: The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons [Annotated]

The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons [Annotated]

Binding: Kindle Edition
Format: Kindle eBook
Label: Buddhist Classics Collection
Languages: EnglishPublished
Manufacturer: Buddhist Classics Collection
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 44
Publication Date: January 28, 2012
Publisher: Buddhist Classics Collection
Release Date: January 28, 2012
Studio: Buddhist Classics Collection

Editorial Review:

Product Description:
The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons by Henry Steel Olcott(H.S. Olcott)
Buddhist Classics Collection
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (August 2, 1832 – February 17, 1907) was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer and the co-founder and first President of the Theosophical Society.

Olcott was the first well-known American of European ancestry to make a formal conversion to Buddhism. His subsequent actions as president of the Theosophical Society helped create a renaissance in the study of Buddhism. Olcott is considered a Buddhist modernist for his efforts in interpreting Buddhism through a Westernized lens.

Olcott was a major revivalist of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and he is still honored in Sri Lanka for these efforts. Olcott has been called by Sri Lankans "one of the heroes in the struggle of our independence and a pioneer of the present religious, national and cultural revival". More ardent admirers have claimed that Olcott was a Bodhisattva.

Olcott was born in 1832 in Orange, New Jersey, the oldest of the six children of Presbyterian businessman Henry Wyckoff Olcott and Emily Steel Olcott. As a child, Olcott lived on his father's New Jersey farm.

During his teens he attended first the College of the City of New York and then Columbia University, where he joined the St. Anthony Hall fraternity, a milieu of well-known people, until his father's business failed during 1851. Unfortunately, he had to leave the university since his father could not afford the tuition.

The Buddhist Catechism, composed by Olcott in 1881, is one of his most enduring contributions to the revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, and remains in use there today. The text outlines what Olcott saw to be the basic doctrines of Buddhism, including the life of the Buddha, the message of the Dharma, the role of the Sanga. The text also treats how the Buddha’s message correlates with contemporary society. Olcott was considered by South Asians and others as a Buddhist revivalist.

Olcott's Buddhist Catechism is presented in the same format of question and answer used in some Christian Catechisms. Here are a few examples from that text:

Q. Would you call a person a Buddhist who has merely been born of Buddhist parents?

A. Certainly not. A Buddhist is one who not only professes belief in the Buddha as the noblest of Teachers, in the Doctrine preached by Him, and in the brotherhood of Arhats, but practices his Precepts in daily life.

Q. What is Karma?

A. A causation operating on the moral, as well as physical and other planes. Buddhists say there is no miracle in human affairs: what a man sows that he must still reap.

Q. What other good words have been used to express the essence of Buddhism?

A. Self-culture and universal love.

Product Description:
The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons by Henry Steel Olcott(H.S. Olcott)
Buddhist Classics Collection
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (August 2, 1832 – February 17, 1907) was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer and the co-founder and first President of the Theosophical Society.

Olcott was the first well-known American of European ancestry to make a formal conversion to Buddhism. His subsequent actions as president of the Theosophical Society helped create a renaissance in the study of Buddhism. Olcott is considered a Buddhist modernist for his efforts in interpreting Buddhism through a Westernized lens.

Olcott was a major revivalist of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and he is still honored in Sri Lanka for these efforts. Olcott has been called by Sri Lankans "one of the heroes in the struggle of our independence and a pioneer of the present religious, national and cultural revival". More ardent admirers have claimed that Olcott was a Bodhisattva.

Olcott was born in 1832 in Orange, New Jersey, the oldest of the six children of Presbyterian businessman Henry Wyckoff Olcott and Emily Steel Olcott. As a child, Olcott lived on his father's New Jersey farm.

During his teens he attended first the College of the City of New York and then Columbia University, where he joined the St. Anthony Hall fraternity, a milieu of well-known people, until his father's business failed during 1851. Unfortunately, he had to leave the university since his father could not afford the tuition.

The Buddhist Catechism, composed by Olcott in 1881, is one of his most enduring contributions to the revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, and remains in use there today. The text outlines what Olcott saw to be the basic doctrines of Buddhism, including the life of the Buddha, the message of the Dharma, the role of the Sanga. The text also treats how the Buddha’s message correlates with contemporary society. Olcott was considered by South Asians and others as a Buddhist revivalist.

Olcott's Buddhist Catechism is presented in the same format of question and answer used in some Christian Catechisms. Here are a few examples from that text:

Q. Would you call a person a Buddhist who has merely been born of Buddhist parents?

A. Certainly not. A Buddhist is one who not only professes belief in the Buddha as the noblest of Teachers, in the Doctrine preached by Him, and in the brotherhood of Arhats, but practices his Precepts in daily life.

Q. What is Karma?

A. A causation operating on the moral, as well as physical and other planes. Buddhists say there is no miracle in human affairs: what a man sows that he must still reap.

Q. What other good words have been used to express the essence of Buddhism?

A. Self-culture and universal love.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: none

Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display

Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

Abraham, Adam, David, Isaac, Job, Joseph, Judith, Moses

Informative site dedictated to god, religion and ethics

The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons [Annotated]

The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons [Annotated]

Books by Joseph Ratzinger

Catholic Books

Books about Jesus

Books about Orthodoxy

Books about Mormonism

Books about Evangelism

Books about Protestantism

Books about Buddhism