Esoteric Theravada: The Story of the Forgotten Meditation Tradition of Southeast Asia

A groundbreaking exploration of a practice tradition that was nearly lost to history.

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 med...