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What the Buddha Thought

Richard F. Gombrich

4.03 · Rating details · 63 Ratings · 10 Reviews

In What the Buddha Thought, Richard Gombrich argues that the Buddha was one of the most brilliant and original thinkers of all time. Intended to serve as an introduction to the Buddhas thought, and hence even to Buddhism itself, the book also has larger aims: it argues that we can know far more about the Buddha than it is fashionable among scholars to admit, and that his t ...more

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Paperback, 240 pages

Published August 1st 2009 by Equinox Publishing (UK) (first published 2009)

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Oct 25, 2012 Frank Jude rated it really liked it

Shelves: buddhism, philosophy

Richard Gombrich is an eminent buddhist scholar, specializing in the Pali tradition of early buddhism and the Theravada tradition in particular. He's also the founder and president of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. The man has written over 200 publications, and several of his books are truly deserving of "must read" status, including his Theravada Buddhism: A Social History and How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings.

In this book, Gombrich does what you would Richard Gombrich is an eminent buddhist scholar, specializing in the Pali tradition of early buddhism and the Theravada tradition in particular. He's also the founder and president of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. The man has written over 200 publications, and several of his books are truly deserving of "must read" status, including his Theravada Buddhism: A Social History and How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings.

In this book, Gombrich does what you would have thought would have been done long ago: situate the buddha in the social and cultural context of his life in order to get a deeper and more contextual understanding of his teachings. Primarily, as Gombrich makes clear, the buddha used metaphor and analogy, emphasized pragmatics and ethics, and discounted metaphysical speculation.

He also was more 'subversive' of the brahman status quo than we may have initially understood, using parody, sarcasm and a radical re-valuation of brahmanical concepts and terms. As Gombrich makes clear, from the forceful criticism of brahmanical culture, it is clear the buddha certainly must have had some powerful support or he could never have gotten away with what he taught! If he were alive today, and criticized the monotheistic religions of the west in similar ways (and have no doubt, he most certainly would as he rejected the notions of creation and a creator god, the soul, and textual authority). There'd probably be an Islamic fatwa against him!

Besides clarifying the buddha's critical engagement with brahmanism, Gombrich makes clear his debt to, as well as his critique of, Jainism. The centrality of his conception of karma owes much to Jainism, even as he criticizes the unsophisticated, physicalist conception the Jains held.

Contemporary western "buddhists" may be surprised to find that the buddha denied the common notion that "we are all one," and that the buddha taught any form of idealism! As Gombrich points out:

"He would have agreed with modern psychologists in declining to accept idealism: there really is a world out there, even if we cannot know it precisely." Gombrich goes on to emphasize:

"...for were there no distinction between a person and the world, including other people, his entire soteriology would make no sense at all.... That these distinctions were blurred in Mahayana thought has misled many students of earlier Buddhism."

If you've any interest in how buddhism originated, and what social and cultural conditions led to its arising, this and the other two above-mentioned books by Gombrich should definitely be on your reading list! ...more

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Oct 15, 2011 the gift rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: buddhism-etc, consciousness, philosophycrit, religion, nonfiction, aa-indialit, aa-asialit, philosophy-indic, philosophy, phil-indic-buddhism

this is very interesting, certainly makes a good try at uncovering the buddha’s original insights, placing it in context, reconciling contradictions, by returning to the pali canon- the oldest texts from the first council. in many cases it is later additions that introduce confusion, in some cases it is the usual corruption that religious thought suffers in becoming institutionalized religion...

the key of this work is it argues well that the buddha created a logical, pragmatic, universal metaphy ...more

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Feb 08, 2011 Ben rated it it was amazing

This book is revolutionary, it changed many of my preconceived notions about the teachings of the Buddha. In particular, Gombrich is adept at putting the Buddha's teachings into perspective: with particular emphasis on the Brahmanical-Vedic influence on the Buddha's thinking and His usage of the extant terminology of these philosophies to create his own soteriology.
Highly recommended, particularly if you consider yourself to be well-versed and knowledgeable about the Buddha's teachings; you may ...more

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Jan 13, 2012 Serdar rated it really liked it

Ambitious and expertly-argued look at the Buddha in, and out of, his historical context.

http://www.genjipress.com/2012/01/wha...

