language that is totally different. He cannot say, I am the son of God, because to talk about the son or the father is just nonsense. But for a Jesus it is impossible to use any other language Jesus is speaking to a very different type of person.

Yet in many ways, Jesus is connected to Buddha.

Christianity has no knowledge of where Jesus was for thirty years. With the exception of two earlier incidents when he was born, and once when he was seven years old only the three years of his ministry are known; the remaining period is unknown. But India has many traditions about it: there are folk stories in Kashmir indicating that he was meditating in a Buddhist monastery there during all the years which are not accounted for.

Then, when he was thirty, he suddenly appeared in Jerusalem. Then he was crucified and there is the story of his resurrection. But again, where does he disappear to after he resurrects? Christianity has nothing to say about it. Where did he go? When did he die a natural death?

Miguel Serrano, in his book The Serpent of Paradise, writes: Nobody knows what he did or where he lived until he was thirty, the year he began his preaching. There is a legend, however, that says he was in Kashir the original name of Kashmir. Ka means the same as or equal to, and shir, Syria.

It is also reported that a Russian traveler, Nicholas Notovich, who came to India sometime in 1887, visited Ladakh in Tibet where he was taken ill and stayed in the famous Hemis Gumpa. During his stay in the Gompa he went through various volumes of Buddhist scriptures and literature wherein he found extensive mention of Jesus, his teaching, and his visit to Ladakh. Later Notovich published the book, Life of Saint Jesus, in which he related all that he had found about the visit of Jesus to Ladakh and to other countries in the East.

It is recorded that from Ladakh, after traveling through lofty mountain passes, along snowy paths and glaciers, Jesus reached Pahalgam in Kashmir. He lived there for a long period as a shepherd looking after his flock. It is here that Jesus found some traces of the lost tribes of Israel.

This village, it is recorded, was named Pahalgam, village of shepherds, after Jesus lived there. Pahal in Kashmiri means shepherd and gam, a village. Later, on his way to Srinagar, Jesus rested and preached at Ishkuman/Ishmuqam the place of rest of Jesus and this village was also named after him. When he was thirty, suddenly he appeared in Jerusalem and there follows the crucifixion and the story of the resurrection.

While Jesus was still on the cross, a soldier speared his body, and blood and water oozed out of it. The incident is recorded in the Gospel of St. John: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. This has led to the belief that Jesus was alive on the cross, because blood does not flow out of a dead body.

Excerpt from:
The Unknown Life of Jesus Osho | Sat Sangha Salon

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Spiritual Enlightenment transcends religion. It transcends thought. It transcends mind and its senses. And it conveys a level of wisdom and knowledge about life and the universe that is unparalleled. The concept of enlightenment implies complete understanding of life and the universe, which usually is accompanied by a detachment of all things impermanent and a complete awareness of everything that is, at the moment that it is.

Pretty cool, huh? Yeah. Its what gave the Buddha his mojo, what gave Muhammad his immense understanding, and what gave Jesus (and Thomas) the power to heal people and perform other miracles (dont forget Peter walked on water too). If you want to understand more about spiritual enlightenment, please read the article I posted that explains more about spiritual enlightenment here. This article is going to talk about the disciplines used world-wide to attain spiritual enlightenment.

I passed through the portal of the enlightenment experience about 12 years ago. I call it the enlightenment experience, because thats what it was an experience. It was an experience of my regular senses shutting down, to be replaced with amazing visions, sounds, realizations, epiphanies, and a melding with an intelligence and love so overwhelming it literally changed my life and granted me a wisdom of which I was not worthy beforehand. It was brought on by a deep focused meditation after a short prayer. If you would like to hear more about my enlightenment experience, watch the video (or read the transcript) I made about the first time I encountered it.

So how does one become enlightened? Well theres not a set process. It just sorta happens. That said, it rarely happens to someone if theyre not looking for it. So intention is a good ingredient. But beyond that, there are quite a few commonalities among enlightenment stories globally and parallels within spiritual disciplines designed to bring on enlightenment that suggest we can make a few educated guesses on how to more easily get you there. Lets first discuss my pet theory, then we can review how the worlds disciplines to achieve enlightenment support it.

