Best buddhist history books according to redditors
We found 128 Reddit comments discussing the best buddhist history books. We ranked the 57 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 128 Reddit comments discussing the best buddhist history books. We ranked the 57 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Garma C.C. Chang, A Treasury of Mahāyāna Sūtras: Selections from the Mahāratnakūta Sūtra
> It is common Buddhist experience that realization can be engendered through long years of frequent recitation of sutras. Therefore, the purpose of reading a Buddhist sutra is not only to grasp its meaning, but also to acquire religious insight and experience. To achieve this one should not just read the sutra once and digest the information therein. but should read it again and again, even out loud, so that the words of the Sutra become totally absorbed into one's subconscious mind. This is tantamount to letting the sutra take over the mind and run its course to reach the beyond. It is for this reason that the intentional repetition in Buddhist scriptures should not be treated entirely as a defect, but rather as a constructive and beneficial method for Dharma practice.
Rupert Gethin's Foundations of Buddhism is a thorough introduction to Buddhism. For starting reading the Pāli discourses, there's Bhikkhu Bodhi's In the Buddha's Words - this is a selection of discourses serving as an entry point.
Then you can start with the discourses directly: start with the Majjima Nikāya and then you can also go through The Dīgha Nikāya and the Samyutta Nikāya. And then the last but not least: Aṇguttara Nikāya and the Khuddhaka Nikāya (search on Amazon). These texts would be important references for the rest of your life if you seriously pursue Buddhism.
Regarding insight meditation, Bhikkhu Anālayo's Satipaṭṭāna book is the best modern day commentary available. Highly recommend it. His "Excursions into the Pāli Discourses" Part 1 and Part 2 are also very useful since they summarize many of the topics discusses in the discourses.
Books by Shaila Catherine or Ajāhn Brahmavaṃso would be good texts regarding samatha meditation.
There are the various texts written by the Ledi Sayādaw and Mahāsi Sayadaw - two Burmese scholar-practitioners who popularized insight meditation in the last century. You can go through Ven. Ledi Sayādaw's Vipassanā Dīpani (Manual of Insight) and you can find Ven. Mahāsi Sayadaw's books here.
Bhikkhu K. Ñānānanda has many books discussing deep questions about dependent arising, the nature of nirvāna, and so forth. You can find them here.
I'll let others recommend Mahāyāna, Vajrayāna and Zen material. In general, Reginald Rays books on Tibetan Buddhism are great entry points to Tibetan Buddhism, and then there's Gampopa's Jewel Ornament Of Liberation. There's also Shantidēva's Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra, useful for any Mahāyāna practitioner. With Zen there's always Dōgen Zenji's Shōbōgenzō.
You should be able to find all of the above by googling if it's available for free or on Amazon (or a University library) otherwise.
Buddhism has also been compared to Pyrrhonism.
Discussed in this book: Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism.
Although it doesn't fit the popular image of Buddhism, there's a book about buddhist warfare. Religion has always been as a reason to attack other groups that doesn't share the same religion.
Overviews are still "beginner" books. Here are some good ones - Buddhism: One Teacher, Many Traditions, An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices
Within a tradition, you will find more advanced books. The Tibetans might recommend "The Jewel Ornament of Liberation" or "The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment". For Theravada, first see the online resources like http://aimwell.org/books.html and https://www.dhammatalks.org/
There are many good suggestions here, and good stuff to look into!
The way to apply the practice off-the-cushion is in a sense, similar to what you do on the cushion. Only it is a bit more spread out perhaps.
You make intentions to do what you need to do, be aware of those intentions, and keep your mind on track if it starts wandering. You notice you are not doing that you intended, and go back to what you intended to do, identical to following the breath.
Noticing your intentions, mental states, states shift, feeling, moods, perceptions, etc...as much as you can based on your current level of ability.
In my experience -- studying up on and applying the four foundations of mindfulness can also be a great help for practice during the day.
[The Direct Path to Realization] (https://www.amazon.com/Satipa-x1E6D-x101-Direct-Realization/dp/1899579540)
Don't get too caught up on some of the more esoteric contemplations, the most applicable aspect to the daily grind seems to be awareness of form, feeling, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness -- as well as contemplation of the five-aggregates model.
If you haven't already checked out Culadasa's dharma treasure audio archives there are some great talks on there about some of these topics. The Teaching Retreats page especially. Meditation & Insight is a great series to start with, but several of them check off the boxes on your interests.
