A Buddhist History of the West

Studies in Lack

David R. Loy

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780791452608, 9780791452592
• eBook ISBN: 9780791489123
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Historia del mundo

A Buddhist interpretation of Western history that shows civilization shaped by the self's desire for groundedness.

Buddhism teaches that to become happy, greed, ill-will, and delusion must be transformed into their positive counterparts: generosity, compassion, and wisdom. The history of the West, like all histories, has been plagued by the consequences of greed, ill-will, and delusion. A Buddhist History of the West investigates how individuals have tried to ground themselves to make themselves feel more real. To be self-conscious is to experience ungroundedness as a sense of lack, but what is lacking has been understood differently in different historical periods. Author David R. Loy examines how the understanding of lack changes at historical junctures and shows how those junctures were so crucial in the development of the West.

Table of contents

• A BUDDHIST HISTORY OF THE WEST
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Toward a Buddhist Perspective
• 1. The Lack of Freedom
• 2. The Lack of Progress
• 3. The Renaissance of Lack
• 4. The Lack of Modernity
• 5. The Lack of Civil Society
• 6. Preparing for Something That Never Happens
• 7. The Religion of the Market
• Afterword: The Future of Lack
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index