Introduction
1: The Buddha: The Story of the Awakened One
2: The Word of the Buddha: Buddhist Scriptures and Schools
3: Four Truths: The Disease, the Cause, the Cure, the Medicine
4: The Buddhist Community: Monks, Nuns, and Lay Followers
5: The Buddhist Cosmos: The Thrice Thousandfold World
6: No self: Personal Continuity and Dependent Arising
7: The Buddhis Path: The Way of Calm and Insight
8: The Abhidharma: The Higher Teaching
9: The Mahayana: The Great Vehicle
10: Evolving Traditions of Buddhism
Rupert Gethin is co-founder of the Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Bristol and a specialist in Indian Buddhism.
offers a valuable improvement over What the Buddha Taught, its most
likely competitor as an introductory textbook./Richard S. Cohen
University of California, San Diego/ Religious Studies Review
Volume 25 Number 3 July 1999
At last! A general introduction to what is common to Buddhism
across the broad range of practice, culture and history that I can
recommend unhesitatingly to friends Buddhist and non-Buddhist
alike. ... this book is good in the beginning, middle and end. I
cannot recommend it highly enough. Mike Murray/The Middle
Way/Journal of the Buddhist Society/ Feb 2000 Vol 74 No 4
`'...Combining as it does readability and exact scholarship,
elegance and erudition, this new OPUS series volume provides the
novice with a solid foundation for his studies, and his elders food
for reflection.''
THES Friday 2 April 1999
`This recent title stands out by its careful scholarship, lucid
style, and sensitive appreciation of the subtleties of Buddhist
doctrine.. This introductory work brings to its task not only
careful scholarship and wide knowledge of Buddhist thought, but
also a warm, sympathetic appreciation of Buddhism evident
throughout its pages. No doubt, it is this sympathy that enables
Gethin to penetrate beneath the surface crust of formal doctrine
and discern deep
connections between srains of Buddhist thought that might initially
appear incongruous. Through Gethin's eyes we are given not only a
clear and crisp picture of the doctrinal foundations of Buddhism,
but
also focused insights into the family ties underlying many apparent
diversities within the Buddhist tradition.'
Bhikkhu Bodhi, Buddhist Publication Society no 45
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