My theory on how to attain spiritual enlightenment is simple: Stop all conscious thought in your mind, and the experience of enlightenment will occur. I suppose I could have made it sound much more mystical by saying cease the noise that exists within your mind, and you will hear the truth that lies just beyond but I think you get the gist. In fact, from a scientific perspective, I believe that enlightenment is caused by certain chemicals that get released within the body during waking conscious hours when brain activity in certain areas of the brain is reduced below a presently non-defined threshold. Well discuss some evidence later in this article that supports this pretty strongly. For now, lets take alook at the disciplines that typically lead to spiritual enlightenment, and then see how they individually stack up to this basic hypothesis. The different disciplines / methods include:

Meditation (various forms discussed below) Prayer Chanting Yoga Martial Arts Fasting Sweat Lodges / Physical Distress Dancing / Quaking / Shaking Pilgrimages Sensory Depravation Near Death Experience Depression / Despair Self Flagellation Psychedelics Spontaneous Enlightenment

There are a number of different types of meditation. Even some of the different disciplines in this very article can be considered forms of physical meditation. But regardless of the flavor of meditation, all types of meditation are connected with calming the mind and bringing conscious attention into oneself so as to reduce the focus on stuff going on outside of you. How does that fit our hypothesis? If you shut down external distractions, it becomes easier to reduce internal distractions, which is of course a baby step to ceasing all thought and attaining enlightenment. Here are the different types of meditation:

I. Mindfulness Meditation, is the popular term for a form of meditation called Vipassana (vih-PAH-sah-nah), and it comes from the Buddhist tradition. It is probably the most popular form of meditation taught in the West, although it is usually not directly tied to Buddhism when it is taught. Vipassana focuses on being present wherever you are, letting your mind run freely, and simply observing whatever thoughts arise without judgement, and with full acceptance. Fans of Eckhart Tolle are familiar with this type of meditation. Its about 2500 years old if not much, much older. The practice of observing ones thoughts lets that person not be controlled by those thoughts, which then results in a detachment or separation of those same thoughts. Eventually, the process of not having your conscious attention drive new thought threads based on the spurious thoughts that fly through your mind (now doing so unmolested in meditation) allows the mind to eventually calm and quiet itself. Having the mind be calm and quiet is one step from having all conscious thought cease. Regardless of you ever being able to get to the point where conscious thought ceases, Vipassana has been shown through multiple studies to have dramatic positive effects on body and emotional health.

II. Sitting Meditation,called Zazen among Zen practitioners, is also very popular, although it is not always performed under the Zen umbrella. Zen, of course, is a form of practical Buddhism designed to lead directly to enlightenment through a conscious ceasing of all thought in the mind (sound familiar?). Zen koans are riddles that are designed not to have mindful answers to them, so that meditating on them may cause the mind to hiccup and stop thinking altogether. Good example: What is the sound of one hand clapping? How could you think your way into a solution to that riddle? Zazen is your opportunity to practice that process.

Excerpt from:
The Top 15 Ways to Achieve Spiritual Enlightenment - I AM ...

OSHO: No Tengo Biografa (1) OSHO: I DONT HAVE A BIOGRAPHY #1 http://www.osho.com/visit

Una seleccin de frases extradas de conferencias y entrevistas.

No tengo biografa. Y todo lo que creemos que es una biografa carece de importancia. No tiene importancia en qu fecha nac, en que pas nac Lo importante es lo que soy en este momento, en este lugar. -Osho

Este es el video que presenta a Osho en el primer DVD de una coleccin publicada por la editorial Planeta DeAgostini titulada Biblioteca del Bienestar Emocional OSHO. Esta coleccin est disponible y a la venta en los kioscos y por suscripcin en Espaa, Argentina, Mxico, Chile y otros pases de Latino Amrica.

1 - Slo soy yo mismo 2- Mi mensaje es un cierto tipo de alquimia. 3- Mi mensaje es muy simple. 4- S, yo enseo a ser egosta! 5- No vengo a consolar a nadie 6- Terrorista espiritual? 7- Me encanta molestar a la gente 8- Mi manera de hablar, es un truco para la meditacin. 9- Slo soy un hombre corriente 10-Vida, Amor y Risa son los tres pilares de mi enseanza

OSHO: I DONT HAVE A BIOGRAPHY #1 A selection of excerpts from talks and interviews

I don't have any biography. And whatsoever is thought to be biography is utterly meaningless. On what date I was born, in what country I was born, does not matter. What matters is what I am now, right here. - Osho

This is an opening video introducing Osho in the first DVD of a series by the Spanish publishing group PLANETA. The series is running in Spain, Argentina, Mexico and Chile.