Secondly, I'd recommend Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization by Analayo. It's a very in good analysis of this sutta, which ends up covering a lot of ground including in-depth exploration of some of these concepts (The Aggregates, The Sense-spheres, Four Noble Truths, The Awakening Factors,etc), and how they play a role in Awakening. Can't recommend enough.
A good place to start is with the Dhammapada. Pocket sized versions are only a few bucks. And Introduction to Buddhism. It's a very informative book that will help you easily understand the basics of Buddhism.
Peter Harvey's "An Introduction to Buddhism 2nd Edition".
>"There's... nothing... everything is subjective, there's no one truth, nothing matters, what is this? Is this life?" But then, I felt... lighter... happy. I felt a sense of true release.
>I felt joy in not knowing.
You might enjoy Pyrrhonism, aka 'ancient skepticism.'
You did what Pyrrhonists called an 'epoché,' where, you see a bunch of questions, and not knowing what to do, you suspend judgment, and from there all that anxiously-searching or passionately-clinging attitude with regard to the truth or to those beliefs that are super-hypothetical gets evaporated:
>The Sceptic, in fact, had the same experience which is said to have befallen the painter Apelles. Once, they say, when he was painting a horse and wished to represent in the painting the horse's foam, he was so unsuccessful that he gave up the attempt and flung at the picture the sponge on which he used to wipe the paints off his brush, and the mark of the sponge produced the effect of a horse's foam. So, too, the Sceptics were in hopes of gaining quietude by means of a decision regarding the disparity of the objects of sense and of thought, and being unable to effect this they suspended judgement; and they found that quietude, as if by chance, followed upon their suspense, even as a shadow follows its substance.
For those who think that Pyrrhonism isn't especially related to awakening, I suggest reading this paper:
>>the state of ataraxia (“unperturbedness”) as interpreted by the [Pyrrhonian] Skeptics is essentially identical to the Zen state of “non-dwelling” as articulated by the Sixth Patriarch Huineng
:)
Buddha was not an atheist. He believed in various gods and assorted heavenly-hellish beings. His main point was that Buddhahood, not godhood, is the highest state that a sentient being can attain. Therefore he lectured heavenly beings and suggested that, because godhood is impermanent, they should study the Dharma with the aim of becoming Buddhas.
On the other hand, "God", as an ultimate good, is not necessarily foreign to Buddhism:
" … Two meanings [of the word “God”] must be distinguished for its place in Buddhism to be understood. One meaning of God is that of a personal being who created the universe by deliberate design and periodically intervenes in its natural causal processes. Defined in this sense, nirvana is not God. The Buddha did not consider it personal because personality requires definition, which nirvana excludes... If absence of a personal Creator-God is atheism, Buddhism is atheistic.
There is a second meaning of God, however, which (to distinguish it from the first) has been called the Godhead. The idea of personality is not part of this concept, which appears in mystical traditions throughout the world. When the Buddha declared, 'There is O monks, an Unborn, neither become nor created nor formed. Were there not, there would be no deliverance from the formed, the made, the compounded,' he seemed to be speaking in this tradition. Impressed by similarities between nirvana and the Godhead, Edward Conze has compiled from Buddhist texts a series of attributes that apply to both. We are told that
“Nirvana is permanent, stable, imperishable, immovable, ageless, deathless, unborn, and unbecome, that it is power, bliss and happiness, the secure refuge, the shelter, and the place of unassailable safety; that it is the real Truth and the supreme Reality; that it is the Good, the supreme goal and the one and only consummation of our life, the eternal, hidden and incomprehensible Peace.”
We may conclude with Conze that nirvana is not God defined as a personal creator, but that it stands sufficiently close to the concept of God as Godhead to warrant the linkage in that sense."
(Buddhism: A Concise Introduction. Huston Smith and Philip Novak. Harper, San Francisco: 2003, pp. 53-54)
https://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Concise-Introduction-Huston-Smith/dp/0060730676/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=buddhism+a+concise+introduction&qid=1574028674&s=books&sr=1-2
If you haven't explored much yet, try speed-reading or scrolling to random sections of any of the sutras translated on this site: www.sutrasmantras.info. The selection is excellent (including some that are virtually unheard of in the English-speaking world) and the translation is top-notch. Even just the glossary by itself is quite epic.
I also highly recommend the Ratnakuta sutras (where I got that excerpt from), though it's only available in print and is only a partial translation: A Treasury of Mahayana Sutras.
