Collins, Steven. Nirvana: Concept, Imagery, Narrative. Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print

I started my shelfie process by first searching the Lafayette Library catalog for “Moksha” because I am very interested in the concept of liberation, and leaving this world. After first finding the book Moksha: writings on psychedelics and the visionary experience, I soon came to realize that it had nothing to do with Moksha in the sense of Hinduism, but rather dealt solely with LSD and liberation through drugs. I changed my search term to “Nirvana” and have stuck with the book Nirvana Concept, Imagery, Narrative. One of the chapters was Nirvana as a Concept, and another was Nirvana as an Image showing that the author, Steven Collins, uses various vehicles to describe the idea of Nirvana.

The book is divided into five sections: “Systematic and Narrative thought: eternity and closure in structure and story”, “Nirvana as a Concept”, “Nirvana as an Image”, “Nirvana, time and narrative”, and “Past and future Buddhas”. Not only does Collins try to describe and conceptualize the idea of Nirvana, he displays it through imagery and metaphor. While flipping through I also noticed that he takes translations from a number of source texts which will help greatly in writing my first paper. Finally Collins brings up the concept of an ending and timelessness.

While searching for this book I saw many other books relating to Buddhism as a whole. These could be useful in setting a background for my paper. There were also other books relating to the idea of Nirvana and liberation. I will definitely return to this section to aid in my writing process.