Blog for Corrections to Nāmapada

I'm keen to keep track of user generated corrections, and new names which require new entries in a future edition. So I've created a blog for this purpose: namapada.blogspot.com.

Visible Mantra Press

I've now published a second book under the Visible Mantra Press imprint via the Lulu print on demand service. My two books are

Nāmapada : A Guide to Names in the Triratna Buddhist Order.

Pilgrimage Diary (a first person account of being on pilgrimage in India)

My third book will be the book of this website. It is taking longer than I expected - my proofreader has taken several months already - it's a complex task involving multiple languages and scripts. However work is continuing on it. With the biennial Triratna Order Convention coming up in August 2011 I'm hoping to have the Visible Mantra Book finished by then.

Mantra Quote

"The mantras, however, are mysterious and each word is profound in meaning. When they are transliterated into Chinese, the original meanings are modified and the long and short vowels are confused. In the end we can get roughly similar sounds but not precisely the same ones. Unless we use Sanskrit, it is hardly possible to differentiate the long and short sounds. The purpose of retaining the source materials, indeed, lies here."

- Kūkai. Shōrai mokuroku in Hakeda. Kūkai: Major Works, p.144