Буддизм. Один учитель, много традиций

by Dalai Lama XIV, Thubten Chodron, Bhante Gunaratana (Foreword)

Книга написана с целью рассеять ошибочные представления о «чужих» буддийских традициях; показать, что все учения восходят к самому Будде.
Его Святейшество Далай-лама и его ученица, буддийская монахиня Тубтен Чод­рон, кратко и емко описывают все богатство философского и психологического наследия Будды.
Книга также может послужить прекрасной опорой в личной практике — как нравственной самодисциплины, так и разных видов буддийской медитации.
Книга адресована не только буддистам: чтобы пользоваться благами, которые приносит практика медитации, быть буддистом вовсе не обязательно, убежден Далай-лама.

Genres: Buddhism, Religion, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Audiobook, Philosophy, History

368 pages, Hardcover

First published November 11, 2014

About the author

Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (born Lhamo Döndrub), the 14th Dalai Lama, is a practicing member of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism and is influential as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the world's most famous Buddhist monk, and the leader of the exiled Tibetan government in India.

Tenzin Gyatso was the fifth of sixteen children born to a farming family. He was proclaimed the tulku (an Enlightened lama who has consciously decided to take rebirth) of the 13th Dalai Lama at the age of two.

On 17 November 1950, at the age of 15, he was enthroned as Tibet's ruler. Thus he became Tibet's most important political ruler just one month after the People's Republic of China's invasion of Tibet on 7 October 1950. In 1954, he went to Beijing to attempt peace talks with Mao Zedong and other leaders of the PRC. These talks ultimately failed.

After a failed uprising and the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, the Dalai Lama left for India, where he was active in establishing the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan Government in Exile) and in seeking to preserve Tibetan culture and education among the thousands of refugees who accompanied him.

Tenzin Gyatso is a charismatic figure and noted public speaker. This Dalai Lama is the first to travel to the West. There, he has helped to spread Buddhism and to promote the concepts of universal responsibility, secular ethics, and religious harmony.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal on 17 October 2007.

Reviews

[Sher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A long overdue comparison between Theravada , Mahayana, and Tibetan Buddhism. Extremely helpful for seeing what they share in common and where they differ on key points in Buddhist belief and practice.

[William Dury · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, here’s the thing. You know the whole secular Buddhist thing? It exists because if you begin to dig into traditional Buddhism they are at least as wacky and superstitious as Christians. As you begin to develop your “spirituality”* you’ll be able to “...make our body into many bodies and then absorb these bodies back into a single body. We can become invisible, appearing and vanishing at will, pass through walls and mountains with ease, go under the earth, walk on water, and fly in space,” (p 98). Um, that’s the Dali Lama talking here, not some fraudulent guru from a Ross MacDonald novel. With powers like that you wonder why the Dali Lama has so much trouble with the Chinese. Or isn’t one of the Avengers. There’s a lot more along that line all thru the book, but, being as bright as you are, I’m sure you get the idea.

So, I think what’s happened is that we have “spiritual”* hunger, like a hunger for music or art or politics. We live in secular times. Religions and philosophies are expressions of the time in which they were produced. Andy Warhol was important because he understood his culture in a way no one else did. Supernatural does not do well in our culture. “Reality stars,” yes, snake handlers no. Still. People have “spiritual”* hunger. With Buddhism you can perform a spiritualectomy and still have a viable philosophy. Christianity, not so much. If Jesus doesn’t raise from the dead, what have you got left?

I admit, the Dali Lama thinking he can become invisible and fly makes me a little nervous. Just his believing he is the reincarnation of somebody makes him kind of sketchy. Still, these guys have been seriously studying human consciousness for 2400 years, and keeping careful notes. Anybody interested in that sort of thing is a fool to ignore their work, even if some of their conclusions are, um, crazy.

——-
* Sorry about the quotation marks but, in a serious way, I’m not sure what the definition of the word is. Is spiritually a pull towards the supernatural? “Consciousness” and “Spirituality”-compare and contrast. Drag “Mind” into it and we could be here all night.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't get as much out of the historical perspective/ comparing different Buddhist traditions aspect of this book as I'd hoped. Whenever I got frustrated, though, I just pictured the Dalai Lama's beatific smile and heard his goofy laugh. If you work your way through carefully (and take notes), this book will give you insights and suggestions for beginning to understand Buddhism and to initiate practices/ start the path. "May you be happy and free from suffering! May you be free from hostility, affliction, and anxiety and live happily!" (Apply these sentiments to: yourself, a respected person, a friend, a neutral person, and an enemy.) Namaste, y'all.

