The Secret Codes of the Mind: Eastern Philosophy

A classroom-ready study of the major philosophical traditions of India, China, and Japan. Students travel from the Vedas and Upanishads through Jainism and Buddhism, the classical Indian schools, Yoga and Vedanta, Tantra and Kashmir Shaivism, and on into Confucian, Daoist, and Japanese thought. Along the way, the great questions of reality and knowledge, consciousness and selfhood, the cultivation of virtue, and the passage from suffering to freedom meet in sustained philosophical comparison, while each tradition retains its own concepts and arguments.

For instructors, the volume gathers a wide range of Asian philosophical traditions into one coherent course. It never collapses them into a single “Eastern thought” or treats philosophy as a mere extension of religion. Students can compare radically different accounts of the self and knowledge, ethics and human transformation, and the good life across traditions too often studied apart. Every lecture comes with questions, assignments, and recommended readings, making the book ready for direct classroom use. It can anchor a course in Eastern or Asian philosophy or supply substantial units for world philosophy, philosophy of religion, and the study of Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Buddhist thought.