1) I Am Just Myself 2) My Message is a Certain Alchemy 3) My Message is Very Simple 4) Yes, I Teach Selfishness! 5) No Need for Any Consolation 6) Spiritual Terrorist 7) I Love to Disturbe People 8) My Speaking is a Device for Meditation 9) Just an Ordinary Man 10) In the Schools they Teach the Three R's; I Teach the Three L's...Life, Love, Laughter.

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OSHO: I Don't Have a Biography (1) (No Tengo Biografa ...

Osho does not teach any religion and does not belong to any particular religion. What he really teaches is religiousness - the real fragrance of all the flowers of existence, the Buddhas, the mystics and sages that this world has known. Osho has given thousands of discourses on all the well-known and not so known mystics of the worldfrom Ashtavakra to Zarathusthra .

Osho is a modern day mystic whose wisdom, clarity and humor have touched the lives of millions of people around the world. His insights are creating the conducive atmosphere or Atma-Sphere for the emergence of what he calls the New Man or Zorba , the Buddha the combination of celebration, dance and song of Zorba and the silence, stillness and meditation of the Buddha, the meditation of the East and the materialism of the West. Zorba the Buddha is a totally new human being who is an awakened one, and he is life-affirmative and free. When someone asked Osho the definition of religion, Osho replied: To be in romance with life is religion.

Amongst all the Enlightened Ones, Gautama the Buddha is very special to Osho. He says: I love Gautama the Buddha because he represents to me the essential core of religion. He is the beginner of a totally different kind of religion in the world. He has propounded not religion but religiousness. And this is a great radical change in the history of human consciousness.

When a Buddha moves the wheel of dharma , it takes two thousand five hundred years for it to stop completely. says Osho. The wheel that Buddha moved has stopped. The wheel has to be moved again. And that is going to be my and your lifes work that wheel has to be moved again. Once it starts revolving it will again have twenty-five centuries life.

Osho teaches meditation for our inner transformation. Love and compassion are the natural expression of this transformation. We can meditate with Buddha, dance with Krishna and celebrate our love with Sufis .

- Swami Chaitanya Keerti , Osho World Foundation, New Delhi

Osho has spoken on hundreds of mystics and traditions including Buddhism, Christianity, Communism, Hassidism., Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Sikhism, Sufism, Tantra, Taoism, Yoga, Zen and many more

Some of the mystics HE speaks on

Books on Adi Shankaracharya: The Song of Ecstasy (in English) The Great Transcendence (in English) Bhaj Govindam Moodh Mate (in Hindi)

Read the rest here:
Welcome to Osho World

Active Adult Living has been on the internet since 1998 - longer by far than any other web sites out there. Active Adult Living has done the homework when it comes to 55+ age restricted active adult communities. We feature active adult communities, 55+ communities, as well as age targeted communities, retirement villages, condominiums, urban living, and rentals .... Active Adult Living is easy to navigate for boomers, seniors and empty nesters to find their perfect home to buy or to rent. We have THOUSANDS of active adult communities for ...read more

On average, Americans consume about 130 pounds of the sweet stuff each year. Sugar is EVERYWHERE. Check any label at the grocery store and you'll find it in everything from ketchup to lunch meat. Sugar releases the feel good chemical dopamine into the brain, so it's no wonder in our high stress world that so many reach for sweet solace. Did you know that research has likened the addiction to sugar to that of cocaine? I'm not saying quit sugar all together, but there is a way to free yourself from the "sugar trap."

Protein deficiency has been linked to increased sugar cravings. ...read more

It's easy to get stuck in a flavor rut when it comes to cooking with herbs. You buy cilantro for taco night, and what doesn't get used sits in the fridge until it wilts. Sound familiar? Herbs add a fresh flavor to slow cooked dishes, and even cocktails.

Experiment with different herb/food pairings to discover your favorites! Here are some that I find most commonly available, and that are easy to mix and match.

Parsley isn't just for garnish. It's peppery flavor is perfect in virtually any recipe, and adds a burst of freshness, and color. It's a great last minu...read more

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55+ Active Adult Retirement Community Villages | Sales ...

