Look for the black  flag on the tent!!!

Events in this year’s series included a book showcase at Brandt Bookshop in Glendale, a new release event and book showcase at Mystic Journey Bookstore in Venice, a new release and reading at Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse in La Cañada, and a book showcase at Dharma Center Bookstore in Whittier. Also in the series were four “tea and book talks” held at Hsi Lai Temple on Sundays during the month of April. The schedule also included monthly book talks at the University of the West in Rosemead.

This is the first year we have held a book talk series, follow this blog or like us on Facebook for information about dates and locations of the 2012 BLP Book Talk Series.

This year BLP focused on highlighting a limited number of titles. Featured books included our popular mainstays For All Living Beings, Chan Heart, Chan Art, Being Good, as well as the 2011 new releases Three Virtuous Brothers, After Many Autumns, Four Insights for Finding Fulfillment, The Universal Gate, and the Humble Table, Wise Fare Series minibook, Inspirations.

In addition to having a booth at the book fair, BLP director, Venerable Yi Chao and senior editor, John Gill held three lectures at Florida Fo Guang Shan temples. The lectures were followed by a book showcase. One lecture was held at the IBPS Miami temple in Tamarac, which is thirty-five miles north of Miami, and two lectures were held at Guang Ming Temple in Orlando. One of the lectures was an interpretation of the new BLP title Four Insights for Finding Fulfillment.

During Street Fair weekend, more than 250 publishers and booksellers exhibit and sell books. The Fair is part of the Florida Center for the Literary Arts at Miami Dade College, a cultural and academic initiative that promotes the advancement and appreciation of literature.

The Miami Book Fair International is just one of the book fairs BLP attends as an exhibitor each year. The Los Angeles Times Book Fair is another one. These book fairs are a great place to peruse our books first hand, to meet our editors, authors, and staff, to ask questions about the BLP titles, and to give us your feedback.

Amazon Kindle

• Being Good: Being Good is an invitation to readers to consider what it means to lead a good life as well as an offering of practical advice from Buddhist sources on how to accomplish this.
• For All Living Beings: An introduction to the Buddhist “threefold training” of morality, meditative concentration, and wisdom.
• Life: Politics, Human Rights, and What the Buddha Said About Life: Explores the Buddhist view of life and how people can live and interact harmoniously in the world. Topics of discussion include education, family life, politics, human rights, peace, and freedom.
• Humanistic Buddhism: A Blueprint for Life: Master Hsing Yun’s reflections on how Humanistic Buddhism applies to all aspects of life. Topics include discussions of ethics, emotions, wealth, happiness, compassion, religion, education, celebrations, nature, government, and our future.
• Opening the Mind’s Eye: An exploration of Buddhist views of perception, time, and space, along with accounts of Buddhist views of rebirth, karma, causation, supernatural powers, and destiny.

Google Books

• For All Living Beings: An introduction to the Buddhist “threefold training” of morality, meditative concentration, and wisdom.
• Life: Politics, Human Rights, and What the Buddha Said About Life: Explores the Buddhist view of life and how people can live and interact harmoniously in the world. Topics of discussion include education, family life, politics, human rights, peace, and freedom.
• Humanistic Buddhism: A Blueprint for Life: Master Hsing Yun’s reflections on how Humanistic Buddhism applies to all aspects of life. Topics include discussions of ethics, emotions, wealth, happiness, compassion, religion, education, celebrations, nature, government, and our future.
• Opening the Mind’s Eye: An exploration of Buddhist views of perception, time, and space, along with accounts of Buddhist views of rebirth, karma, causation, supernatural powers, and destiny.

Écrit par Vénérable Maître Hsing Yun
Traduit par Le-Binh Tran
Publié par Buddha’s Light Publishing
627 pages, 5.5 x 8.5, hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-932293-62-3
Price:$35.00

Le sixième patriarche Huineng avait écouté ce passage du Sūtra du Diamant qui dit qu’« Il faut se libérer de tout attachement pour faire naître son cœur pur » et il s’exclama : « Qui aurait pu dire que la nature propre est intrinsèquement pure ? Qui aurait pu dire que la nature propre pouvait donner naissance à tous les phénomènes ? » Dès lors, le Sūtra du Diamant a remplacé le Lankāvatāra-sūtra, et a ainsi fait s’épanouir l’époque dorée et impérissable de l’Ecole du Chan chinois.

Le Vénérable maître Hsing Yun présente ce commentaire du « Sūtra du Diamant » en établissant des thèmes clairs et précis, pour guider les lecteurs et les aider à pénétrer dans la pensée profonde du bouddhisme. Des exemples, des paraboles et des Gong’an y sont insérés, nous permettant d’ouvrir instantanément notre esprit et d’assimiler le vrai sens de la vie.

A Collection of Chinese Buddhist Literature

Edited by John Gill and Susan Tidwell
Translated by John Balcom
383 pages, 5.5 x 8.25, paperback
ISBN: 978-1-932293-49-4
Price:$15.95

How does buying direct support BLP?

Find this book on Amazon.com

Carved on wood and stone and traced across the sky, Buddhism has a long tradition of expressing the tranquility, challenges, and beauty of spiritual life in writing and art. After Many Autumns collects over two hundred of the most well-known and beloved works of Chinese Buddhist literature in a single volume. In poetry and prose, After Many Autumns culls from centuries of celebrated composition from monastics, hermits, sages, and scholars as they communicate subtle truths. Fluidly translated and annotated, and complete with biographical and historical notes, After Many Autumns is a one-of-a-kind collection for lovers of impactful writing and spiritual wisdom.