Gonna have to watch this later tonight when I get a chance. For those interested in a specific case-study of the topic:
http://www.amazon.com/Pyrrhonism-Reinvented-Buddhism-Comparative-Philosophy/dp/0739125060
I learned about it all in a book by Vessantara:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079Y6J4BY/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_lwkKDbY5K3B9B
" Troll claims other people don't have experiences "
so when you read miaozong its obvious she had a dai kensho experience and you are doing a 180 degree turn and have decided you have had one ?
like paul of tarsus, you are off to missionize the world ?
2 more weeks
Recommended reading
There is a wonderful academic analysis of this sutra by Ven. Analayo,: http://www.amazon.com/Satipatthana-The-Direct-Path-Realization/dp/1899579540/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332535032&sr=8-1
if you want to study it in depth.
> I'm not familiar with Pyrrhonism, so if there's any links / articles / books you'd recommend please do so!
I've just found out about it too, due to a post by /u/sponsored
The primary source of Pyrrhonism are Sectus Empiricus writings, he wrote multiple books one of which is "Outlines of Pyrrhonism", which I'm currently reading. I think to get an understanding of Pyrrhonism, this is pretty much required reading, since it's a book written by a pyrrhonist of ancient greece.
/u/sponsored also pointed me towards these books:
A comparison of Pyrrhonism and nargajuna:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009W3SAKS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1#nav-subnav
(very good, you might even start with this if you're interested in parallels to buddhism)
A master thesis comparing Pyrrhonism and the platform sutra:
http://nccur.lib.nccu.edu.tw/bitstream/140.119/38734/1/401701.pdf
(read with caution, the authors understanding of Chan seems questionable at times, but good at some parts.)
> what compels you to visit /r/streamentry or consider a meditation practice?
/r/streamentry I don't know, I'm leaving it anyways. Meditation basically because it sounds fun. I don't see it as related to enlightenment at all, but the jhanas sound interesting, so I'll probably do some concentration based meditation. Also I believe that concentration practice might have positive effects on other areas of life, so that's also nice.
So I actually have no interesting reason other than, just being curious.
If you're interested in the practice as it was done in early Buddhism, check out this reading list:.
Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization by Bhikkhu Analayo.
A Swift Pair of Messengers by Bhikkhu Sujato.
Right Mindfulness: Memory & Ardency on the Buddhist Path by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.
Those are the best 3 to start with...what you're going to want to look for is early Theravada Buddhist practice which is called Satipattana. Analayos book is generally considered the best, but all 3 are excellent, especially Thanissaros book which is free. All 3 have correspondencing audio lectures which I'll post if you want. You can also contact me via Pm anytime. Hope that helps!
What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula (1974) and Buddhism: A Concise Introduction by Huston Smith and Philip Novak are the classic introductory texts to Buddhism and still used in colleges. In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon by Bhikkhu Bodhi (2005) is a newer introductory book and more text based.
Hey, /u/Apiperofhades. I read your /r/AskPhilosophy post so I'll suggest books based on the following:
>I'm more interested in academic historical work on doctrine and practices and so on.
/r/Buddhism's most famous academic (who recently passed away), /u/michael_dorfman, recommended Rupert Gethin's The Foundations of Buddhism and Peter Harvey's An Introduction to Buddhism religiously, "to get a basic understanding of Buddhist doctrine".
Additionally, you may wish to consider chapter 5 of Surendranath Dasgupta's A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume 1, titled 'Buddhist Philosophy' (all five volumes can be found here on Internet Archive; the first alone here on Project Gutenberg), and chapter 5 (and, perhaps, 9) of Mysore Hiriyanna's Outlines of Indian Philosophy, titled 'Early Buddhism' (and 'Later Buddhistic Schools'). This book can be found here on Internet Archive.
There's a commentary about this text in Zen Echoes: Classic Koans with Verse Commentaries by Three Female Chan Masters that I found interesting: [emphasis mine]
> According to tradition, Aṅgulimāla was a notorious murderer who had killed 999 people, stringing a finger from each victim in a garland around his neck (“Aṅgulimāla” means “garland of fingers”) before he was converted by the Buddha and entered the path. It is interesting to speculate why, of the many episodes from Aṅgulimāla’s life, this one became a kōan. The statement made by the reformed murderer that he has never killed a single being — which is what Buddha instructs Aṅgulimāla to tell the woman suffering the pains of a difficult birth — can be understood as meaning that he himself has been “reborn” into the Dharma.