Motivation is a theoretical construct used to explain behavior. It represents the reasons for people's actions, desires, and needs. Motivation can also be defined as one's direction to behavior or what causes a person to want to repeat a behavior and vice versa.[1] A motive is what prompts the person to act in a certain way or at least develop an inclination for specific behavior.[2] For example, when someone eats food to satisfy the need of hunger, or when a student does his/her work in school because he/she wants a good grade. Both show a similar connection between what we do and why we do it. According to Maehr and Meyer, "Motivation is a word that is part of the popular culture as few other psychological concepts are".[3] Wikipedia readers will have a motive (or motives) for reading an article, even if such motives are complex and difficult to pinpoint. At the other end of the range of complexity, hunger is frequently the motive for seeking out and consuming food.

Motivation theories can be classified on a number of bases.

Motivation can be looked at as a cycle where thoughts influence behaviors, and behaviors drive performance, performance impacts thoughts and the cycle begins again. Each stage of the cycle is composed of many dimensions including attitudes, beliefs, intentions, effort, and withdrawal which can all affect the motivation that an individual experiences.

The idea that human beings are rational and human behavior is guided by reason is an old one. However, recent research (on Satisficing for example) has significantly undermined the idea of homo economicus or of perfect rationality in favour of a more bounded rationality. The field of behavioural economics is particularly concerned with the limits of rationality in economic agents.[4]

Motivation can be divided into two different theories known as Intrinsic (internal) motivation and Extrinsic (external) motivation.

Intrinsic motivation has been studied since the early 1970s. Intrinsic motivation is the self-desire to seek out new things and new challenges, to analyze one's capacity, to observe and to gain knowledge.[5] It is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself, and exists within the individual rather than relying on external pressures or a desire for reward. The phenomenon of intrinsic motivation was first acknowledged within experimental studies of animal behavior. In these studies, it was evident that the organisms would engage in playful and curiosity driven behaviors in the absence of reward. Intrinsic motivation is a natural motivational tendency and is a critical element in cognitive, social, and physical development.[6] Students who are intrinsically motivated are more likely to engage in the task willingly as well as work to improve their skills, which will increase their capabilities.[7] Students are likely to be intrinsically motivated if they:

An example of intrinsic motivation is when an employee becomes an IT professional because he or she wants to learn about how computer users interact with computer networks. The employee has the intrinsic motivation to gain more knowledge[8]

Advantages: Intrinsic motivation can be long-lasting and self-sustaining. Efforts to build this kind of motivation are also typically efforts at promoting student learning. Such efforts often focus on the subject rather than rewards or punishments.

Disadvantages: On the other hand, efforts at fostering intrinsic motivation can be slow to affect behavior and can require special and lengthy preparation. Students are individuals, so a variety of approaches may be needed to motivate different students. It is often helpful to know what interests ones students in order to connect these interests with the subject matter. This requires getting to know ones students. Also, it helps if the instructor is interested in the subject to begin with![9]

Extrinsic motivation refers to the performance of an activity in order to attain a desired outcome and it is the opposite of intrinsic motivation.[5] Extrinsic motivation comes from influences outside of the individual. In extrinsic motivation, the harder question to answer is where do people get the motivation to carry out and continue to push with persistence. Usually extrinsic motivation is used to attain outcomes that a person wouldn't get from intrinsic motivation.[10] Common extrinsic motivations are rewards (for example money or grades) for showing the desired behavior, and the threat of punishment following misbehavior. Competition is an extrinsic motivator because it encourages the performer to win and to beat others, not simply to enjoy the intrinsic rewards of the activity. A cheering crowd and the desire to win a trophy are also extrinsic incentives.[11]

See original here:
Motivation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted January 08, 2014, 1:05 pm

My mom began meditating decades ago, long before the mind-calming practice had entered the wider public consciousness. Today, at age 81, she still goes to a weekly meditation group and quotes Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Buddhist monk known for his practice of mindfulness, or present-focused awareness.

Although meditation still isnt exactly mainstream, many people practice it, hoping to stave off stress and stress-related health problems. Mindfulness meditation, in particular, has become more popular in recent years. The practice involves sitting comfortably, focusing on your breathing, and then bringing your minds attention to the present without drifting into concerns about the past or future. (Or, as my mom would say, Dont rehearse tragedies. Dont borrow trouble.)

