Alone in a World of Wounds: A Dharmic Response to the Ills of Sentient Beings
Ebook
When Buddhism came to the West in the 1960s, many were eager to adapt it straightaway to the prevailing social and intellectual currents of its new home. One of those adaptations was the creation of a "socially engaged" Buddhism that could stand alongside similar developments in Christian and Jewish thought. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Beginning with what the tradition calls the path of "the holy life," a life free of every attachment to self and the delusions to which it gives rise, Geiman draws attention to the unique contribution the Dharma makes to one's understanding of the world, one's place within it, and the nature of wise and compassionate action in the face of human hardship. Along the way, he shows the limits of using the teaching of the Buddha and the Dharma Ancestors as support for social and political agendas of any kind. What emerges is a description of a noble life free of pretense and guile, which fearlessly and unshakably bears witness to the truth of our conditioned nature in the midst of human hardship--a life best described as standing alone in a world of wounds.
“Geiman’s timely and masterful yet simple engagement of dharma
from a Buddhist perspective in Alone in a World of Wounds
provides a new perspective on alleviating suffering in this world,
emphasizing the realization of dharma and its agency in affirming
that one is not alone in this world of wounds. This book is meant
to be read deeply and to have its ideas employed in society to stop
violence and atrocity and heal the world.”
—George Pati, co-editor of Transformational Embodiment in Asian
Religions
“Geiman provides an important balancing perspective on the purpose
of the Buddha dharma for any era—not primarily to alter social or
individual conditions of suffering but to eradicate the mental
conditioning that gives rise to suffering and to embody that depth
of freedom for others. It behooves socially engaged Buddhists to
reflect deeply on Geiman’s critique, to assess whether we are truly
engaging the fullest liberating potential of the Buddha’s
teaching.”
—John J. Makransky, author of Buddahood
Embodied
- Title: Alone in a World of Wounds: A Dharmic Response to the Ills of Sentient Beings
- Author: Shodhin K. Geiman
- Publisher: Cascade Books
- Print Publication Date: 2022
- Logos Release Date: 2022
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666714982, 9781666714968, 9781666714975, 1666714984, 1666714968, 1666714976
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666714982
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T13:34:55Z
Shodhin K. Geiman serves as a priest in the Rochester (Kapleau) lineage at the Chicago Zen Center in Evanston, Illinois. He is also associate professor of philosophy and theology at Valparaiso University. His scholarly work includes co-translating Jean-François Lyotard’s Political Writings, and he is the author of a forthcoming comparative study of the logismoi in Evagrius and the nīvaranas in the Dharma of the Buddha. He was sanctioned as a teacher of the Dharma in 2021.