For the MMK, Jay Garfield's The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way is quite well-regarded, albeit somewhat academic in style. I've also heard good things about Siderits' work.
u/Lillly123
Why would you post this? Are you trying to be sarcastic? Is this why you get called a troll? This is really bad form, especially considering that u/ewk is about the only person I've seen on this forum actually engaging with and promoting Beata Grant's new book Zen Echoes: Classic Koans with Verse Commentaries by Three Female Chan Masters.
EDIT: Searching your username on Reddit and it seems there's a rabbit hole here.
> “Lillly123 is known as somewhat of a 'troll' by some in the awakened community. But something I have noticed is how everyone gets offended when the bot/person(?) responds in the same negative way to their opinion. A lot of people seem to act hostile towards Lillly123's posts and give off the impression of being offended. Would someone who is truly enlightened and free of ego display these behaviours?”
Is Lillly123 trying to be the Ewk of other subreddits?
---
EDIT 2: More discussion about Lillly123:
> “It's so totally, and obviously a troll account.
> What's really sad is that someone (for unknown reasons) is actually trying very hard to de-legitimize a pro feminine voice on this sub. It's pretty despicable imho.
> They pretend to be standing up for the divine feminine by being the most obnoxiously pedantic, and vitriol filled person here, which actually serves their disguised position to make us discredit, and discount such pro-feminine voices in present, and future.
> That is the POA I believe we are witnessing here. I would be legitimately surprised if this person turned out to actually be a female... like seriously, it's just some lonely neckbeard getting lulz from making a divine feminine viewpoint sound farcically delusional, and intentionally distasteful.
> Make no mistake, the person using that account is doing more to actively discredit the very stance they pretend to cling to. It's called an defamation via association attack. It's petty. It's intentionally destructive. It's intrinsically harmful to the appreciation of the divine feminine.”
---
Lol ewk was right, it is totally a troll account. But like, legitimately an account made just to troll people on r/awakened. I guess they got bored / heavily modded and are now coming here to troll.
Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization manages to be scholarly without being dry. It's a really great in-depth look at this Sutta. It is extensively footnoted as well and gives a lot of great leaping-off points for further exploration.
SGI does get a bad rep here a lot. I think it's cause of two things :
To OP, ultimately it's up to you to make the decision. Only you know whether chanting has made your life better or not. I'm not sure how knowledgeable people are in your community, so for theory I would recommend this books The Buddha in Daily Life which , in my opinion, is better than many of the publications or Ikeda's writing (!). I would recommend to keep chanting and try to understand the teaching through observing your own mind while chanting. Take what you can from the community , but don't do anything that you are uncomfortable with. All the best
Academic introduction to the religion:
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Buddhism-Teachings-Practices-Religion/dp/0521676746
Good online resource:
http://buddhasutra.com/
Who Rules the World? – Noam Chomsky
Siddhartha– Herman Hesse
The Way of Zen– Alan Watts
Dropping Ashes on the Buddha
The Platform Sutra of Huineng
Dogen on Meditation and Thinking
Essays in Zen Buddhism by DT Suzuki
Lyrical and Critical Essays- Albert Camus
The Myth of Sisyphus- Albert Camus
The Metamorphosis- Franz Kafka
The Stranger- Albert Camus
The Rebel- Albert Camus
Man's Search for Meaning- Viktor Frankl
On The Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life- Nietzsche
Frankenstein– Mary Shelley (Surprising, but highly existential)
Nausea– Jean-Paul Sartre
The Awakening- Kate Chopin
Candide- Voltaire
The Gateless Gate (Mumonkan)
Couldn't get all the PDF's at the moment, but just google the name of the book and then "PDF" for a potential online copy. Highly recommend all of these– Frankenstein and The Myth of Sisyphus are must in general. Alan Watts is great for synthesizing Zen thought as well.
There used to be a scholar who was really active in this forum until he passed away - Michael Dorfman - and he would always recommend these two books:
The Foundations of Buddhism
An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices
I'd recommend the Satipatthana Sutta with translation and commentary from Analayo, along with commentary in text and audio by Joseph Goldstein.
Disclaimer: My comment is not providing material that will be a good guide to Buddhism / how to be a Buddhist. But they are my go to recommendations for people with no background/prior knowledge of Buddhism who are looking for a some secular thoughts that are Buddhist inspired.
