I agree with every sentence of acmuller's review. However, this collection of essays can hardly be appreciated without having read "The Awakening of Mahayana Faith", translated by D.T. Suzuki in 1900. This difficult text attempted to re-introduce Indian concepts to Chinese Buddhism, which had become loaded with Confucian and Taoist ideas. "Pruning" works at trying to untangle the resulting mess of metaphysical contradictions and their (apparent) consequences. Fun reading, but my time spent on these two books would have been more constructively applied on my meditation cushion. My final conclusion is that the entire discourse plows into matters that The Buddha repeatedly treated with silence. The redeeming value of "Pruning" is that it demonstrates the value and methods of modern scholarship in the never-ending process of developing Right View in our practice.

Although Buddhist thought is ostensibly grounded in a refusal to admit the reality of underlying, permanent "essences," such as a self (atman), the Buddhist tradition has continually struggled against the re-emergence of atman-like concepts in other forms. This tendency has been noted in the context of the notions of Tathagatagarbha and Buddha-nature, which came to hold great sway in East Asian Buddhism. The question is, does the appearance of such concepts represent a real break from the orthodox Buddhist tradition? Or does the East Asian tradition possess its own paradigms that allow such concepts to operate in an acceptably Buddhist manner? The editors have here selected a number of articles by leading Buddhist scholars treating this issue from various angles--an unusual treat for scholars of Buddhist thought. Please read this work for yourself, and take the chance to form your own views on this seminal problematic Buddhist issue. by Charles Muller, author of "The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment

I'll have to agree with the reader from New Hampshire, this is mostly a book about Solaris administration. Although basic security components are covered, there really aren't any well compiled guidelines for establishing a secure Solaris system.

Stick to the Sun Security FAQ and other on-line resources for good security tips. Use this book as an administration guide and/or as a supplement to other security information.

If your purpose is to learn basic Solaris security administration, then this book will be helpful to you (as other readers have found).

I have been securing solaris servers for a couple years now, and I wish I had this book when I first got started. The general UNIX security books are just not enough. Each UNIX OS has their own configuration procedures for tightening security. Any print book cannot keep up with Internet time, but for those who need a jumpstart to securing their Solaris server, this is a great start. A good security program requires further research. There are many good solaris security sites on the internet.

The Solaris Security book is very well laid out, easy to read, and has information every Solaris admin and security admin needs to know. I've been working with many different versions of Unix and even though I'm not new to Solaris, I found this book helpful by being able to find the reference or background knowledge quickly. If you're lucky enough to work with only Solaris 100% of the time then maybe this book won't knock your socks off - but I'd still recommend it as a reference book and to pass around to your co-workers. Having the references to other sources makes it feel more realistic by getting other points of view and for other priorities (such as having a checklist, more in-depth on networking, etc). I give it 5 stars for the best Solaris Security book in print.

I usually dote on Gregory's and Gimello's works, but I learned nothing new or of interest in this book. This was the earliest in a series, and the later books are much much better.

This is a valuable contribution to the field of Chinese Buddhist studies. It contains important papers from leading Buddhologists such as Luis Gomez. Also, any article by Robert Gimello is worth reading, as he is an extraordinarily careful scholar. Unfortunately, the typeset is quite unattractive. Still, it is a great addition to any Sinological or Buddhological library.