[Ihor Kolesnyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Чудова книга для тих, хто хоче дізнатися про ключові моменти буддійського вчення і його розвитку. Коротко, широко і доволі доступно.
Для знайомства із буддизмом дуже добре пасує.

[Sparrow Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Zen priest who also studies w/local Gelugpa group, I have often wondered about what the differences might be between the two traditions. This book is an excellent brief exploration of the many varieties, broken down basically into two: Pali & Sanskrit, rather than the more traditional Hinayana/Theravada vs Mahayana (which I have always found to be more pejorative than helpful). Hi Holiness emphasizes the similarities, while not overlooking the nuanced differences. There is also an occasional addition of Chan (Chinese Zen), when it has another perspective.

Not a book for the average beginner, but very useful & quite delightful for those of us who have been kicking around in Buddhism for a while & have become curious about the philosophical distinctions & practice differences between the various traditions.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview and cross comparison of the Pali and Sanskrit traditions. Suitable for beginners and experienced dharma students.

[Dipanjan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some previous knowledge of Buddhism will be helpful. Overall a nice book

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I understand this book was largely written by Thubten Chodron, but if the Dalai Lama has any input, better put his name in bigger print I suppose. The book is heavy in summing up doctrine. It covers 4 noble truths, 16 aspects, 8 fold path, 37 wings to awakening, and so on. So it can be somewhat tedious to read if you are already familiar. Bear though the emphasis on Madhyamaka logic. It is a fine introductory work. The more significant aspect of the book is about looking at similarities and differences between what it calls the Pali and Sanskrit transitions. Many academics prefer to talk of Buddhisms, recognizing the fact of many schools, sects, and culturally conditioned forms of Buddhism have developed over time. It's a more modern and ecumenical notion to say things like, "I believe our diversity is one of our strengths." And later, "We don’t have to choose one view over the other. Rather, we can see which view inspires us at a particular time."

The book focuses around two traditions,the Tibetan and Pali traditions, with some overview to give the reader a look at other schools of Buddhism. While it's not exhaustive it covers a good amount of history, mainly in the first chapter. The book does not shy away from differences, but it hardly gets into much controversy either. It's mainly about describing the texts and doctrine. Interestingly states that "in Theravada countries we find all three [nibbana, meditative absorptions, superknowledges] persons to this day" but cautions about "signs that the quality of our lamas, tulkus, and teachers is degenerating".

Certainly good that different traditions come together to learn more about each other rather than repeat old stereotypes. A truly cross tradition representation would require representatives from each tradition writing about their own, and then perhaps a section of dialogue. I'd recommend this mainly to Tibetan Buddhists that want to extend their knowledge of other Buddhisms. I'd still recommend books from academics for a more secular introduction and overview of Buddhism as a whole.

[Medusa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the reasoning employed in this book is eerily reminiscent of medieval western religious philosophy...but without the rigor and making what seem to be basic errors (eg missing the ancient distinction between potency and act). There is also a great deal of supernaturalism and the credulous reporting of such things as a person appearing in two places at once, etc. The discussions of rebirth (samsara) are outright sophistical, and I’d be upset with s fist year philosophy student exhibiting such sloppy reasoning, let alone one of the world’s great religious figures. The authors claim an objectivity for this work they don’t seem actually to feel and make little effort to hold to, and that weakens the book.

I did still learn from the book, not least of my learning being the confirmation that Zen Buddhism, with its lack of supernaturalism, appears to be the correct path for me.

I’d say the book is worth reading, despite its flaws, hence 3 stars rather than 2.

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still reeling from the complexity of this book. I would not recommend to anyone outside of 'Buddhist master' status.

[Elisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a guide to personal practice and I don't think it's fair to review it as if it were. It doesn't pretend to be that. You can't fault a book for not being what you had in mind. If that's what you want, buy another book. Flip through it, read the jacket, make sure it is what you are looking for, but don't blame the Dali Lama and his co-author for having written something that doesn't meet your needs. There is an audience that does need this book, that's why they wrote it. There. I'm done with that rant.

It does feels like a dissertation, which is not a bad thing (I have written one after all, lol), but it can be dry. It was nevertheless extremely informative and I'm sure I will read it several more times as my understanding of Buddhism grows and builds upon itself. I was reading it alongside What Makes You Not a Buddhist (Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse), Tara: The Liberating Power of the Female Buddha (Rebecca Wooten) and many of Tich Nhat Hanh's books. I'm not trying to become a Buddhist, but I think there is much wisdom here and it can definitely contribute to my personal spiritual evolution. I definitely found it enlightening (hee hee, didn't mean to be punny, but there it is). It made me think a lot of good thoughts. It made me ask questions about the role of my ego in my actions. It made me think about spiritual discipline, altruism, the oneness of all things.