Featured authors:

Bai Juyi, Baizhang Huaihai, Cihang, Dongshan Liangjie, Du Fu, Fu Dashi, Hanshan, Hongyi, Hsing Yun, Huangbo Xiyun, Huineng, Lianchi Zhuhong, Li Yu, Meng Haoran, Ouyang Xiu, Pei Xiu, Sengcan, Shide, Shiyuan, Emperor Shunzhi, Sima Guang, Su Dongpo, Taixu, Tao Yuanming, Wang Anshi, Wuzu Fayan, Xuyun, Yinguang, Yongjia Xuanjue, Yongming Yanshou, Emperor Yongzheng, Zhang Daqian, Zhaozhou Congshen, and Zhu Xi

A Commentary on Avalokitesvara’s Universal Gate Sutra

Written by Venerable Master Hsing Yun
Translated by Robert Smitheram
238 pages, 5.5 x 8.75, hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-932293-48-7
Price:$19.95

How does buying direct support BLP?

Find this book on Amazon.com

The compassionate visage of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, better known as Guanyin in Chinese, has been a source of inspiration and devotion for Buddhists and non-Buddhists for centuries. Offering readers the opportunity to get to know this great practitioner from the Buddhist texts themselves, The Universal Gate contains a new translation of Avalokitesvara’s Universal Gate Sutra, the Buddha’s scriptural account of this compassionate sage and his power to manifest in whatever form necessary to help sentient beings.

This short sutra, chanted and memorized throughout East Asia, is rich with symbolic significance and striking, memorable images. Venerable Master Hsing Yun provides a complete line-by-line commentary to unpack the sutra’s fantastic descriptions, relating them to personal practice and the wider Buddhist teachings. The Universal Gate allows readers to enter Avalokitesvara’s compassion and to appreciate the bodhisattva’s special place of reverence in the Buddhist world.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Avalokitesvara’s Universal Gate Sutra
• Question and Answer
• The Seven Calamities
• The Three Poisons
• Two Wishes
• Exhortation to Practice
• Manifestations
• Offering of the Jeweled Necklace
• Verses on Avalokitesvara
• Verses on Dangers
• Verses on Virtues
• Transmission
• Universal Gate Sutra Chinese Text

Inspiration

Written by Venerable Master Hsing Yun
Translated by Tom Manzo and Shujan Cheng
Illustrated by Emily Lin
246 pages, 3 x 4, hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-932293-56-2
Price:$6.95

Preorder for Spring 2012:

How does buying direct support BLP?

Humble Table, Wise Fare is a collection of charming aphorisms gathered over the many years of Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s teaching career—this international favorite is now available in three handsome minibook editions. Slight in size but grand in stature, each minibook contains over one hundred new verses and quotes printed in both English and Chinese.

Inspired by the Vegetable Root Sayings, the classic collection of Hong Zicheng’s morality poems, each volume of Humble Table, Wise Fare brims with Chan wisdom, and makes a perfect gift for any lover of wisdom expressed with simplicity and elegance. These small, sturdy books are well-suited for daily contemplation and reading on the go.

Buddha’s Light Publishing representatives read excerpts from the books, provided background on the literature, biographical information about the authors, insight into the Chan tradition, literary symbolism and Chinese culture, as well as insightful commentary on each work. They also fielded thoughtful questions raised by the audience. Many of the attendees were very knowledgeable about Buddhist literature, especially Chan gongans; one was a published poet who writes about the Chinese-American experience. Hsi Lai Temple venerables accompanied the Buddha’s Light Publishing representatives and assisted with the presentation.

Buddha’s Light Publishing is releasing two books this August. The first, After Many Autumns, is a unique work featuring 1,500 years of Chinese Buddhist poetry and prose. The book will be available on Amazon.com, in fine book stores, at Fo Guang Shan temples, and directly from the Buddha’s Light Publishing online catalogue at www.blpusa.com. The second 2011 release is the long-awaited English-language version of The Universal Gate: A Commentary on Avalokitesvara’s Universal Gate Sutra by Venerable Master Hsing Yun. The Universal Gate, a translation and in-depth commentary originally published in Chinese in 1953, is Master Hsing Yun’s second major publication. It received critical acclaim and has remained continuously in print.

Three upcoming works to be released are FaXiang: A Buddhist Practitioner’s Encyclopedia by Venerable Tzu Chuang, Four Insights for Finding Fulfillment: A Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Diamond Sutra and Inspirations, a Humble Table, Wise Fare minibook, both by Venerable Master Hsing Yun. In addition, new booklets in the Buddhism in Every Step series are in production. These titles are scheduled to be available in the spring of 2012.

Celebrating its tenth year, Buddha’s Light Publishing is dedicated to offering its readership quality Buddhist books covering a diverse range of topics, including translations of classical sutras and commentary, contemporary writings, topical issues, wisdom-inspirational readings, Chinese culture, and Dharma-inspired arts and poetry. Buddha’s Light Publishing is also working to develop Buddhist titles that will support the educational needs of families, children, and Dharma teachers. As the premiere publisher of Venerable Master Hsing Yun, Buddha’s Light Publishing embraces Humanistic Buddhism and promotes Buddhist writing that is accessible, community-oriented and relevant to daily life.