Attracting the Heart: Social Relations and the Aesthetics of Emotion in Sri Lankan Monastic Culture

by Jeffrey Samuels

Book Overview

An idealized view of the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk might be described according to the doctrinal demand for emotional detachment and, ultimately, the cessation of all desire. Yet monks are also enjoined to practice compassion, a powerful emotion and equally lofty ideal, and live with every other human feeling--love, hate, jealousy, ambition--while relating to other monks and the lay community. In this important ethnography of Buddhism in Sri...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0824833856
• ISBN13: 9780824833855
• Release Date: July 2010
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.1"