I feel strongly compelled to caution readers against this book. Although there were many schools of Buddhism, it was the Theravadan Tipitaka (the rough equivalent to a Buddhist bible) that was passed down orally, written in Pali around 2000 years ago, and managed to survive until the present day. The Tipitaka is considered to be the earliest known exposition of Buddhist teachings and philosophy. Within the Tipitaka, the Buddha is repeatedly portrayed as teaching that there are three rudimentary truths of experience: impermanence, suffering, and non-self. The realizations of these truths are considered to be among the conditions that are necessary for enlightenment. In his book, Joaquin Perez-Ramon chose to tackle the third of these facts, that of non-self. Mr. Perez-Remon constructed his manuscript using a hypothesis, that the anatta doctrine "has no absolute value" and that these early texts "...not only does not annul the reality of the self, but reaffirms it..." Mr. Perez-Remon acknowledges that his hypothesis is in contradiction to what are considered the accepted teachings of Buddhism. In exploring the texts to support or negate his hypothesis, Mr. Perez-Remon singles out many of the occurrences of the terms and concepts of both self (atta) and non-self (anatta). Unfortunately (and this is where the Mr. Perez-Remon's book seems to have gone awry) he used translations (of his own making? - see his "Preliminary remarks") that starkly highlighted the words and concepts he was examining, creating rather new meanings to the original writings. These new meanings were occasionally harmless, but more often than not, actually served to contradict commonly accepted Buddhist philosophy on this subject. Mr. Perez-Remon's excellent documentation however, allowed a side-by-side comparison to other translations. Works by translators such as Bhikku Bodhi and K.R. Norman, provide a far more plausible and philosophically coherent rendering of these early texts on this crucial Buddhist concept. Mr. Perez-Remon compounds his dubious translations with assertions and rationalizations that serve only to support his hypothesis. For example, he reasons enlightenment must liberate something (the self), rather than recognizing that enlightenment is the dissolution of the (mental construct of a) self. While inferences may be drawn on what one does not find in the texts, Mr. Perez-Remon pushes this method to extreme, going so far as to assume and assert the Buddha's convictions in a self. Among Mr. Perez-Remon's conclusions, he finds that the different philosophies of self and not-self must be equally valid and require synthesis/transcendence. The end result of Mr. Perez-Remon's work is that much of what is unique to Buddhism is explained away and rendered meaningless. The Buddhist concept of non-self is one that, at least initially, has been difficult for many to grasp and/or accept. Although Mr. Perez-Remon's book is written in an academic manner, I believe that his analysis of this subject is deeply flawed and is misleading to those exploring this concept. I do not recommend his book for beginning or even intermediate students of Buddhism, but only, and reluctantly at best, for those who have a good background in Buddhist philosophy, a challenging attitude, and the resources with which to check Mr. Perez-Remon's work against other trusted materials. I see this book as useful only as an example of how faulty translations and misleading assertions can be used to systematically undermine the concepts of a philosophy, perpetuating the very ignorance that Buddhism seeks to dispel. For intermediate or advanced readers who are seeking scholarly writings on the subject of anatta or non-self, without the misrepresentation found in Mr. Perez-Remon's "Self and Non-Self in Early Buddhism," I recommend Steven Collins' book "Selfless Persons."

Out of 2317 books on Buddhism that I own, this book ranks as top 10 outside of the scriptures themselves. If you notice the diatribe 1 star review below, no evidence is given to refute the 1000s and 1000s of Suttric quotes given by Perez proving that Buddhism deplored nihilism and most especially Theravada notions of empiricall emptiness.

The entire Doctrine of ANATTA AN(not) Atta'(True Self, Attan, Atman) is the netti netti ( not this, not that) doctrine to demonstrate to the monks that which cannot be construed as the everlasting self as such.

Know you and know you well that nothing is refuted in the entirety of Buddhism other than that the Attan (true self, deathless) cannot be associated with the Khandhas ( 5 aggregates of phenomenality). To prove otherwise is imposible by scripture.
There are opinions and conjecture, and there are facts and quotes from Sutta ( Nikayas). Those who embrace the notion of no-self empircally have not one dot of evidence to back them up in Scripture period.

Nowhere within the Scriptures of Buddhism is the True Self denied, but
only that is must not be identified with the transitory
and ephemeral aggregates of phenomena. Such that forms, feelings,
perceptions, impulses, and mental machinations of the
mind are temporal, unreal, arise and pass, and are of the realm of
phenomena and cannot be construed as what is everlasting,
best, real, and most dear of the True Self and therefore must not be
identified with the Attan as such.

