Dzogchen or the Great Perfection is the apex of Tibetan Buddhism, and Longchen Rabjam is recognized as the pre-eminent master of Dzogchen and one of Tibet's greatest writers and sages. His "Treasury of Reality" encompasses and optimizes the radical precepts of Dzogchen and is a shining example of why people continue to turn to the traditions of Tibet for spiritual and personal transformation. Transcending the Tibetan context, Longchen Rabjam's book is a manual of practical wisdom for all people of all times, cultures, and traditions. Dzogchen teaches the natural perfection of all experience, phenomena, and life, just as it is, with no need to alter or fabricate complex ideas or philosophical views. This discipline of spiritual transcendence provides the key not only to our inner enlightenment but to the health and survival of our planet.

Dzogchen, or the "Great Perfection," is considered by many to be the apex of Tibetan Buddhism, and Longchen Rabjam is the most celebrated of all the saints of this remarkable tradition. Natural Perfection presents the radical precepts of Dzogchen, pointing the way to absolute liberation from conceptual fetters and leading the practitioner to a state of pure, natural integration into one's true being. Transcending the Tibetan context or even the confines of Buddhist tradition, Longchen Rabjam delivers a manual full of practical wisdom. Natural Perfection is a shining example of why people have continued to turn to the traditions of Tibet for spiritual and personal transformation and realization. Keith Dowman's illuminating translation of this remarkable work of wisdom provides clear accessibility to the profound path of Dzogchen in the here-and-now.

In this book, Toby Svoboda develops and defends a Kantian environmental virtue ethic, challenging the widely-held view that Kant's moral philosophy has little to offer environmental ethics. On the contrary, Svoboda contends that on Kantian grounds, there is good moral reason to care about non-human organisms in their own right and to value their flourishing independently of human interests, since doing so is constitutive of certain (environmental) virtues. Svoboda argues that Kant’s account of indirect duties regarding nature can ground a compelling environmental ethic: the Kantian duty to develop morally virtuous dispositions strictly proscribes unnecessarily harming organisms, and it also gives us moral reason to act in ways that benefit such organisms. Svoboda’s account engages the recent literature on environmental virtue (including Rosalind Hursthouse, Philip Cafaro, Ronald Sandler, Thomas Hill, and Louke van Wensveen) and provides an original argument for an environmental ethic firmly rooted in Kant’s moral philosophy.

First Published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Natural and Political Conceptions of Community demonstrates how the early modern Jesuits recruited the household community when reflecting on the political community, integrating an account of human nature with a notion of politics as the sphere of law, rights, and virtues.