Esoteric Theravada: The Story of the Forgotten Meditation Tradition of Southeast Asia

A groundbreaking exploration of a practice tradition that was nearly lost to history.

Theravada Buddhism, often understood as the school that most carefully preserved the practices taught by the Buddha, has undergone tremendous change over time. Prior to Western colonialism in Asia--which brought Western and modernist intellectual concerns, such as the separation of science and religion, to bear on Buddhism--there existed a tradition of embodied, esoteric, and culturally regional Theravada meditation practices. This once-dominant traditional meditation system, known as borān kammatthāna, is related to--yet remarkably distinct from--Vipassana and other Buddhist and secular mindfulness practices that would become the hallmark of Theravada Buddhism in the twentieth century. Drawing on a quarter century of research, scholar Kate Crosby offers the first holistic discussion of borān kammatthāna, illuminating the historical events and cultural processes by which the practice has been marginalized in the modern era.

Author: Kate Crosby
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 12/22/2020
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.79lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.40w x 0.90d
ISBN13: 9781611807943
ISBN10: 1611807948
BISAC Categories:
- Religion | Buddhism | Theravada
- Religion | Buddhism | History
- History | Asia | Southeast Asia

About the Author
KATE CROSBY is professor of Buddhist Studies at King's College London. Her work focuses on Sanskrit, Pali, and Pali-vernacular literature and on Theravada practice in the pre-modern and modern periods. Her other publications include Theravada Buddhism: Continuity, Diversity, Identity and The Bodhicaryavatara.