Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World

by Stephen Batchelor

The first of these fields consists of the earliest discourses attributed to Gotama, which are primarily found in the Pali Canon of the Theravāda school. We are exceptionally fortunate as English speakers to have not only a complete translation of the Pali Canon, but one that is continually being improved—something that speakers of other European languages can still only dream of. The second of these fields is that of our increasingly detailed (though still disputed and incomplete) understanding of the historical, social, political, religious, and philosophical conditions that prevailed during the Buddha’s lifetime in fifth century BCE India. Thanks to the work of many scholars, we are beginning to see more clearly the kind of world in which the Buddha taught. Together, these two fields provide a fertile soil for the project of rethinking, perhaps reimagining, the dharma from the ground up.