Daniel Cozort

Many forms of Buddhism, divergent in philosophy and style, emerged as Buddhism filtered out of India into other parts of Asia. Nonetheless, all of them embodied an ethical core that is remarkably consistent. Articulated by the historical Buddha in his first sermon, this moral core is founded on the concept of karma--that intentions and actions have future consequences for an individual--and is summarized as Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood, three of the elements of the Eightfold Path. Although they were later elaborated and interpreted in a multitude of ways, none of these core principles were ever abandoned. The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics provides a comprehensive overview of the field of Buddhist ethics in the twenty-first century. The Handbook discusses the foundations of Buddhist ethics focusing on karma and the precepts looking at abstinence from harming others, stealing, and intoxication. It considers ethics in the different Buddhist traditions and the similarities they share, and compares Buddhist ethics to Western ethics and the psychology of moral judgments. The volume also investigates Buddhism and society analysing economics, environmental ethics, and Just War ethics. The final section focuses on contemporary issues surrounding Buddhist ethics, including gender, sexuality, animal rights, and euthanasia. This groundbreaking collection offers an indispensable reference work for students and scholars of Buddhist ethics and comparative moral philosophy.

What are the most important points of difference between the major schools of Buddhist philosophy? This rich, medium-length survey offers a lively answer. The introduction, aimed at those new to Buddhist thought, sets up a dialogue between the schools on the most controversial topics in Buddhist philosophy. Jamyang Shayba was the greatest Tibetan writer on philosophical tenets. Losang Gonchok's Clear Crystal Mirror, a concise commentary on Jamyang Shayba's root text, represents a distillation of many centuries of Indian and Tibetan scholarship. Buddhist Philosophy skims the cream of Jamyang Shayba's intellect, providing a rare opportunity to sharpen our intellect and expand our view of Buddhist thought.

Nagarjuna , the founder of the Buddhist Middle Way School , was apparently not concerned with building an elaborate philosophical edifice to explicate the ramifications of his radical teaching that all phenomena lack inherent existence . Chandrakirti, who most later scholars identify as the founder of the Consequence School branch of the Middle Way School, wrote a great deal to defend and extend Nagarjuna's thought, distinguishing it from that of other Buddhist philosophers. Tibetans of the Ge-luk-ba monastic order have carefully mined these Indian riches, identifying "unique tenets" of the Consequence School that they enumerated and discussed at length. ;This dissertation is a study of the "unique tenets" as found in the most extensive and penetrating of Tibetan works on the philosophical tenets of the Indian schools, Jam-yang-shay-ba's Great Exposition of Tenets , and Jang-gya's Presentation of Tenets , along with Ngak-wang-bel-den's Annotations for the "Great Exposition of Tenets". Relevant portions of these works are translated and annotated. ;The "unique tenets" mainly comprise Consequentialist refutations of the positions of other principal Buddhist schools, particularly the Mind-Only School . It is argued that according to these Ge-luk-ba sources, the Consequentialist strategy in these instances is to claim that their opponents engage in ultimate analysis, meaning that they either postulate metaphysical entities that could be found upon analysis or that they have used a Middle Way-type analysis themselves to refute the valid conventions of the world, and the Consequentialists are not mere nay-sayers, but offer their own positive, albeit subtle, alternative to the positions they refute. In the first part of the dissertation, a few of the "unique tenets" are discussed at length