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Sep 28, 2017 Jessica Zu rated it it was amazing

Shelves: leisure, diss

Simply the best! I've never known the Buddha as a satirist! But he is! Read this book then you'll know why.

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Mar 01, 2016 Thiago Silva rated it liked it

Shelves: buddhism-studies

This is a good book to read if one is interested in understanding early buddhism (and what the Buddha taught/thought). It is easier if the reader is familiar with scholar language. But I advise any reader to be cautious and alert to catch where the grains of salt are.

The reason for the caution is twofold: first, this is a scholar author writing about buddhism from the point of view of research (if the reader can't scrutinize the evidences, he/she is left with "believing" instead of "knowing"). S This is a good book to read if one is interested in understanding early buddhism (and what the Buddha taught/thought). It is easier if the reader is familiar with scholar language. But I advise any reader to be cautious and alert to catch where the grains of salt are.

The reason for the caution is twofold: first, this is a scholar author writing about buddhism from the point of view of research (if the reader can't scrutinize the evidences, he/she is left with "believing" instead of "knowing"). Second, this is not a scholar work (though the author is an eminent scholar): there are no rigorous presentation of evidence or rigorous analysis. Rather, this is a book presenting a group of arguments, opinions and points of view: some of them may be presented with a few references or elaboration, some not really.

The following are the reasons I like the book. The arguments exposed enriches the perspectives to explore the understanding of the Buddha Dhamma and the context where they came to be. These are of great value by themselves, regardless of the interpretations/opinions the author builds over them.

But these interpretations are also very valuable, at least, if one's attitude is that of reading an "academic dialogue", and not as a "I bought this book looking for rigorous analysis". With that in mind, this read not only gives some sense of "reasonable possibilities", but also points out to the many authors and works that are part of this dialogue (many who are much inclined to dispute the author's thesis).

There are gems here, and I really liked how some suttas received new light to my eyes.

At a final note on the pros, I think Gombrich is a very good writer. I had a very enjoyable experience while reading it.

Now the cons side, and why I took out two stars. One because it's not at all clear from the title and description what the content really is ("introduction to buddhism"? not way, not by far...). Another star was subtracted because Gombrich seems to put forward undercooked/sloppy arguments or carelessly deform discourses in such a way that a non-scholar like myself was alerted on the spot.

The big case for me is his argument that "kindness is salvific" -- a chapter is dedicated to that. If his intention was to show that there are discourses where it seemed implied that "kindness is salvific" by itself, I believe that he should have tried to dig more and worked on a more careful presentation. More importantly, I considered it not only premature but sloppy because he freely interpreted the Tevijja Sutta as teaching that union with brahman equals nibbana (as if this was another instance of the Buddha recasting his doctrine with other doctrine's vocabulary) without acknowledging the problems this entails. In other words, without considering how this interpretation fits with the rest of the canon -- it doesn't. Among many, one obvious contradiction to this is in MN 97 where the Buddha questions Sariputta on why he taught Dhananjani the way to the "inferior Brahma-world" when there was "more to be done". No sutta that presents problems with his theory is ever mentioned, denouncing his selective picking.

A smaller problematic topic is the perspective on some discourses as having a satirical purpose. I think this topic was also surprising careless as I really wanted to see evidence for it.

These are weird points, considering Gombrich respectable curriculum. But then again, books don't go through peer review.... ...more

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May 05, 2015 Neil Hayes rated it it was amazing

Richard Gombrichs's insight into how the original Buddhist texts should be translated is precious. He uses his deep knowledge of life in ancient India, together with mastery of both Pali and Sanskrit, to give insights that are unique and rewarding. He uncovers the wit in the Buddha's teachings, and some valuable links between key concepts that are not available in other sources. In researching my own book on the Buddha's teachings, I referred to this book, and indeed contacted Richrd and found h ...more

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Nov 02, 2010 Sarah rated it liked it

Interesting but a bit too academic and detailed for my requirements!

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Feb 19, 2013 Lisa rated it liked it

Shelves: dharma

Not at all what I thought this book would be like. It was a bit to technical and not what I had wanted at the time. There are some solid references and areas that were useful.

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