But, as is true for a number of other alternative therapies, much of the evidence to support meditations effectiveness in promoting mental or physical health isnt quite up to snuff. Why? First, many studies dont include a good control treatment to compare with meditation. Second, the people most likely to volunteer for a meditation study are often already sold on meditations benefits and so are more likely to report positive effects.

But when researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD sifted through nearly 19,000 meditation studies, they found 47 trials that addressed those issues and met their criteria for well-designed studies. Their findings, published in this weeks JAMA Internal Medicine, suggest that mindfulness meditation can help ease psychological stresses like anxiety, depression, and pain.

Dr. Elizabeth Hoge, a psychiatrist at the Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, says that mindfulness meditation makes perfect sense for treating anxiety. People with anxiety have a problem dealing with distracting thoughts that have too much power, she explains. They cant distinguish between a problem-solving thought and a nagging worry that has no benefit.

If you have unproductive worries, says Dr. Hoge, you can train yourself to experience those thoughts completely differently. You might think Im late, I might lose my job if I dont get there on time, and it will be a disaster! Mindfulness teaches you to recognize, Oh, theres that thought again. Ive been here before. But its just thata thought, and not a part of my core self,' says Dr. Hoge.

One of her recent studies (which was included in the JAMA Internal Medicine review) found that a mindfulness-based stress reduction program helped quell anxiety symptoms in people with generalized anxiety disorder, a condition marked by hard-to-control worries, poor sleep, and irritability. People in the control groupwho also improved, but not as much as those in the meditation groupwere taught general stress management techniques. All the participants received similar amounts of time, attention, and group interaction.

To get a sense of mindfulness meditation, you can try one of the guided recordings by Dr. Ronald Siegel, an assistant clinical professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. They are available for free at http://www.mindfulness-solution.com.

Some people find that learning mindfulness techniques and practicing them with a group is especially helpful, says Dr. Hoge. Mindfulness-based stress reduction training, developed by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, MA, is now widely available in cities throughout the United States.

More:
Mindfulness meditation may ease anxiety, mental stress ...

Sahaja Yoga Meditation online course will take you on a journey in which you will learn the first steps towards the purest form of meditation, Sahaja Yoga Meditation. All knowledge and experience are introduced through videos and audio guided meditations. All the images, music and sounds of nature are so chosen to help guide you and to give you a feeling of peace.

Make some time if you want to experiment at home. Because what you could find is something which can give your life a new dimension, a new meaning.

Access all the videos, knowledge and guided meditations online.

Receive the entire course as text in your email inbox with 3 days intervals.

Download the entire course as MP3 and play on your MP3 player/iPod.

Meditation is a scientifically proven way to improve one's health and balance in life. Today, meditators from across the globe, whether young or old, have found an effective way of bettering their lives using Sahaja Yoga Meditation. Its surprising simplicity combined with immediate and tangible results has proven that Sahaja Yoga Meditation is a wholesome and enriching experience.

Whether one is looking for peace of mind, a stress-free life or physical well-being, Sahaja Yoga Meditation offers it all. In fact, it goes a step further, adding the joys of connecting with one's Self to the mix. Imagine a delightful concoction which gives each person the flavor he or she desires and needs at any time of day. With Sahaja Yoga Meditation, one finds this ever flowing source of delight that revitalizes and brings joy to every moment of one's life.

If you have little or no experience with meditation, "Our Online Meditation Course" will get you up and started quickly and easily.

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HOME Online Since 1995 BUDDHISM & SHINTISM IN JAPAN A-TO-Z PHOTO DICTIONARY OF JAPANESE RELIGIOUS SCULPTURE & ARTVIDEO of site author explaining Ni iconography (Oct. 2013) VIDEO of site author exploring Buddhist treasures (April 16, 2013) INTERVIEW with site author (Japan Times, August 7, 2010)

This photo library and dictionary is a labor of love. After moving to Kamakura in 1993, I became intrigued by the many deities and faces of Japanese Buddhism and Shintism. There are dozens of Buddhist temples and Shint shrines near my home, many dating from the 8th to 13th centuries, many open to the public. There are 400+ deities in this dictionary, and 4,000+ photos of statuary from Kamakura, Nara, Kyoto, and elsewhere in Japan. Use the search box to search in English, Japanese, Chinese, or Korean for deities not listed at left. Any mistakes or omissions at this site are my responsibility. Please contact me if you discover any. In July 2006, I launched the online store and gallery Buddhist-Artwork.com. It sells quality hand-carved wood Buddha statues and Bodhisattva statuary from Japan, China, and SE Asia. It is aimed at art lovers, Buddhist practitioners, and laity alike.

