People/Collins, S.

Steven Collins(1951 - 2018)

Steven Collins (1951-2018) was Chester D. Tripp Professor in the Humanities in the University of Chicago’s Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, and in the Divinity School’s History of Religions program. A world-renowned scholar of the Pali Buddhist traditions of south and southeast Asia, he contributed greatly to the University of Chicago’s unusual strength in Buddhist studies. (Source Accessed Jan 17, 2020)

Library Items

Book

Selfless Persons

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This book seeks to explain carefully and sypathetically the Buddhist doctrine of anatta ('not-self'), which denies the existence of any self, soul or enduring essence in human beings. The author relates this doctrine to its cultural and historical context, particularly to its Brahmanical background, and shows how the Theravāda Buddhist tradition has constructed a philosophical and psychological account of personal identity and continuity on the apparently impossible basis of the denial of self. (Source: Cambridge University Press) For relevance to the concept of buddha-nature, see chapter 8, "Momentariness and the bhavaṅga-mind."

Collins, Steven. Selfless Persons: Imagery and Thought in Theravāda Buddhism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982. https://archive.org/details/thervadaselflesspersonsimagerythoughtintheravadabuddhismstevencollinsoup_564_z/mode/2up.

Collins, Steven. Selfless Persons: Imagery and Thought in Theravāda Buddhism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982. https://archive.org/details/thervadaselflesspersonsimagerythoughtintheravadabuddhismstevencollinsoup_564_z/mode/2up.;Selfless Persons;anātman;ātman;śūnyatā;Two Truths;Steven Collins;Selfless Persons: Imagery and thought in Theravāda Buddhism

Affiliations & relations

• University of Chicago · workplace affiliation