Acknowledgements

In the course of preparing this book, I have discussed my findings with a number of Dhamma groups, and have benefited greatly from their feedback. These groups include the Laguna Beach Parisa, the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies, and Against the Stream. I am also indebted to a long list of individuals who provided me with materials that helped make my research possible and/or gave valuable feedback on the manuscript as it was in preparation. This list includes, in addition to the monks here at the monastery: Michael Barber, William Chu, Patrick Comstock, Claude Davodeau, Orin Hargraves, Claude LeNinan, Lionel Neykov, Emer O’Hagan, Nona Olivia, Addie Onsanit, Nathaniel Osgood, V.A. Ospovat, Robert Rhyne, Peter Dale Scott, Isabella Trauttmansdorff, and Barbara Wright. Isabella Trauttmansdorff in particular helped to track down and translate passages from Schleiermacher’s Confidential Letters Concerning Friedrich Schlegel’s Lucinde, a work that has never, as far as we can tell, been translated into English. She also helped with my translations of Schiller and Hölderlin.

The efforts of all these people have helped to make this a much better book than I could have managed on my own. Any defects it contains, of course, are my responsibility.

Two technical notes: 1) In all quotations from other texts, I have added emphasis—in italics—in only one case, which I have noted. In all other instances, the emphasis is present in the original.

2) In quotations from other writers, I have kept their spelling of Pali and Sanskrit terms.

I have found the research and writing of this book to be both an educational and an enjoyable experience. I hope that the reader will find the same qualities in the book itself.