Esoteric Theravada

<b>A groundbreaking exploration of a practice tradition that was nearly lost to history.</b> <p/>Theravada Buddhism often understood as the school that most carefully preserved the practices taught by the Buddha has undergone tremendous change over time. Prior to Western colonialism in Asia--which brought Western and modernist intellectual concerns such as the separation of science and religion to bear on Buddhism--there existed a tradition of embodied esoteric and culturally regional Theravada meditation practices. This once-dominant traditional meditation system known as <i>borān kammatthāna</i> is related to--yet remarkably distinct from--Vipassana and other Buddhist and secular mindfulness practices that would become the hallmark of Theravada Buddhism in the twentieth century. Drawing on a quarter century of research scholar Kate Crosby offers the first holistic discussion of <i>borān kammatthāna</i> illuminating the historical events and cultural processes by which the practice has been marginalized in the modern era.