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Title: Buddhism : A Concise Introduction by Huston Smith, Philip Novak ISBN: 0-06-050696-2 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.12 (8 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: It's too short!
Comment: I have read a number of books about Buddhism, and this is the best of its kind. However, to avoid disappointment, it is very important to understand what its "kind" is!
This is NOT -- as the subtitle and the cover art could misleadingly suggest -- a user-friendly introduction to Buddhist practice. It is not a hand-holding tour of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold way, with beginning training in meditation. If you buy it expecting such things, you may well write another negative review.
The authors are academics specializing in the history of religion (see Smith's other books, which are widely respected), and they are both Buddhist practitioners. In this book they combine these traits to write a deep, sympathetic account of Buddhism as a religion: what its main tenets are -- how it is practiced -- how it fractured historically into different strands. They write analytically and comparitively, but they also write with understanding and sympathy. They treat Buddhism as a living religion to be practiced by modern people - not as an anthropological artifact, the way some non-Buddhist authors do.
Smith and Novak are particularly good at describing, sympathetically and in depth, the philosophical roots of the different practices in each strand. The chapters that compare the differing values of the Mahayana and Theravada strains, and then show their fundamental unity, is worth the book's price. They also tease out the key differences between the four types of Tibetan Buddhism, and explain the sources and values of other schools as different as Goenka and Pure Land.
They are also good at showing and how Western practices were formed by the sheer happenstance of which individuals happened to first import Buddhist thought, and which Eastern school they happened to stumble upon for their initial training.
Finally, they do a good job of showing how Western, and especially American, Buddhism is in many ways a different beast from any Eastern form, and still evolving.
The main problem with the book, aside from its slightly-misleading title, is that it is too short. For some reason, the authors felt they had to restrict the length. At several points they apologize for giving only a "summary" of some important point (like: Buddhism in Europe). And several key concepts are only sketched in the end-notes, when they deserve to be written out in full and integrated into the book. I'm only giving 4 of 5 stars because of this compression.
Rating: 1
Summary: Reader's Digest Buddhism
Comment: If you want to discuss Buddhism over cocktails and feel the satisfaction of seeming to understand profound doctrines through quaint digestible sound bites then, look no further, this introduction to Buddhism is sure to please you and collect dust for years to come. If you are allured by the uniqueness of the Buddha's personage and if you are serious about attaining to samsara's end, then do not buy this book. It will waste your time, transform insightful doctrines into trite crowd pleasing fluff, and say good-bye with a cute Afterword that manages to completely alienate you from the original impetus of the Buddha's teaching. Smith has, once again, successfully reduced a profound religion to the cozy feeling we get while singing Amazing Grace in Sunday School. The work, especially with the crucial Afterword, reveals more about the man Huston Smith and his own metaphysical beliefs than it does the man Gotama Buddha and his timeless teachings of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and unsubstantiality.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Best Introduction to Buddhism I've Come Across
Comment: I've read dozens and dozens of books on Buddhism, but the clarity with which Smith and Novak explain basic principles, distinctions between sects, and the development of Buddhism in America makes Buddhism: A Concise Introduction very special. It's definitely the first book I'd recommend to anyone interested in learning about Buddhism (supplanting Steve Hagen's Buddhism Plain and Simple, a great book itself, but in a different way). Best of all, this book helped me understand which type of Buddhist practice made the most sense for me.
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Title: The Way Things Are : Conversations with Huston Smith on the Spiritual Life by Huston Smith, Phil Cousineau ISBN: 0520238168 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions by Huston Smith ISBN: 0062508113 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 13 September, 1991 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Islam: A Concise Introduction by Huston Smith ISBN: 0060095571 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 04 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: A Modern Buddhist Bible : Essential Readings from East and West by Donald S. Lopez ISBN: 0807012432 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 18 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Turning the Wheel: Essays on Buddhism and Writing by Charles Johnson ISBN: 0743243242 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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