Even now the world standard for Pali-English translation reference being
the new "A Dictionary of Pali" by Margaret Cone
states about the Attan (atta): [Sanskrit Atman], The self, the soul, as
a permanent unchangeable, autonomous entity; p.70, Pali
Text Society

Without an entity that fares on, there are no grounds for rebirth,
nothing which could be perfected, and Buddhism flies apart
at the hinges without a basis. Since there is nothing of any substance
of the aggregates which can recollect previous lives,
and nothing everlasting within such temporal phenomena to be perfected
to dwell within Perfection;

There cannot be assumed even loosely that Buddhism can exist without the
concept of the Attan, so offhandedly rejected by
sectarian nihilism which runs contrary to sutta.We are more interested
in what the Buddha said than what he didn't say, and
as it pertains to the Attan, nothing is rejected but temporal
aggregates, not the Attan.

The greatest mistake made after the passing of Gotama Buddha was the
arising of the non-doctrinal notion that Buddhism
somehow preaches empirical-extinction. The much discussed doctrine of
Anatta [an (not) Atta (True Self)] which occurs a
little more than 240 times in the entirety of the Buddhist Nikayas is
used only to describe that which cannot be identified
with or clung to as genuinely real and everlasting, or possessed of the
True Self in its proper identity.

In some secular translations, the Atta has been translated in its
various forms and compounds as a reflexive, i.e. oneself,
himself, themselves; but no such reflexive terminology exists within the
Pali language in which the Buddhist canon is
recorded. The Atta (True Self) or the Attan, both in standalone and
compound occur more than 23,000 times within scripture.

DN 2.157 Therefore Ananda, stay as those who have their True Self as the
illumination, as those who have their True Self as
supreme refuge, as those who have no other as the refuge; as those who
have the true law Dharma as the illumination, as
those who have the Dharma as refuge, as those who have no other refuge.
KN 3.78 And whoever, Ananda, either now or after my end will stay as
those who have the True Self as the illumination, as
those who have True Self as refuge, as those who have no other as the
refuge...they among my bhikkhus shall reach the peak
of immortality, provided they are desirous of training their True Self.

AN 1.81 There is monks, an unborn, an unoriginated, an unmade, and an
unformed. If there were not monks, this unborn,
unoriginated, unmade and unformed, there would be no way out for the
born, the originated, the made and the formed.

Bravo to Perez for pulling back the horror in refutation against Sectarian Nihilism not found in Buddhist Sutta.

Dr.of Buddhology S.A.

im a Buddhist monk and Pali translator who is also somewhat of an expert on the term ATTA' within Sutta Pitaka scripture. i dont give this book 5 stars but rather 10, out of 1000+ books i have on Buddhism, this one is top 5.When the Buddha affirmed the existence of atta'(true self) against the materialists, he affirmed the reality of something objectively existing to be true. When he denied the atta' against the eternalists, he did not deny the true atta', but the atta' OF the eternalists that is WRONGLY identified with the 5 Skandhas.the anatta'(that which is not self..not to be confused with NO-SELF) doctrine taught in the Nikayas has a relative value, not an absolute one. It does not say that the self has NO reality at all(nowhere within scripture i might add)but that certain things,with which the UNLEARNED man IDENTIFIES himself with, are NOT of the self and that is why one should grow disgusted with them.This book is the CRUX MAXIMUS and the ROSETTA STONE of the ARYA-PUGALA (noble true self) among the 1315 mentions of the ATTA' (true self) uses of that word with Pali Scripture and CORRECT RELATIVE interpretation of the ussage of the term ANATTA' used 343 times within Pali Scripture.what MOST ALL Buddhist dont realise as stated by Perez Ramon is that the term ANATTA' (that which is not self...not NO-SELF) is employed by the Buddha to say what to his disciples what is NOT OF THE TRUE self...not to say that there is NO SELF...MOST IMPORTANT: nowhere...and i do mean NOWHERE.......is it found in the Scriptures that the Buddha DENIES the Arya-atta' (true self).........this is soooooooooooo very very very important point within Buddhism that is VERY MISSUNDERSTOOD.anyone calling themselves a Buddhist should and MUST know what is in this book (IF THEY CANT READ PALI OF COURSE) because NOWHERE is there any other such extensive book on this subject ...period...its a must have..unless you have this ROSETTTA STONE of a book on the subject of the BUDDHIST SELF NO-SELF view...your missing out on the subject and surely dont have a correct understanding of the term and the USSAGE of this within Buddhist scripure..it really IS that important of a book.its expensive i admit..but its worth 10 times that if your a serious buddhist. Buddha:: He for whom the (true) self is not enough (yassatta' nalameko va), Even if the whole world was his, He would not obtain happiness. (The Buddha). Buddha to Ananda:: Do make an firm island out of the true self, Since there is no other refuge to be found for you. (so karohi sudipamattana' tvam) // 1 quote from the Buddha out of 1600+ POSITIVE affirmatians of something which transcends death and either follows Kamma or passes into the Deathless.BUDDHA at time of death::My age is fully ripe, My life is at an end, I shall depart leaving you, I have made a refuge for the self (katam' me saranam' attano).. /// does this sound like the Buddha taught a NO SELF doctrine (emripical anatta)? THIS BOOK IS PURE GOLD WRAPED IN GOLD. must have for any and all serious buddhists! sounds too emphatic. but if understand that i give most all Buddhist books a 1 star rating and have one of the Largest Buddhist libraries in the USA..i would hope this endorsement carries SOME weight. Buddhist Monk S.A.

pitt certainly gives us a descriptive account of life in California before the gold rush and after. his referring to so many names and families did make the whole story of the people a little confusing.