And for good measure, you should absolutely read The Dhammapada.
I am biased (or maybe hopeful is the right word), but I really believe that we're on the precipice of a new thought-movement in reaction to the consumerist culture we live in. I don't think it will be Buddhist, but I believe it will be Buddhist inspired to an extent.
...and Jesus was apparently a rather peaceful fellow too, but that didn't stop such horrors as the Crusades.
There is a difference between the origins of a religion and its continuing expression and practice. No religion is free of it. I don't think the attempt to sanitize the image of religion by appeal to its progenitors is at all useful. What is under discussion is religion as practiced, not as imagined.
Found this book - looks like it might be worth a read.
Since you have been practicing Theravada, I'd recommend this seminal book on the Satipatthana Sutta, the sutta upon which (along with the Anapanasati Sutta), Vipassana is based.
I've read much of it, but I didn't "get it" until research led me to understand that Dogen's view of Zen is radically different than Chinese Chan Buddhists, e.g. Bodhidharma [1]. That understanding did help, but I'm still confused by Dogen's philosophy of practice-enlightenment (I don't find it as straighforward as Bodhidharma, for example), so I'm still researching occasionally as time permits. But honestly, I think Dogen just confuses things for me, and may be unneccessary.
[1] There are myriad Zen scholars that detail the idea that Dogen is different. Here are some starting points for anyone interested.
http://www.georgewrisley.com/The%20Buddha%20Still%20Rides%20a%20Bike-Wrisley.pdf
http://www.amazon.com/Dogen-Meditation-Thinking-Reflection-View/dp/0791469263
http://www.amazon.com/Dogen-Textual-Historical-Steven-Heine/dp/0199754470
Before you get mad at me for presenting a slanted view (i.e. that Dogen is a different brand of Zen), these authors are well respected and pro-Dogen.
There's a kindle version. I found it in google books researching this OP.
There's the book Buddhist Warfare that goes into this in detail, see also: Buddhist Fury: Religion and Violence in Southern Thailand. Most are familiar with the Samurai tradition and there's Zen at War.
The Dalai Lama, in a previous incarnation, was a real apologist for military conquest. I'd love to goad his current incarnation by bringing up what he said a few hundred years ago on the topic.
I'm always the last to know.
This year there is so far two BIG BIG deal translations.
https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Echoes-Classic-Commentaries-Masters/dp/161429187X
also, wanted to add - a good precursor to that book is confession of a buddhist atheist.
and his third book in a similar fashion, after buddhism: rethinking the dharma for a secular age.
For further reading, there's "BUddhist Warfare" and "Zen at War", one discusses the long history of BUddhism, while the latter focuses on Japanese Zen.
https://www.amazon.com/Buddhist-Warfare-Michael-Jerryson/dp/0195394844/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=M7295Z1SV0KBKF1YX16Z
https://www.amazon.com/Zen-War-Brian-Daizen-Victoria/dp/0742539261/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1504935818&sr=8-1&keywords=buddhism+at+war
http://the-eye.eu/public/Books/Buddhism/Oxford%20University%20Press%20Buddhist%20Warfare%20%282010%29.pdf <== pdf
https://www.amazon.com/Buddhist-Warfare-Michael-Jerryson/dp/0195394844 <== amazon book
There's a chapter of his writing with introductory biography in The Roaring Stream: A New Zen Reader.
That book's bibliography points to three sources:
The Original Face: An Anthology of Rinzai Zen
Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan
Zen Buddhism: A History (Japan)
The Buddah in Daily Life is a great introduction.
Secular Buddhist / Buddhist atheist here, for whatever that's worth.
Super-quick and utterly inadequate run-through:
u/Guck_mal is right; the oldest version of Buddhism, Theravada, is pretty damn secular and has very few overtones of anything religious. There are instructions for monks, but Buddha explicitly avoided talk of how the universe got here, the supernatural, etc. Buddha is not seen as a god, but as a guy who figured out how to completely be at peace with the way things as they are instead of how he wished they would be. The ideal of Theravada is (loosely) cultivating individual insight and wisdom. I find myself very drawn to these ideals and consider them much more philosophical than religious.
As Buddhism spread over hundreds of years, a later branch called Mahayana became much more prevalent. This is much more traditionally
religious and features much more iconography, chanting, deities, talk of Buddha as a god, and supernatural features. There's much more talk of karma, reincarnation, etc. than there is in Theravada. The ideal in Mahayana is generally considered becoming a Bodhisattva, or helping others attain enlightenment. While I appreciate the focus on others, I can't get behind the supernatural aspects. Mahayana strikes me as much more religious than philosophical.
