Hey all,

I'm looking for books that give detailed, inspiring, even dramatic accounts of the spiritual journeys of great Buddhist masters. Any help is greatly appreciated, as always!

Thanks,
Adam

Not really a biography but in Modern Buddhists Master by Jack Kornfield there is a short biography of each masters in the book along their teachings.

http://books.google.ca/books/about/Living_Buddhist_Masters.html?id=8InEkEp5FtEC&redir_esc=y

Here is the biography of Ajarn Mun which I haven't read:

http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/acariya-mun.pdf

There is more biography on buddhanet:

https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=biography&domains=www.buddhanet.net&sitesearch=www.buddhanet.net&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&safe=strict&gws_rd=ssl

http://www.amazon.com/Born-In-Tibet-Chogyam-Trungpa/dp/1570627142 (bio of Chogyam Trungpa)

http://www.naturalthinker.net/trl/texts/Hakuin/wildivy.html (parts of Hakuin's autobiography)

http://www.treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Atisha-Dipamkara/5717) (bio of Atisha Dipamkara, the website treasuryoflives has a lot of hagiographic material)

http://www.thranguhk.org/buddhism/en_milarepa.html (life of Milarepa)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5js2h5mjm31elnq/Keith-Dowman-Masters-of-Mahamudra.pdf?dl=0 (lives of the 84 Mahasiddhas)

Cheers,

James

"Dipa Ma: The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master", by Amy Schmidt is good.

All These accounts are a complete history of the world. Within it are contained the events of the future. It is called the Buddha's deshana. It exists in all religions, however, with completely correlating terms. It is in Genesis. It is in Hindi. It is in pieces scattered over Africa, older than any books but bound in oral traditions of Shamanism. 

There is no way to prove me wrong. Only some of you will even notice what I've said. If you feel like proving this to yourself, you can do it by following the languages on Earth. Language changes slowly so words of untranslated versions of this story are close to the terms used in the Pali canon. Those terms are close to the persian buddhists that no-one thinks about. These words spread to Israel during the gospels, to both catholics and protestants in the two places left with resources, Europe and America. There are words in america's version of the Buddha's Deshana using latin that has changed little. See this in how science terms translate in the Latin ways. Put them together in a form that sounds like poetry and you will see how science is a religion. 

Catholicism has a few extra books that protestants reject because it sounds like heresy. It is the deshana of a time when science needed terms in latin that translated to the mix of lingui they used.

When you understand that then you will understand that religion is simply the most scientific terms available during the height of great societies. Great societies moved only where there were forests. All deserts have been man-made. If this were not true than why can all places on earth support life in some way? Science tells us that over time, there comes an abundance of life no matter the conditions. When life stays in one place long enough, it makes dirt and plants that can live on no rain. When dirt builds up it reaches a place that has water and moves it to where there is no rain. Rivers become like veins and the creatures that lived on no rain became creatures that lived on abundance. The difference between a desert and a rainforest is the way to understand why creatures are so beautiful that they wrap themselves in rainbows and the variety of them number in a range that has no meaning to humans.

So can you see that without man, all of Earth was a paradise of such magnitude that it exists in the memory of genes and comes out in all ways as Deshana. Science is the drive to explain where the world we somehow love has hidden itself from history to live only in our dreams.

The garden of eden... Ed-means 'end/without/empty' and -En in this context means 'outside of time" just as -on would mean 'within history' so.... The garden of eden was not a place in the world. It was the garden when there was no history. It was the entire era before Mankind began to farm and learn to make records to farm. That was the beginning of everything for us.... the end of something that we sing about in Old Songs.

http://books.google.com/books?id=qh0HBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT39&lpg=PT39&dq=Adhichittha%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=_E9wJ7pppm&sig=fKN0dMKpCrJ_hX_zUZemS9pU3YQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dvk3VLb0EoXOggT064KADw&ved=0CD0Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=Adhichittha%E2%80%9D&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=zUFCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=tathagatha%27s+son+-song&source=bl&ots=cx7AI7zsSW&sig=QF557a21DWyxHiTurXfoDdCY8P8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-qc4VIzqI4mbyQTIsIHQCA&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=tathagatha's%20son%20-song&f=false

https://archive.org/details/SamantabhadraDevotions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmajala_Sutra_(Mahayana)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatamsaka_Sutra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_cosmology
http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4387
http://www.iranchamber.com/religions/articles/iranians_role_expansion_buddhism.php
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/lob/lob23.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=q8UFuMUdRK0C&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=Vaibh%C4%81%E1%B9%A3ika&source=bl&ots=1SJ2Kub9sB&sig=Ft0fmGFTJMWAxJ8Y7UOUnr70RCA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=oBU7VKukFc6HyASw5YCgBQ&ved=0CFUQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=Vaibh%C4%81%E1%B9%A3ika&f=false

http://www.hebroots.org/hebrootsarchive/9812/9812_h.html
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113310/vladimir-nabokov-art-translation
Colleen http://books.google.com/books?id=J3tml_2zutEC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=queen+bodhisattva&source=bl&ots=8QfTTIQ4RC&sig=w7p2QsfSRGKwfBw9YV8Y5_lmIC0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZmM8VP_QGIT2yQSG44L4CA&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=queen%20bodhisattva&f=false

