"The essential Buddhist perspective, Howe argues, is that "reality" lacks the solidity which we habitually assume it has, and that therefore the appropriate attitude toward life is to play it as we would a game - with unusual seriousness, for itself rather than for any ulterior motive, even that of investing it with meaning. Howe also demonstrates that the "real" subject of representational art is always just itself. The significance of such art depends upon the concession that it has no significance. In the same way, it is precisely the self-deconstructive nature of Shakespeare's plays which makes their Buddhist-like affirmative positions visible."--BOOK JACKET.

What does Shakespeare have to teach us about mindfulness? What Eastern spiritual views about death, love, and presence are reflected in the writings of The Bard? The Buddha and the Bard reveals the surprising connections between the 2,500-year-old spiritual leader and the most compelling writer of all time. “Shufran’s compelling juxtapositions will encourage the reader to ask the deepest questions of themselves while delighting in the play of resonances across a cultural and historical divide.” – YOGA Magazine Shakespeare understood and represented the human condition better than any writer of his time. As for the Buddha, he saw how to liberate us from that condition. Author Lauren Shufran explores the fascinating interplay of Western drama and Eastern philosophy by pairing quotes from Shakespeare with the tenets of an Eastern spiritual practice, sparking a compelling dialogue between the two. There’s a remarkable interchange of echoes between Shakespeare’s conception of “the inward man” and Buddhist approaches to recognizing, honoring, and working with our humanness as we play out our roles on the “stage” of our lives. The Buddha and the Bard synthesizes literature and scripture, embodied drama and transcendent practice, to shape a multifaceted lyric that we can apply as mindful practice in our own lives. Shufran’s compelling juxtapositions will encourage the reader to ask the deepest questions of themselves while delighting in the play of resonances across a cultural and historical divide.

The Buddha taught his followers to transcend the cycle of birth and death by doing no harm, training the mind, and benefiting others. Shakespeare wrote plays about romantic love, sex, war, royal power, betrayal, jealousy, murder and revenge. What can these two figures, separated by 2000 years and living in such different societies, possibly have in common? More than you might think. Both recognized that our thoughts shape our experience. Both were concerned with suffering and its causes. Both embraced qualities that counter suffering, including love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Both were concerned with impermanence and death. Both understood the illusory nature of existence. Both believed that ill-intentioned actions bring bad consequences for the actor. And both realized that the self to which we cling has no enduring reality. Our book explores each of these areas, drawing on passages from Buddhist teachings and passages from many of Shakespeare's works. Through our exploration we will find that Shakespeare's mirror-like mind reflected universal wisdom that resonates with the some of the Buddha's basic teachings.

Buddha & Shakespeare recounts, in one of the more dramatic narratives that you will likely ever come across, the epic nature of both Love and War. Each of which befalls us, most often unexpectedly. It is the story, then, of our being-human, as told through the lives of two princes who come to find themselves caught up in the throes of battles that seem to have found them, as much or more than they have found those battles. One prince from the East: Siddhartha, Guatama, the Buddha-to-be. The other prince from the West: Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, heir to Elsinore. Both of these young men--children of royalty--find themselves transformed at the hands of a breath-stealing revelation. Siddhartha encounters suffering for the first time. Hamlet's world is devastated by a King's passing--and the news from his father's ghost that he has been the victim of a murderous conspiracy. Something is afoul. Something is not quite right in each of their worlds any longer. We know that this one thing holds for both princes: that the worlds these young men had once inhabited will be home for them no more. That everything they had ever known up to the moment of revelation has just been radically transformed in relation to a knowledge of things that neither of them has ever had before. How this all plays out unfolds in the pages of Buddha & Shakespeare. That nothing will be the same again. That everything has changed. That this is the exact same moment of revelation that confronts each and every one of us at some point in our lives: the impossibility of our ever going back; or pretending that we don't know what we know, and haven't seen what we have in moments of excruciating clarity.

An End to Suffering is a deeply original and provocative book about the Buddha's life and his influence throughout history, told in the form of the author's search to understand the Buddha's relevance in a world where class oppression and religious violence are rife, and where poverty and terrorism cast a long, constant shadow. Mishra describes his restless journeys into India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, among Islamists and the emerging Hindu middle class, looking for this most enigmatic of religious figures, exploring the myths and places of the Buddha's life, and discussing Western explorers' "discovery" of Buddhism in the nineteenth century. He also considers the impact of Buddhist ideas on such modern politicians as Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. As he reflects on his travels and on his own past, Mishra shows how the Buddha wrestled with problems of personal identity, alienation, and suffering in his own, no less bewildering, times. In the process Mishra discovers the living meaning of the Buddha's teaching, in the world and for himself. The result is the most three-dimensional, convincing book on the Buddha that we have.

Thinking Shakespeare gives theater artists practical advice about how to make Shakespeare’s words feel spontaneous, passionate, and real. Based on Barry Edelstein’s thirty-year career directing Shakespeare’s plays, this book provides the tools that artists need to fully understand and express the power of Shakespeare’s language.

The Oxford Handbook of Shakespearean Tragedy presents fifty-four essays by a range of scholars from all parts of the world. Together these essays offer readers a fresh and comprehensive understanding of Shakespeare tragedies as both works of literature and as performance texts written by a playwright who was himself an experienced actor. The opening section explores ways in which later generations of critics have shaped our idea of 'Shakespearean' tragedy, and addresses questions of genre by examining the playwright's inheritance from the classical and medieval past. The second section is devoted to current textual issues, while the third offers new critical readings of each of the tragedies. This is set beside a group of essays that deal with performance history, with screen productions, and with versions devised for the operatic stage, as well as with twentieth and twenty-first century re-workings of Shakespearean tragedy. The book's final section expands readers' awareness of Shakespeare's global reach, tracing histories of criticism and performance across Europe, the Americas, Australasia, the Middle East, Africa, India, and East Asia.