The Doctrine of Awakening: The Attainment of Self-Mastery According to the Earliest Buddhist Texts

In a probing analysis of the oldest Buddhist texts, Julius Evola places the doctrine of liberation in its original context. The early teachings, he suggests, offer the foremost example of an active spirituality that is opposed to the more passive, modern forms of theistic religions. This sophisticated, highly readable analysis of the theory and practice of Buddhist asceticism, first published in Italian in 1943 , elucidates the central truths of the eightfold path and clears away the later accretions of Buddhist doctrine. Evola describes the techniques for conscious liberation from the world of maya and for achieving the state of transcendence beyond dualistic thinking. Most surprisingly, he argues that the widespread belief in reincarnation is not an original Buddhist tenet. Evola presents actual practices of concentration and visualization, and places them in the larger metaphysical context of the Buddhist model of mind and universe. The Doctrine of the Awakening is a provocative study of the teachings of the Buddha by one of Europe's most stimulating thinkers.

Table of Contents:
The Doctrine of Awakening The Attainment of Self-Mastery According to the Earliest Buddhist Texts Translator's Foreword Preface Introduction Part I: Principles 1. Varieties of Ascesis 2. The Aryan-ness of the Doctrine of Awakening 3. The Historical Context of the Doctrine of Awakening 4. Destruction of the Demon of Dialectics 5. The Flame and Samsaric Consciousness 6. Conditioned Genesis 7. Determination of the Vocations Part II: Practice 8. The Qualities of the Combatant and the "Departure" 9. Defense and Consolidation 10. Rightness 11. Sidereal Awareness: The Wounds Close 12. The Four Jhana: The "Irradiant Contemplations" 13. The States Free from Form and the Extinction 14. Discrimination Between the "Powers" 15. Phenomenology of the Great Liberation 16. Signs of the Nonpareil 17. The Void: "If the Mind Does Not Break" 18. Up to Zen 19. The Ariya Are Still Gathered on the Vulture's Peak Index

About the Author :
A controversial philosopher and critic of modern Western civilization, Julius Evola (1898-1974) wrote widely on Eastern religions, alchemy, sexuality, politics, and mythology. Inner Traditions has published his Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex, The Yoga of Power, The Hermetic Tradition, Revolt against the Modern World and Mystery of the Grail.

Review :
"Evola ... had a clarity of mind and a gift for explaining tremendously difficult concepts in nonacademic language. His account of the niddana-chain (the twelve stages of conditioned genesis) is a masterpiece. It equips the reader for a whole new understanding, not only of Buddhism, but of the human state in general." "In essence, the Buddhist 'Doctrine of Awakening' is, for Evola, the cultivation of a pure, naked, transcendent consciousness, and his book shines in describing the stages leading to this consciousness." "Evola engages in a well-graduated exposition of Buddhist techniques as seen in this ascetic light, with discussion of the mental/spiritual states encountered. Evola's is the most original book I've ever read on Buddhism." " . . . a provocative study of the teachings of the Buddha by one of Europe's most stimulating thinkers."