I'm a hardcore atheist and reject anything supernatural, but this is no problem within the belief system. Most branches of Buddhism explicitly encourage critical thinking and rejecting what your experience shows not to be true.
Reminds me, I was wearing my "Buddhist Atheist" t-shirt that I got from my sangha (fellow practitioners), and I pulled up to a car wash fundraiser. Turns out it was for an evangelical church group. Let's just say that my attire was a conversation starter.
Some helpful resources:
Smith and Novak's book is a very accessible introduction.
And an obligatory plug for the kickass Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society, which I suspect many Redditors would enjoy.
There is a great book about this very topic called "Buddhist Warfare". I highly recommend reading it. There is a story in there about two Tibetan groups who hated each other so much that one built their monastery higher up a mountain from the other so they could roll boulders down on the other group.
As another commenter has pointed out, the situation in Myanmar is a great example of violence in the name of Buddhism. The teachings of the Buddha are that we are all products of prior causes and conditions. As Thich Nhat Hanh once pointed out, "if I had been born in the village of the pirate and raised in the same conditions as he was, there is a great likelihood that I would become a pirate."
Overall, the core values of Buddhism do not condone violence (one of the five precepts is not to kill/cause to be killed - thus, valuing all life as sacred). Not condoning violence does not mean not having compassion for those who perpetrate it, though. Remember, even Angulimala became an arahant.
Cont'd
Now moving forward, the crusades will not take place. Certainly not as they did in OTL. Remember, the rationale behind the Crusades was that good Christian pilgrims were blocked from Jerusalem because of the Muslim conquests. This falls flat because even if the Arabs conquer Jerusalem, it wouldn't be much of a holy site. Even under the possibilities (however remote) that Jesus and Muhammed are both considered bodhisattvas or high lamas and both had their meditative experiences in Jerusalem, the High Priest in Rome wouldn't have a theological basis to call for an invasion of the Levant. Holy warring simply doesn't exist in Buddhism.
But don't be discouraged! Historians now tend to agree that the crusades were wars over economic control of the western terminus of the Silk Road (Constantinople and the Levant, specifically) than wars of religion. There won't be any grand Vatican councils to declare war against the infidel, but gradually we'll begin to see wars from the merchant republics of Italy and the Empires and Kingdoms of Europe over control of this delicate region. The result will eventually be a region divided by history and a patchwork of Buddhist states. My guess is that it will be just as contentious as our world's Middle East with conflict driven more by race and ethnicity than religion (since the vast majority will be Buddhist).
That said, eventually the New World transmission will take place Buddhist conquistadors will scour the Americas from Newfoundland to Tierra del Fuego. It's way too removed from our POD to be able to determine exactly how the New World would be divided or how bloody the conquest would be. Personally, I'd like to think that Buddhist missionaries would seek to civilize the indigenous tribes before the conquistadors sweep in with swords and the excuses of, "We're not monks." This, after all, tends to be the pattern of Buddhist transmission: the kingdoms and tribes that survived slaughter tended to adopt Buddhism from the missionaries and then when the conquerors came, the newly Buddhist kings would throw up their hands and say, "Would you kill fellow sangha members?"
So say the Aztecs and Inca still exist by the time the Buddhists show up, I'd like to imagine that missionaries - Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana - would approach the natives and try to convert them. After all the Tibetans practiced human sacrifice before the second transmission of Buddhism. Maybe Buddhist Cortez will approach Mexico and find out that he can't slaughter willy nilly without incurring the wrath of High Lamas and teachers. Unfortunately, disease doesn't know religion and plagues will still wipe out huge swaths of the Native American tribes.
Buddhist monasteries (and I'd like to think this is a result of their decentralized nature) have supported learning especially in proto-sciences so I'd also like to imagine that missionaries would traverse the Americas seeking to stem the tide of smallpox and typhoid. In this world, perhaps the slaughter and plague would both be decreased by at least a quarter, maybe as much as half.
Where it would get really interesting would be if/when Buddhist Europeans would finally cross the Pacific and meet China and India. The cultural shock would be reduced quite a bit if ships sailed into Hangzhou with an altar room dedicated to the Buddha. Or if the ship's chaplain was able to discuss the Dhammapada with the Son of Heaven's court priests.