It does occur to me as I write that there is not one whit of humor in it, which seems a deficiency. The Dali Lama seems to have a sense of humor, but doesn't evidence it here, unlike the writing of Tich Naht Hanh (and I wouldn't call him a barrel of laughs, but he does make me smile and has some funny anecdotes here and there). I just think of humor as that spoonful of sugar that helps the sometimes dry information go down.

The book compares the differences between the various Buddhist traditions, including Chinese, Tibetan, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese varieties. . . I say that like they were botanical specimens, lol, but having already used the word 'tradition,' I mean you see my lexical delimma. (: This is the kind of book I would *never* get through if I had to read it in print rather than on audio. I listen to it while doing home improvement projects, treadmill, etc. Someone's review mentioned they wish the book came with a glossary, and I think that would be very helpful, but I imagine such a thing exists online. One nice thing about listening to it rather than reading it in print is hearing the pronunciation of all those words that are Sanskrit, etc. I am hopeful that I will even be able to pronounce them myself in time. (:

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are not already steeped in one of the Buddhist traditions and want to learn about other branches of Buddhism then this is NOT the book for you. It was barely the book for me! I think I understood about 1% of it, and that started in chapter 14 after I'd already listened to many hours of undefined technical words and phrases in multiple languages I didn't know, regarding concepts that there completely foreign and often unfathomable to me! However, I just let all of this wash over me for days as an audio book on a road, often not paying much attention, but reflecting all the same on what insights I could gain from it. I had already witnessed the diversity of Buddhism while traveling, from the stupas of Theravāda Buddhism in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka to the wild temples of SE Asia, and Vajrayana Buddhism of Guru Rimpoche, and this book only serviced to increase my appreciation for the breadth of Buddhist beliefs and practices. Much of my reflection was on what I could make out of the major themes of existentialism (the nature of existence), ethics (right mind), and compassion (right way), and how these align and misalign with my understandings of Christianity, other religions, and other philosophical systems. I have been feeling that my daily secular meditation was finally starting to have the impact on my thinking and responses in daily life that I was always hoping it would. I am now interested in exploring Theravāda Buddhism philosophical thought to aid this transition. Listening to this book may have been an initial misstep, but in the end I think it's had a profound effect on me anyway.

[Kevin McAvoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Far be it for me to judge his holiness the Dalai Lama XIV, but.
This book is so numbers-heavy that Einstein would have trouble keeping up.
Remember now the 3 jewels in both Pali and Sanskrit, the 16 attributes of the truth, the 5 hinderances, the 5 absorption factors, the 4 Jhanas, the 4 immaterial absorptions, the 8 meditative liberations, the 5 faults, the 8 antidotes, the 9 stages of attained attention, the 37 aids to awakening, the 4 establishments of mindfulness, the 4 bases of supernormal power, the 5 faculties, the 5 powers, the 7 awakening factors, the 6 elements that are not the self, the 4 extremes of arising, the 12 lines of dependant arising, the 3 vehicles of progressing, and finally the 4 immeasurables.
I haven't written any books but if I did I could not follow the authors style.
Very dry material, just statements without practical follow-up examples.
There is even a chapter about gathering disciples which seems out of sync with the tenet of not enforcing your opinions on others. The book does explain that you should not try to teach the dharma to people who are clearly not ready to grasp it.
All that being said..this is a wonderful book full of solid Buddhist philosophy and much much encouragement to practice compassion in every moment.
I read the ebook and listened to the audiobook together.
The narration is not great but the narrator doesn't need to express much emotion when reading lists of "the 5 of this and here are the 37 of that."
This is a good reference book for your Buddhist library.
It has tons of wisdom but presented poorly.

[Hsandlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book and felt like I got plenty out of it, I don’t know exactly who it’s for. If you are, like me, just curious about Buddhism then it is incredibly dense, dense with jargon, and doesn’t give a very in-depth understanding of anything specifically. If you are very familiar with Buddhism then I imagine you might be annoyed with the surface level explanations about common ideas bloating a book that’s suppose to talk about different traditions.

