Taigen Dan Leighton (Author) - Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression - An Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism

I appreciate Taigen Dan Leightons elucidation of the bodhisattvas as archetypes embodying awakened spiritual human qualities and his examples of individuals who personify these aspects. In naming, describing, and illustrating the individual bodhisattvas, his book is an informative and valuable resource.

Vigorous and inspiring, Faces of Compassion guides the reader into the clear flavors of the awakening life within both Buddhist tradition and our broad contemporary world. This is an informative, useful, and exhilarating work of deeply grounded scholarship and insight.

Such a useful book. Mr. Leighton clarifies and explains aspects of Buddhism which are often mysterious to the uninformed. The concept of the bodhisattvaone who postpones personal salvation to serve othersis the perfect antidote to todays spiritual materialism where enlightened selfishness has been enshrined as dogma for the greedy. This book is as useful as a fine axe.

In Faces of Compassion, Taigen Leighton provides us with a clear-as-a-bell introduction to Buddhist thought, as well as a short course in Far Eastern iconography and lore that I intend to use as a desk reference. What astonishes me, however, is that along the way he also manages, with surprising plausibility, to portray figures as diverse as Gertrude Stein, Bob Dylan, and Albert Einstein, among many likely and unlikely others, as equivalent Western expressions of the bodhisattva archetype. His discussion provides the sort of informed daring we need to make Buddhism our own.

Like boys flying kites, spiritual writers tend to let their teachings jounce high in the clouds somewhere. Not so Taigen Dan Leighton. He resolutely reels them down. In Faces of Compassion he presents Buddhist ideas and ideals embodied in flesh-and-blood people, examples whom we can love, admire, emulate: a stroke of genius. The result: a sparkler among contemporary Buddhist writings.

Wisdom Publications

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2012 Taigen Dan Leighton

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Leighton, Taigen Daniel.

Faces of compassion : classic Bodhisattva archetypes and their modern expressionan introduction to Mahayana Buddhism / Taigen Dan Leighton ; foreword by Joan Halifax. Revised edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-61429-014-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Bodhisattvas. 2. Bodhisattva (The concept) 3. Bodhisattvas in art. 4. Religious lifeBuddhism. 5. Mahayana BuddhismDoctrines. I. Title.

BQ4695.L46 2012

294.34213dc23

2012003645

ISBN 9781614290148

eBook ISBN 9781614290230

16 15 14 13 12

5 4 3 2 1

Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint the following copyrighted works:

Poem by Daigu Rykan, translated by Taigen Dan Leighton and Kazuaki Tanahashi, from Essential Zen, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Tensho David Schneider. Copyright 1994 by HarperCollins Publishers. By permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Three selections from Temple Dusk: Zen Haiku (1992) by Mitsu Suzuki with permission of Parallax Press, Berkeley, California, www.parallax.org.

Excerpt from Maitreya Poem from Ring of Bone by Lew Welch. Copyright 1979 by permission of Grey Fox Press.

Excerpt from One Generation After by Elie Wiesel. Copyright 1965, 1967, 1970 by Elie Wiesel. Reprinted by permission of George Borchardt, Inc., for the author.

Designed and typeset in Monotype Garamond by Gopa & Ted2. Authors photo by Tim Szymanski. Cover illustration by Richard Wehrman.

Wisdom Publications books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Production Guidelines for Book Longevity set by the Council on Library Resources.

Printed in the United States of America.

This book was produced with environmental mindfulness. We have elected to print this title on 30% PCW recycled paper. As a result, we have saved the following resources: 16 trees, 8 million BTUs of energy, 1,583 lbs. of greenhouse gases, 7,135 gallons of water, and 452 lbs. of solid waste. For more information, please visit our website, www.wisdompubs.org. This paper is also FSC certified. For more information, please visit www.fscus.org.

This book is dedicated
to my parents, Joseph and Rosalind,
who were teaching me about bodhisattvas
before they ever heard the word.

C HAPTER 4. KYAMUNI A S B ODHISATTVA

Emaciated kyamuni, Thailand

photograph by Alan Senauke

kyamuni, Gandhra

photograph by Rob Lee, image courtesy San Francisco Zen Center

kyamuni in earth-touching mudra, Thailand

photograph by Alan Senauke

kyamuni in earth-touching mudra, Tibet

photograph by Lani Roberts, image courtesy Tibet Shop, San Francisco