The timeline here gets absurdly fuzzy by the Alternate Colombian Exchange. After all, the butterfly effect demands that different dynasties will rise and fall in China, perhaps even the Mongols may be spurred on by a full European conquest, distorting these not-crusades and perhaps giving alt-China time to catch up and explore the New World well before the Europeans. So we're reaching really dark territory but here's my assessment: Roman Europe converting to Buddhism presents a (very) strong probability that Scandinavia and Arabia will also convert to Buddhism (albeit their own flavor). With Arabia being converted to Buddhism, even if they destroy Persia and pour into India as the Arabs did IOTL, then they won't destroy the Buddhist temples and monasteries of North India. This means that Buddhism will remain a major religion of India and possibly (though not certainly) not spread to Tibet. Tibet - somewhat ironically - may convert to Chinese Ch'an Buddhism and not Indian Vajrayana Buddhism as it did IOTL. So with Buddhists spreading from Ireland to Japan, it will no doubt be THE largest and most influential religion in the world regardless of who gets to the New World first, European or Chinese (or Indian?).
I'm not stupid enough to believe that a Buddhist world is a pacifist one. But I'd like to imagine it would be at least somewhat less violent as holy warring is not typically a facet of Buddhist warfare (though textual justification after the fact certainly is). That said, things are somewhat easier when you can travel from Rome to Nanjing and always be among fellow worshippers. If you're more interested in a timeline like this, check out "Buddhist Warfare." You can compare Christian and Muslim warfare with Buddhist ones. No one declared a holy war for Bodh Gaya or Oddiyana even though both were taken over by the Muslims, though the Christians certainly did for Jerusalem. Buddhist history hasn't always been peaceful, but it is nice when a cardinal declaration of your religion is not to harm others.
The foundational Mahayana text is Nagarjuna’s Middle Way.
From the description:
“Nagarjuna's renowned twenty-seven-chapter Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamakakarika) is the foundational text of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. It is the definitive, touchstone presentation of the doctrine of emptiness. Professors Siderits and Katsura prepared this translation using the four surviving Indian commentaries in an attempt to reconstruct an interpretation of its enigmatic verses that adheres as closely as possible to that of its earliest proponents. Each verse is accompanied by concise, lively exposition by the authors conveying the explanations of the Indian commentators. The result is a translation that balances the demands for fidelity and accessibility.”
I have a friend who used to live in Toronto for a while. He is a BTW Wiccan and also a professor of anthropology who writes on Tibetan Buddhism. Unfortunately he's in Australia now, so no direct use but I know from him that there certainly used to be Wiccan groups in Toronto when he was there, so I guess there still are.
Good article.
Sri Lanka and Thailand are both Theravada Buddhist countries with de facto modern states, standing militaries and devout Buddhist armed service members. In Sri Lanka this is a genuine issue that military members in an official capacity wrestle with when entering combat zones where Muslim terrorists are killing Buddhists. Most monks there seem to acknowledge that lethal force will be inevitable and therefore sermons given to soldiers emphasize putting soldiers in the right state of mind so that when lethal force is applied they take less of a "karma hit". But it's expected they'll take one nonetheless. The soldiers do this reluctantly rather than sacrificially. And the monks never encourage violence, only right states of mind or survival. There are a few monks that directly advocate using lethal force, but they are the minority. So in a way I would say Sir Lanka is an example of the second option, but most soldiers are following this path reluctantly.
In Thailand the situation is a bit different. Southern Thailand has had monasteries militarized for about thirty years. In some cases temples are actually bases for military. There are also de facto ordained military monks who gone through service and then entered monkhood who walk around with concealed pistols and have assault rifles under their bed. Thailand seems to of embraced the first option.
Both the above situations are covered in the book Buddhist Warfare by Michael Jerryson.
On an another note there are archaic sources, which most Buddhists will probably discount that do support limited warfare. One example is the Ārya-Satyakaparivarta Mahayana sutra. Lethal force isn't endorsed lightly but they do say when all other non-violent options are exhausted, then go ahead and fight violence with violence, but in the least violent way possible. e.g. don't pursue your enemy beyond your borders or relish violence.
When it comes to Buddhism it's very important to rid your mind of intoxicants - this means no drugs, no smoking, and no alcohol - if you drink it to excess.
I would buy this book to start: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Buddhism-explanation-Buddhist-life/dp/0978906772
And a copy of the Dhammapada: http://www.amazon.com/Dhammapada-Translation-Buddhist-Classic-Annotations/dp/1590303806
You will learn pretty quickly what you're getting into.
