Chapter 28 Further Reading: The Buddhist Path

Primary Texts

The Dhammapada The most widely read early Buddhist text — a collection of 423 verses attributed to the Buddha, organized by theme (mind, vigilance, the path, the wise, the brahmin). Almost every translation is serviceable; Bhikkhu Buddhadasa's and Gil Fronsdal's translations are particularly clear and carry good introductions. The Dhammapada is short enough to read in an afternoon and dense enough to return to across a lifetime. It is Buddhist philosophy at its most aphoristic and immediate: "Mind is the forerunner of all actions." Start here if you want primary text contact without committing to a large work.

The Heart Sutra One of the shortest and most important Mahayana texts — barely 260 Sanskrit characters — containing the central Mahayana teachings on emptiness ("form is emptiness; emptiness is form") and the bodhisattva path. Thich Nhat Hanh's The Heart of Understanding (Parallax Press) is an accessible and beautiful commentary that unpacks the text with characteristic warmth. Red Pine's The Heart Sutra offers a more scholarly treatment with extensive Chinese commentary tradition.

The Diamond Sutra Another foundational Mahayana text, slightly longer than the Heart Sutra, organized as a dialogue between the Buddha and his disciple Subhuti. Particularly focused on non-attachment to concepts and teachings — including, recursively, Buddhist teachings themselves. Red Pine's translation is excellent.

Essential Secondary Works

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching (Parallax Press, 1998) The single best introduction to core Buddhist teachings by one of the tradition's most trusted teachers of the last century. Nhat Hanh covers the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, the brahmaviharas, and the key Mahayana teachings with unusual clarity and warmth, drawing consistently on concrete examples and lived experience. Non-technical but philosophically serious. This is the first book to recommend to someone who wants to understand what Buddhism actually teaches, not just its popular caricature.

Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 1998) The best academic introduction to Buddhism as a historical and philosophical tradition. Gethin covers the Buddha's biography, the early teachings, the schools, the development of Mahayana, and Buddhist philosophy of mind with rigorous clarity. Written for the educated general reader rather than specialists, but genuinely scholarly. Particularly good on the Abhidharma and the development of Buddhist metaphysics.

Mark Siderits, Buddhism as Philosophy (Hackett, 2007) The best philosophical introduction to Buddhist thought for readers with some background in Western philosophy. Siderits presents Buddhist philosophical arguments — no-self, dependent origination, the two truths, Madhyamaka emptiness — in the analytical style, with careful attention to objections and comparisons with Western positions (Hume, Parfit, Wittgenstein). Philosophically rigorous without being inaccessible. Essential for readers who want to take Buddhism seriously as philosophy rather than as religion or wellness practice.

Nagarjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (trans. Jay Garfield, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Oxford University Press, 1995) Nagarjuna's central philosophical text — the systematic articulation of the Madhyamaka doctrine of emptiness — is demanding but accessible with the right commentary. Garfield's translation includes an extensive philosophical commentary that places Nagarjuna in dialogue with Western philosophy. Not a starting point, but the destination for serious engagement with Mahayana metaphysics. If you want to understand what "form is emptiness" actually means philosophically, this is where to go.

Accessible Contemporary Works

Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Shambhala, 1997) One of the most widely read contemporary Buddhist books, and deserving of its reputation. Chödrön — an American-born Tibetan Buddhist teacher who trained under Chögyam Trungpa — writes about groundlessness, suffering, and practice with rare honesty. This book does not offer easy consolations. It offers something more useful: the recognition that uncertainty and loss are not problems to be solved but the very territory in which genuine practice takes place. Directly relevant to both case studies in this chapter.

Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening (Riverhead, 1997) Batchelor, a former Tibetan and Zen Buddhist monk, argues for a secular Buddhism that takes the philosophical and practical core of the tradition seriously while holding metaphysical questions (rebirth, nirvana as a transcendent state) agnostically. Provocative and genuinely philosophical. Some traditional Buddhists find it too revisionist; others find it a refreshing return to the Buddha's own empirical, pragmatic spirit. Worth reading as a serious engagement with the question: what is essential in Buddhism, and what is cultural accretion?

Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life (Bantam, 1991) Nhat Hanh at his most accessible: short chapters, concrete practices, the teaching of interbeing applied to daily life — washing dishes, driving a car, answering the telephone. Not philosophically dense, but a beautiful demonstration of what practice looks like when integrated into ordinary life. Good starting place for those who want to understand engaged Buddhism through practice rather than argument.

Gil Fronsdal, The Issue at Hand: Essays on Buddhist Mindfulness Practice (free online at insightmeditationcenter.org) Fronsdal is one of the clearest teachers of vipassana (insight meditation) in the Western Theravada tradition. These essays are available free online and are notable for their combination of philosophical clarity and practical groundedness. Particularly good on the brahmaviharas and the relationship between mindfulness and ethics.

For Deeper Engagement

Rita M. Gross, Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism (SUNY Press, 1993) The landmark work of Buddhist feminist scholarship. Gross both documents the patriarchal structures of historical Buddhism and argues — with genuine philosophical rigor — that Buddhist philosophy's own core teachings argue against these structures. Essential for anyone who wants to engage seriously with the feminist critique raised in the chapter.

Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch, The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (MIT Press, 1991) The foundational text of the dialogue between Buddhist phenomenology and cognitive science. Dense but important. Varela, a cognitive neuroscientist who was also a Buddhist practitioner, argues that Buddhist first-person investigation of consciousness and Western third-person cognitive science can be productively integrated — a project that is now a thriving research tradition. For readers interested in the Buddhism-philosophy of mind connection.

Ronald Purser, McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality (Repeater Books, 2019) The most thorough critical examination of the contemporary mindfulness movement. Purser is not opposed to mindfulness; he is opposed to mindfulness stripped of its ethical and philosophical context and deployed as a productivity tool within systems of exploitation. Polemical in places, but raising genuinely important questions about what is preserved and lost in the translation of Buddhist practice into Western secular contexts.

Online Resources

Access to Insight (accesstoinsight.org) — a comprehensive archive of Theravada texts in English translation, including the Dhammapada, many suttas, and Abhidharma materials. Free.

84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha (84000.co) — a major project to translate the entire Tibetan Buddhist canon into English. Many texts now available free online.

Dharma Seed (dharmaseed.org) — a large archive of recorded talks by Theravada and insight meditation teachers including Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, and many others. Particularly strong for understanding how Buddhist teachings are applied in practice.