Stephen Batchelor (author)
Stephen Batchelor ( born April 7, 1953 in Dundee, Scotland ) is a British Buddhist and author, best known for his secular and agnostic approach to Buddhism. Among his most famous publications, the book in the meantime appeared in the 10th edition belongs " Buddhism without Beliefs ". He led the Sharpham College for Buddhist Studies in England and is co-editor of the magazine Tricycle.
The teaching in Transition: Batchelors positions
Batchelor sees in Buddhism rather a constantly evolving culture of awakening as a religious belief system that is based on immutable dogmas. He holds especially the doctrine of karma and rebirth for a characteristic of ancient Indian civilization and not for what Siddharta Gautama taught in the core. Buddhism has survived the last 2500 years due to its ability to reinvent itself in line with the needs of different Asian cultures, with whom he interacted in the course of its history. Now, where Buddhism encounters modernity, in a decisive new phase of development, it enters. In his writings, translations and teachings Stephen critically examined the role of Buddhism in the world today. This questioning has given him both a reputation as a heretic introduced as well as that of a reformer.
Vita
Stephen was born on 7 April 1953 in the Scottish community Dundee. He grew up in Watford, northwest of London, with his mother Phyllis (born 1913) and his brother David (b. 1955) in a humanistic environment. After graduating from high school in Watford, he started at the age of 18 years in February 1972, a journey overland to India. He settled in Dharamsala, the capital of the exiled Dalai Lama and studied at the Tibetan Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey. In 1974 he was ordained as a Buddhist monk. He left India in 1975 to study Buddhist philosophy and teaching under the guidance of Geshe Rabten. At first he studied in Switzerland in the monastic Tibet Institute Rikon, then in Le Mont Pelerin, where Geshe Rabten Tharpa Choling had (now Rabten Choling ) was founded. In 1979, he moved to Hamburg, where he worked as a translator for Geshe Thubten Ngawang at the Tibetan Institute. In April 1981, he went to the monastery Songgwangsa to South Korea in order to undergo training in Zen Buddhism at Kusan Sunim. He remained until 1984, in the autumn in Korea and then set off on a pilgrimage to Japan, China and Tibet. In February 1985, he took off his monk's robe and married Martine Fages in Hong Kong. He then returned to England and joined the Sharpham North Community in Totnes in Devon. During the fifteen years he lived in Sharpham, he became coordinator of the Sharpham Trust ( 1992) and co-founder of the Sharpham College for Buddhist Studies and Contemporary Enquiry (1996). During this time he worked as a Buddhist chaplain of HMP Channings Wood. From 1990 on, he was a teacher at Gaia House meditation center in Devon and since 1992 has been an author and editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.
Publications
The books by Stephen Batchelor have been translated into various languages. His most famous work is Buddhism without Beliefs ( trans. in nine languages). 1988 Stephen Batchelor received the Thomas Cook Guide Book Award and the 1994 " Tricycle " Prize for Buddhist Scholarship. As a Tibetan translator, he made a series of important works to a Western audience, including Shantideva. A Guide to the Bodhisattva 's Way of Life. Confessions of an unbelieving Buddhists: A Spiritual Search
Stephen Batchelor: Confessions of an unbelieving Buddhists. Ludwig ( Random House ), 2010, ISBN 3453280067th
Stephen Batchelor: Buddhism for unbelievers. 10th Revised edition edition. Fischer ( Tb ), Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3,596,140,269th
Martine Batchelor, Stephen Batchelor: Meditation. Arbor -Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3924195838th
Stephen Batchelor: Living with the evil. Why do we want the good and always do evil. Theseus, 2005, ISBN 3,896,202,529th
Stephen Batchelor: Nagarjuna - Verses from the center. A Buddhist vision of life. Theseus, 2002, ISBN 3,896,201,816th
Stephen Batchelor: In other alone. An existential approach to Buddhism. Theseus, 1983, ISBN 3,859,360,604th
Stephen Batchelor: The Awakening of the West: The Encounter of Buddhism and Western Culture. Parallax Press, 1999, ISBN 0,938,077,694th
Stephen Batchelor, Sucitt Ajahn: Rude Awakenings: Two Englishmen on Foot in Buddhism 's Holy Land. Wisdom Publications, U.S., 2006, ISBN 0,861,714,857th
Kusan Sunim, Stephen Batchelor, Batchelor Martine Fages: The Way Of Korean Zen. Floating World Edithions, 2005, ISBN 189164016X.
Stephen Batchelor, Master Sheng - yen, John Crook: Illuminating Silence: The Practice of Chinese Zen. Watkins Publishing, 2002, ISBN 1,842,930,311th
Gay Watson, Guy Claxton, Stephen Batchelor: The Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Science, and Our Day - To-Day Lives: Buddhism, Science, and Our Day - to-Day Lives. Red Wheel / Weiser, 2000, ISBN 1,578,631,726th
Stephen Batchelor (eds.): The Jewel in the Lotus: A Guide to the Buddhist Traditions of Tibet. Wisdom Publications, U.S., 1987, ISBN 0861710487th