I have no objections to your clarifications about karma and determinism.
I didn't read the book, just read the description of it on Amazon which said:
>Buddhist Warfare demonstrates that the discourse on religion and violence, usually applied to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, can no longer exclude Buddhist traditions. The book examines Buddhist military action in Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, and shows that even the most unlikely and allegedly pacifist religious traditions are susceptible to the violent tendencies of man. http://www.amazon.com/Buddhist-Warfare-Michael-Jerryson/dp/0195394844(italics mine)
The italicized part seemed to placing the onus on Buddhism itself rather than a clear corruption of the teachings. I would re-write it to say: "shows that even the most unlikely and clearly pacifist religious teachings are susceptible to the violent tendencies of man." But I didn't read the book, so I'll take your word that it is a fair treatment of the subject.
>That doesn't mean monks, novices, nuns, or lay Buddhists have never killed others in the name of religion or religious indignation.
I'm not sure where you said this, but I have a small point to make about it. I would say this actually provides another clear distinction between Buddhism and other religions. If a monk or nun killed, for any reason, it would only be once, because the instant they do it they are disrobed for life. Even if they tell someone else to kill and the killing occurs, they are no longer a monk or nun. Most other religions don't have such clear consequences with regard to violence.
I do think there are reasonable arguments one can make that support Buddhism's peaceful reputation. First, statistically, do self-identified Buddhists, per capita, throughout history, engage in warfare less often than Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, whatever? I don't know the answer, but it's certainly possible. How reliable are arguments like this? How do you separate other cultural factors and influences from the equation? People will be arguing over comparisons like this forever.
Second, and more importantly, is Buddhist doctrine peaceful, or more peaceful? Since in the Buddha's recorded teachings in the Pali Canon, there is not one instance of the Buddha justifying intentional killing under any circumstances, you could say it is much more clearly peaceful than the scriptures of other religions which have many unambiguous passages about God telling one tribe to kill others, and all sorts of ambiguous passages that can be easily interpreted to justify killing. Fortunately the Buddha was supremely careful in his speech.
Lotus Sutra: I've only read the Watson translation, which is very good, but I've also heard good things about JC Cleary's translation, although that appears to only be available as an e-book.
Heart Sutra: I have read, and recommend, Karl Brunnholzl's The Heart Attack Sutra, Red Pine's translation, and TNH's Heart of Understanding. I've also got a copy of Kaz Tanahashi's exigesis on the shelf, which people speak very highly of.
Very reasonable response. For the connotations, there is nothing negative with dictionary definitions either. But I see why some people will react negatively... although I had hoped Buddhist meditators would react more skillfully...
They might seem arbitrary to you, but there are lots of people that gain insight from those categories, as I do. I think the condescending tone is excellent... it's good to see our faults, but again, I expect equanimity and critical self-analysis from Buddhist meditators...
>but I don't really encounter actual people who seem to be as committed to a defense of their particular interpretation over all else
I see this an awful lot on this sub. I have had really lengthy discussions with folks who have a hard time understanding why they react so negatively, say, to the idea that Buddhism can be improved. Traditionalists fight back and feel insulted when you propose the possibility of improvement. I had a conversation about this with a guy who ended up deleting his account in fury... because he so strongly believed that Buddhism couldn't be improved, and failed to understand or accept any alternative viewpoint. Really, I think once you dig into it, folks here are far more dogmatic than you think... as you can see by downvotes on this thread, the majority of people are really not willing to accept these divisions.
The top comment as evidence:
>Lol that blog is joke.
Just because they disagree with his viewpoint, they will dismiss it completely.
And this one:
>This book: https://www.amazon.com/After-Buddhism-Rethinking-Dharma-Secular/dp/030020518X
Also receives downvotes... because the author's POV disagrees with theirs. Even though that author is probably far more experienced and knowledgable than any of the folks who hit the downvote.
Just my 2 cents, I respect and think your opinion is just as valid as mine.
>I get that the story paints that picture, but the moral of the story is not very Buddhist to me.
What these and a great many other sources such as this illustrate is that Buddhism isn't necessarily pacifist by nature. Throughout its history it has had its own very Buddhist ways of coming to grips with violence. If the story doesn't sound very Buddhist, then perhaps the problem isn't with the story but with your ideas about what Buddhism "is" or rather what you believe Buddhism "should be."