Living Wisely: Further Advice from Nagarjuna's Precious Garland

by Sangharakshita

Buddhism traditionally makes a distinction between what is termed the dhammānusārin, the ‘doctrine follower’, and the saddhānusārin, the ‘faith follower’, and it seems that people belong to one or the other of these types. For the faith follower, personal contact with the teacher is much more important than study. Faith followers are not inclined to bother with studying the Dharma much beyond the personal precepts and instructions that their teacher gives them; they are not concerned to learn more than a few basic principles that they can put into practice personally. The doctrine follower, by comparison, wants to know all about Buddhism in all its aspects, perhaps not even just the doctrines of their own school, and they are therefore not so dependent on the teacher. They like to work things out for themselves, and to find out what other people have thought and said and done in other times and other cultures.