{"id":848,"date":"2011-09-02T15:38:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-02T15:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/books\/"},"modified":"2017-04-01T13:08:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-01T19:08:00","slug":"books","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/books","title":{"rendered":"Books"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Buddhism<\/a>Every so often I am asked to recommend books on Buddhism, so here is a page dedicated to just the \u201cbest of\u201d Buddhist<\/a> reading, in my very humble opinion. This page is guaranteed to be an evolving entity, so check back now and then and as always, your comments\/feedback are more than welcome (@Buddhistethics<\/a>\u00a0#Books \u2013 suggestions via twitter are at the bottom<\/strong>):<\/p>\n

basics \u00a0 \u00a0 | \u00a0 \u00a0 early Buddhist sociology \u00a0 \u00a0 | \u00a0 \u00a0 environment\/ecology \u00a0 \u00a0 | \u00a0 \u00a0 feminism\/women in Buddhism \u00a0 \u00a0 |<\/p>\n

First, the basics:<\/strong><\/p>\n

A popular favorite is Walpola Rahula\u2019s 1959 classic\u00a0What the Buddha Taught<\/em><\/a>. This text is still in use in university classes (I\u2019ve used it myself) and presents the basic teachings of the Buddha in wonderfully lucid prose. Rahula definitely had an agenda though, in \u201cbringing Buddhism\u201d to the West, so he conveniently leaves out an account of the Buddha\u2019s encounter with the Deva Sahampati, for instance, just after emphatically claiming that the Buddha\u2019s teachings were purely about self-discipline and not about anything \u2018religious\u2019 (pp.49-50). However, this agenda may make the teachings easier to grasp for someone new to Buddhism, so I\u2019d still highly recommend the book with that small word of caution.<\/p>\n

Rupert Gethin\u2019s The Foundations of Buddhism<\/a><\/em>. This book should be on (almost) EVERYONE\u2019s shelf. Get it, read it, use it as a reference when specific questions come up about aspects of early Buddhism. When I taught a somewhat advanced Buddhist Philosophy<\/a> course in 2010 I suggested this to the students who didn\u2019t already have a background in Buddhism. If you already have read several introductions to Buddhism from academic sources, you can probably live without this one, but I\u2019d still recommend it (!).<\/p>\n

Next I would recommend Paul Williams\u2019 Buddhist Thought<\/a><\/em>\"\". This in many ways picks up where Gethin\u2019s work leaves off, taking us through the development of early Buddhism, some of the main schools and their ideas, and on into the Mahayana and the development of Tantra.<\/p>\n

To stick with my old Bristol professors a bit longer, I\u2019d next recommend Paul Williams\u2019 (yep, again) book on Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations<\/a><\/em>. This is a very dense book and shouldn\u2019t be read straight through \u2013 unless you\u2019re a real glutton for punishment. But it is amazingly rich and well-cited and provides yet another clear window into the doctrinal foundations<\/em> of\u00a0many diverse schools of Mahayana Buddhism. It is not a sociological or\u00a0anthropological\u00a0text at all, so you won\u2019t read much about people<\/em>, it\u2019s a history of ideas.<\/p>\n

This next one, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0by John Kieschnick, I am recommending based only on second-hand accounts. I will read it \u2013 some time \u2013 but as of now I can only recommend it based on the words of some very wise friends.<\/p>\n

As an anecdote, I spent some time in China a while back with a young man who was just beginning his Ph.D. at Berkeley. His specialty was Japanese Buddhism and he asked his professor what to read to give him a good overview of \u2018the rest\u2019 of Buddhism. His professor recommended this book \u2013 Kieschnick \u2013 along with Williams\u2019 Mahayana Buddhism<\/em> (above) and Gethin\u2019s Foundations<\/em> (also above). Sounds like a good endorsement to me.<\/p>\n

A great video discussing most of these (those focused on early Buddhism) and more was recently made by Doug Smith (books linked below):<\/p>\n