Buddha Stephens http://www.clearing.org/cgi/archive.cgi?/homer/act70.memo

http://huntingtonarchive.osu.edu/resources/downloads/sutras/08technicalMayayana/Lions%20Roar%20fo%20SriVimala.doc.pdf
http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/ksitigarbha.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra
These... these are just the echoes of Now.  There is only One Story.

Thank you all. Some great resources here.

I have started on the Dowman book, Masters of Mahamudra and it is fascinating and exactly what I had in mind. Thank you JJ!

Jeremy May, I sense some interesting ideas being expressed but please work on your delivery. 

Simon, Tee P Kay, JJ, Jeremy, many thanks,
Adam

Work on your reception.

I tailored this for you.

For reasons.

With respect, Jeremy, I sense a slight holier-than-thou attitude from you and my resistance is natural. When we get into deep meditative states our subconscious emits all kinds of intuitive, revelatory insight that makes perfect sense within our own mindstreams. On more than one occasion I have inflicted these ideas on others due to lack of awareness. I was arrogant enough at the time to suggest that they were somehow to blame for the "transmission" of my cosmic wisdom being lost in translation. My impression is that I am now at the receiving end of the self-same arrogance.

Essentially what I'm saying Jeremy is that I believe your "message" was tailor-made for you, not me. 

Still, I will reflect on your theory as it is very interesting.

Thank you for sharing with me.

-Adam

The Autobiography of Phra Ajaan Lee

Ah... 

What is for me, is for you.

Reality is a fractal.

Does it matter if I am more holy?  What if I am God?  No... it doesn't matter.  There is no such thing as holiness.

When an old woman gives you a worn scarf
When an old man gives you an old story
When a young man gives you his toys
When a young women gives empty promises
When a cat brings you a dead bird

It is love.  It is all out of Love.  It is a credit to who you are.
Likewise... I give you what you asked for while telling you it is useless.


The poor farmer was starving and only had one mustard seed.  He had sold his farm for this seed because it was promised that it was the seed of Life.  So the farmer planted the seed and watched as a tower grew past the clouds.  He climbed.  He climbed into the realms of Giants.

When he saw the sleeping Giant, he was scared but soon he would die unless he ate.  He grabbed a small bird and rushed back down the tower.  He immediately set to make a fire, but before he prepared his meal, the bird Shit Gold!

He took the bird to his only friend, one who had just swept his floor.  He tried to show the bird, but his friend said "Take it out!  It will Shit Everywhere!"

You think I put myself above you?  I speak to you because I want to praise you.  What you do with that will determine if you live in Gold, or live without knowing that you could have ever lived in Gold.

I sometimes wonder if it is always going to be so that we/the humanity has to go back several hundres or thousands of years to find these "great masters". Of course those are great stories but you know what about our time and our culture. I once got heard an elder zen monk telling a younger one: Forget the masters and focus on your own practice. I.e. become great yourself.

There is nothing we can do.
What is for me, is for you.
Ah...
We just have to face it this time, we're through.

Breaking up is never easy I know
But I have to go
What is for me, is for you.
It's the best I can do.
[Cure instrumental then verse 2]

Hello, Kim, your point is well taken and the natural progression... well, one does at least initially sort through the biographies and theories and practices and then find out where they are, dhukka-wise, select a practice that indicates to them, make a commitment, and mostly have fun doing the practice.   Nirvana  

For example, my partner saw me -- with my severe dhukka case -- doing my practices and he saw the changes in me and he started doing his own practices, likewise realizing how much fun and profitable it is even for someone in a not so severe dhukka-case.

The whole Maitreya-Buddha-arahants-practicers game was an experiment in a democratic hierarchical loop.... the operative word being "loop".   Playing within the rules of this set-up one must ensure the success of self and everyone and cannot leave the loop.  Therefore the full truth and practice for nirvana will never be found and Nirvana is nothing but an incomplete carrot held out on a long, long stick.  A beautiful fakery.

An individual could leave the loop and vanish it from his mind, but the other beings would continue to play that game, awareness practices being limited towards simply becoming a better member of the group, but never leaving.

Now probably the game did not start out that way and was much more lighthearted and playful -- but you know how things always get more and more serious as time goes.  Your mileage may vary.

One could imagine they are now outside that loop and it is just themself and their own mind with its fixated mishmash of goals and purposes -- that's all it ever was.  Take someone with you if you can.