WHATS NEW (Sept. 2014) Mt. Tiantai Art (110 pix) Zodiac & 28 Moon Lodges Hina Dolls & Scapegoats Medicine Buddha (50 pix) Videos on Buddhism Seven Luckies Revisited Star Worship in Japan Korean Buddhism (280 pix) Modern Artists (35 pix) Benzaiten (260 pix) Medieval Art in Japan Tanuki (175 pix) Becoming a Shrine Priest Bishamonten (80 pix) Daruma & Zen (80+ pix) Kappa Revisited (31 pix) Baku - Nightmare Eater Shki - Demon Queller Kannon Guide (130+ pix) Jiz Handbook (90+ pix) CHINA RELATED Longmen | Ni | Shitenn

Fourth, this project was prompted by a dissatisfaction with existing literature on Japanese Buddhist statuary. I still visit book stores and libraries hunting for the perfect English handbook on Japanese Buddhist sculpture. But I must admit, I have yet to find anything that satisfies me. Mountains of publications are out there. Many are aimed at the scholarly community, devoted to hyper-specialized topics, and extremely academic (thus "indecipherable" to the lay community). Another wellspring of information comes from museums, curators, art historians, and collectors. While lavishly illustrated exhibition catalogs and glossy art magazines are much appreciated and easier to read, these publications tend to ignore the religious underpinnings of Asian art. Instead of providing a broad historical view of the statue and its significance as a living icon, they tend to emphasize a piecemeal "bite-size" approach involving aesthetics, dating and provenance, technique, material, genre, and style. A third copious source of information comes from temples, practitioners, spiritualists, and independent web bloggers. Their publications are written for the general public but suffer from too much preaching, promoting, fabrication, self-interest, inconsistency, inaccuracy, and just plain "unreadability."

Dont get me wrong. There are excellent resources (see bibliography) out there by scholars and art historians, but yet I'm unsatisfied. The best of the lot, in my mind, are the books entitled Sculpture of the Kamakura Period (by Hisashi Mori, 1974), Portraits of Chgen: The Transformation of Buddhist Art in Early Medieval Japan (by John M. Rosenfield, 2010), and Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art from 1600 to 2005 (by Patricia Graham, 2007). As for online resources, the Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System (JAANUS) is by far the best digital dictionary devoted to Japanese art. It contains English definitions for over eight thousand Japanese terms related to religious sculpture, architecture and gardens, painting, ceramics, textiles, metalwork, and art-historical iconography. Another monumental work is the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism or DDB (log in with user name = guest). This online dictionary contains English definitions for over sixty thousand Chinese terms (as of May 2013), along with pronunciations in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. The DDB is also linked to the SAT Taish Shinsh Daizky (a digitized & searchable version of the Buddhist canon). Together they represent an invaluable reference work for Buddhist studies.

The study of Japanese religions and religious art has expanded greatly in the West over the past five decades. Until the 1960s, the field was populated mostly by college teachers and museum curators interested in collecting, but they had little or no training in Asian languages. Today the field is rooted firmly in Asian language sources and is highly specialized, with most universities emphasizing cult-specific, site-specific, ritual-specific, and deity-specific studies. These changes have deepened the discipline enormously, despite the tendency of hyper-specialization to narrow the outlook.

Thus I began in 1995 with my first digital camera, along with the help of my scanner. Ive been digging around ever since. This site is my tribute to Japanese Buddhist sculpture and, to a lesser degree, Shint art. It is written for scholars, art historians, practitioners, and laity alike, and attempts to remedy the dissatisfactions I mention above. Finally, let me express my gratitude and thanks to all the fine people, temples, shrines, museums, web sites, books, magazines, and other resources that have contributed to this ongoing project.

TIMELINE

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JAPANESE BUDDHISM - Onmark Productions