Pitt's history of the decline of the Californios is an extremely important record of California's past. Few contemporary Californian's are familiar with the rugged settlers who came to this place and created a society of their own. Largely abandoned by the Spanish and then Mexican overseers, robbed by the invading Americanos, the Californios left their indelible mark upon us. their influence is subtle now, but we still live in the various "ranchos" they founded and ranched. This is a very accessible and well-written piece of scholarship. It is simple enough to qualify as a popular history, well researched enough to be taken seriously in academia.

When I started getting into Spanish poetry the only real place I could go to read poets such as Juan Jimenez was my university library. You can't mark in library books though, well, I guess you can if you don't get caught, so I started combing bookstores for copies of my favorites. Besides Lorca, the great Spanish poets were non-existent on the bookshelves. Light and Shadows is an example of making do with a book even though it is a horrible representation of the poet Jimenez. The poems are great, I just needed more of them.

Jimenez is a poet who falls into the old cliche of the poet as a seeker of truth, the poet as a revealer who strips away the false surfaces of things and gets to the spiritual truth. In one poem, he says that he wishes poems, "like the sky, would yield at every moment all things" and that his greatest achievement would be to write a "naked book". He wants to get to the basic essence of all things. In one poem, "To Dante", he gives the ulitmate compliment to his fellow poet by writing "Your sonnet is like/ a nude and chaste woman/ who set me on her lap/ embracing me with her celestial arms". He is struggling for purity of mind, of emotion in all his poems.

Jimenez is no epic writer. He writes efficent short lyrical poetry for the most part. He is a great nature poet too, echoing more than once the feel and style of Japanese and Chinese haiku and epigrams. He is also a sensualist along the lines of John Keats. When he combines his nature and sense strains he is particularly effective.

The best work in this book is a series of prose poems taken from a diary he wrote while he was visiting New York City in which he comments on the vibe of the city and its hypocritic literati. There are too few of these entries included in this book. In fact, there's too few of everything. If his entire collected works weighed a ton, this representation would weigh an ounce.

That brings me to the problem of this book. In the prologue, the editor says that he is producing this book because not enough of Jimenez's work is available to the english reading public. Originally, he had produced a pamphlet of 14 poems. After reading this book, the problem still remains. This book is really nothing more than a pamphlet in my mind. It contains 47 pages of poetry and and the other 20 pages are excerpts from Platero and I, a prose piece about a boy and his donkey. Personally, the inclusion of Platero is needless. I wanted more poems.

The poems that are in here are quite good but there's just simply not enough of them. Jimenez wrote poems for 50 years and this is the best you can do, include the equivalent of maybe 2 poems for every year of his life? Looking on Amazon, I see much more promising editions of his work, so maybe they will be more satisfying than this teaser of a book. Demand more than this.

It is a great shame that so few people nowadays read poetry. I suspect that it was the way it was taught in most high school English classes that has turned off everyone except diehards like myself. There is a subtle joy about Jimenez, a way of seeing the magical in the simplest experience that sets him apart. Read this man. There is a reason why he won the Nobel Prize. He deserved it, which, sadly, is not something you can say about many of the recipients.

I was a tad bit disappointed with this book. I was hoping for a more in depth presentation of Linux specific security options, but the majority of the book is a superficial treatment of installing various open source security packages.

The book is also a bit dated. The latest reference to Redhat is for version 7.0 (Redhat is up to 7.3 now); it refers to the "next generation inetd" regarding xinetd.conf; and also refers to TCP-Wrappers as a Linux add-on (both components have been included and installed in a default Linux install for close to 2 years now).

The book is good for an overview of Linux security, but if you're "looking for the beef" it's better to look elsewhere.

This is the first book I have bought from the Craig Hunt Linux library and judging by this volume I will be buying more.

It's an excellent book covering all aspects of Linux security
from physical site security to VPN's. It's up to date: a good section with clear examples on iptables is included.

For each section the author selects a few (or as in the case of file integrity just one product like tripwire) products and explains with good examples how to install and configure from scratch (including installing the rpm's). The language is clear and the author explains both why and how. There is an excellent section on nessus and the tripwire part really shows what a cumbersome beast tripwire now has become ... The focus is almost 100% on freely available tools in true Linux spirit.

