/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3047410]

Dear /lit/,

I'm looking for a book on Buddhism that gives a thorough and comprehensive explanation of the different strains of the religion and perhaps the history and things like that. I'm also interested in works on Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana as the three main variants in particular.

I've already read Alan Watts' The Way of Zen and Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind and Not Quite So. Other than that I've merely read a whole bunch of stuff online, delving mainly into particular interests such as the Forest Tradition, but not much proper, broadly oriented works. I hope you can help me. I've been learning about the subject for years, but good comprehensive books have been missing from the process. Online texts are also welcome, of course.

[Anonymous No.3047412]

orientalism

[Anonymous No.3047420]

julius evola's doctrine of the awakening
maybe ananda coomaraswamy's books

[Anonymous No.3047421]

I've never seen a /lit/ thread on buddhism not turn to shit.

last time i was one /r/buddhism they were pretty helpful.... despite it being reddit
also
http://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/pnhqj/official_rbuddhism_book_recommendations/

[Anonymous No.3047492]

Overall:
The Foundations of Buddhism - Gethin
Indian Buddhism - Warder
Buddhism Its Essence and Development - Conze

Philosophy:
Buddhist Thought in India - Conze

Mahayana:
The Doctrinal Foundations - Williams

More stuff could be added, but I guess you can have fun with that. You might wanna check the rest of Conze's books, he was quite a prominent scholar.

Also, I think that a nice bibliography is included in "Lucid Exposition of the Middle Way". The Williams' book has a nice one too.

A nice meditation guide is "Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness".

mmm that comes to mind for the moment, they're all in scribd/bookfi/etc.

Monitoring the thread for more stuff!

[Anonymous No.3047499]

>>3047492
ah, forgot to mention the Keown's "Buddhism the ebook". I never read it but it seems like a good guide to get the basics.

[Anonymous No.3047518]

[Anonymous No.3047588]

>>3047410
Well heres the basic(not comprehensive) guide to follow.

Theravada("elder's path"):
Focuses solely on Tripitaka (
monk rules(vinaya),
buddha's sayings(sutras),
metaphysics/higher teachings(abhidharma)
) This allows theravada to be seen primarily as a monk route.

Mahayana:
Split began around the time of 200-100BCE. The base was systematized in 180CE+-15 by nagarjuna. 2 main(there are other minors but this is more relevant) divisions in here. Yogacara/Madhyamaka.
(Yogacara:
Emphasis on the positive assertion of Buddhahood(more idealistic).
)
(Madhyamaka:
Emphasis on negative assertion (deconstruction of all views).
)

Vajrayana:
Late Indian buddhist development. Focuses on packing high amounts of knowledge. Thus it is often seen as very complex. It is basically a mahayana offshoot added with the ancient yoga practiced by the early sharmana(wandering ascetics(jains/buddhism)). With more emphasis on madhyamaka than yogacara.

Current living traditions and their schools of teaching:
Chan/Zen: Combination of early madhyamaka development (light) and yogacara.
Tibetan: Combination of later madhyamaka development + yogacara + tantric practices. (also identified as vajrayana)
Theravada: Theravada

[Anonymous No.3047845]

there was some stuff on buddhanet.net that may or may not interest you.