To clarify, this book is not a good introduction to Buddhism. If that’s what you’re looking for then look elsewhere (His Holiness has another book just for that). It’s also not a history of how the different traditions have changed and diverged over time - only a small section is focused on that. I felt like this book didn’t know exactly what it wanted to be. While I can only speculate, I believe they tried to write a book for everyone and ended up with a book for no one.

That said, I enjoyed learning about the different traditions. Simply reading about Buddhism allows me to hear how to properly use all the terms - and there are a lot of them. For that reason, unless you are incredibly familiar with Buddhism, I actually would suggest the audiobook over the physical book. I found my reading slowed to a halt as I tried to sound out the new terms.

[Dakota · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers a wide range of topics, though it doesn't deeply dive into all of them. The comparison across traditions is very informative. Parallels are made across commentarial traditions and between the Tipitaka and Tripitaka. I would have preferred more exploration of the differences within the Sanskrit tradition instead of usually defaulting to the Prasangika Madhyamaka view. I will say I found the book quite dense and difficult to follow at times. Admittedly, the stated audience of the book is Buddhists interested in learning about traditions within Buddhism that they aren't familiar with. This is certainly not an introductory text. For anyone interested in a broad survey of Buddhism that doesn't rely on a deep pre-existing knowledge, I would recommend the Library of Wisdom and Compassion series that the authors wrote/are writing as a follow up to this book. If you're a Buddhist or a student of Buddhism and interested in expanding your knowledge of traditions you haven't encountered, then this book is for you.

[Gregg Lines · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up hoping for a good one overview of differences in Buddhist countries around the world. There was a good start in the early chapters, but then it seemed to go into very deep doctrinal nuances that lost me. I’m not a practicing Buddhist but I’ve lived in two countries with significant Buddhist populations (Cambodia, Japan). For me it was too much of the Buddhist tendency for lists and not enough comparison to daily ritual, tradition, etc. Readers looking for what I was looking for should maybe go another route and get something more focused on ethnology or history.

The book does offer great insights and suggestions for self improvement and greater enlightenment that both Buddhists and non Buddhist can enjoy.

[Will Norton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long series of lists of the proper paths of certain types of Buddhism that, like Christianity, has far flung variations in beliefs and practices. The piecing together of such a foreign religion is something one must follow for a period of one's whole life and the descriptions of beliefs and practices is hard to fathom for that reason. There are advice and practices that can be manageable but from a foreign perspective this is even harder to understand. Still, it is worth offering yourself a different perspective although you might dilute the whole idea of belief in the process.

[Иван Зубофф · Rating 3 out of 5]

Энциклопедически подробная, достаточно беспристрастная книга, сравнивающая две крупнейших традиции буддизма -- тхераваду и махаяну/ваджраяну. Помогла мне разобраться с некоторыми вопросами, хорошо структурировала ранее прочитанные материалы в голове.

Дочитал до 7-й главы, захотелось отложить на потом, потянуло на что-то другое.

[عدنان العبار · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you can, please avoid this book. It's boring and banal and the philosophy presented is so complicated that I am not sure if it's much ado about nothing or something of substance. I called many of my friends who are Buddhists, and they were equally uninterested. At times, all I could hear was luk-luk-luk-luk-luk, which is how we Arabs think Bar-bar-bar-bar sounds like.

[Chet Taranowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good review of the many variants of Buddhist practice. I would say it is more scholarly than inspirational. It is not always an easy read and should have included a glossary for the terms.

[Luke · Rating 1 out of 5]

Listened to audiobook narrated by Fajar Al-kaisi.

Had hoped this would be more of a historical overview of the development of Buddhism. Instead it focused more on the teaching of the Tibetans and contrasted them against other groups.

[Donald Sherer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of detail for a beginner.

[Charli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pedantic and sometimes hard to follow...for me

[Paññādhammika Bhikkhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy read, it's very condensed, and contains a lot of advanced information topic. Very nice overview after you've read a lot about Buddhism for maybe 5 years.

[Samantha Tully · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good book to start your journey with.

[Brandon Nicklaus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. Extremely dense and hard to get through. Especially if you do not have a plether of Buddhist knowledge.

[Theodora (paper.bag.reader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to review this one, it's quite technical and definitely not newbie friendly

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive look at the tenets of Buddhism. This is a solid reference for people wanting to learn more about Buddhism, but it’s probably not for absolute beginners.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Слишком рано я начала ее слушать. Слишком она для меня заумная.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An encyclopedic history and analysis of Tibetan Buddhism, authoritative and complete. Recommended for beginners.