It's not without minor faults however - but so far I have only found one major one. The section on "Starting Network Services from /etc/rc.d" is weak: it messes up the runlevels (1 is single user and 5 is X11), it does not mention the fact that Kill scripts are run before the Start script when _entering_ a new run level and there is no mention of ntsysv (or chkconfig).

I do like the fact that Hontanon is not at all afraid of giving strong recommendations - i.e. "Among the password auditing tools ... John the Ripper stands out as the clear winner because of its performance and ease of use".

This is not a beginners book - it assumes general Linux and networking knowledge.

If you are looking for a source for overall Linux security, Unix security tools and how to use these tools look no further. This book should be on your bookshelf along with the 2nd edition of "Maximum Linux Security" and (the now slightly out of date) "Practical Unix&Internet Security".

Recommended.

Mr. Ruiz has obviously spent a great deal of time and effort in researching this book. His in-depth yet easy to read analysis is very impressive. However, his inability to be objective is very disappointing. It seems that the author had a very biased opinion when starting this book. There are many problems in the border region and Mr. Ruiz does an excellent job of identifying and explaining these problems and challenges. On the other hand, this writer never tells us much about the other side of the story. For example, he mentions that Tijuana has a large middle class, yet only wants to focus on and analyze the negatives of the "maquila" industry. It seems that his interviews with Mexicans are only used to prove his point. Contrary points of view are not fully examined or are simply discounted. There are many other examples of this "telling half the story" throughout the book. I think it might do Mr. Ruiz some good to study the economic theory of comparative advantage. Mr. Ruiz is an excellent writer; I hope his next project will not be as lopsided.

Ramon E. Ruiz dispells many of the myhs about life on the Mexican-U.S. border. The chapters are devoted to contrasting the life that exist on the each side of the border. Each chapter is well written and his use of economic analysis is used cleverly to set up countless examples about the cultures that exist along the border. Ruiz writes an essential analysis in the study of Mexican-United States relations. A must read.

I really looked forward to this book (it was highly recommended) but there is too little information about the really good artists like Venosa and Fuchs. This book seeks to list all the new visionary artists and so has become watered down by including many lesser artists.

I am not sure that there is one single word that can describe what is felt when looking upon the wondorous images in this book. My step-mother, who is one of the artists featured in the book, told me about it and I knew how glorious and wonderful her work was, so there was no doubt in my mind that all the other works would be equally grand. And I was right, all are magnificent, and put a warm, soft hand upon my soul when my eyes grace the works within these pages. I hope that others will experience what I have and will then go about sharing the joy that these images bring. All is well written and kept short as not take away from the art, a big plus for that.

The photographs are very good, but much of the text is not very interesting. Often it consists of long lists of genera in alphabetic order with little explanation.
Overall, it is a usefull reference for fossil identification.

Upon receiving "A Pictorial Guide To Fossils" by Gerard R. Case, I was at once captivated by the aesthetic beauty of the book's graphic design and impressed by its substantial content. The text is concise and informative, while a plethora of crisp photographic images and skillfully rendered illustrations combine to create an extraordinarily complete and comprehensive pictorial guide that captures vividly the intrinsic beauty of specimens representing an incredibly broad spectrum of the fossil record; from protozoans to dinosauria and all points in between. The author, Gerard R. Case has gained worldwide recognition as one of the foremost authorities in his particular area of expertise; the prehistoric sharks and related species. In "A Pictorial Guide To Fossils", Case has compiled a thorough and inclusive reference that should prove indispensible to anyone interested in or involved with a specific area of paleontological study, or the field of paleontology in general. This book was the recipient of the 1982 Association of American Publishers award in the category of "physical and earth sciences", and remains to this day the most comprehensive and outstanding guide available on this subject.

I didn't like it. It is very poorly written and has many grammatical errors. It reads like a children's book. For these reasons I find it difficult to trust the information contained in it. Very disappointed.

Mr. Pacheco has written this book with great expertise. Much indept information about a great man. A book for those who wish to learn about the history of Puerto Rico's past. He has captured the essence of a great man and put it in writing for all to read. He writes about Betances' youth which not too many authors write about. My hat goes off to Mr. Pacheco, an author with knowledge.

I am a teacher of 6th grade students and found this to be a fun book for kids. While it is somewhat frustrating to deal with a book that once again has death as the subject, in this book it is handled in a slightly different way. There is a fun witty sense to this book and there are occasional references to Shakespeare which is a great introduction for kids this age. While the plot is weak in some places overall it has some great humor and the main character is likeable as he overcomes his major challenges.

Unfortunately, the 101 questions only touch the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what you need to know about your mate or potential mate.

I did find 1000 questions at the site questionsforcouples. com