In order to speak the truth, one should speak not of Buddhism, but of Buddhisms, in the plural: beyond the broad and facile separation of major traditions into Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana, innumerable historical, national, and local Buddhisms exist, have existed, and will exist – each one with particular foci of practice and devotion, each one evincing different degrees of absorption within, adaptation to, or fusion with other systems of belief, each one arising within a different layer in historical and cultural time, from the ancient to the postmodern, and in a different spatial geography, from the jungles of Southeast Asia to the urban labyrinths of contemporary America. All of them alike, however, stake a claim to represent the authentic teaching of the Buddha and to offer the most promising and effective path to enlightenment.
Buddhism has undergone at least as much proliferation, reticulation, and sectarian differentiation as has Christianity in the West – and it had five hundred years for a head start. The relatively small number of ideas and themes at work in early Buddhism rapidly demonstrated their explanatory power in relation to a vast range of human experience, while the contributions to this edifice made by later thinkers, many of whom belong in the very first rank as philosophical thinkers and writers, only served to deepen the cosmic sweep and intimate force already potentialized in early Buddhist thought.
Even now, talk of a “New Buddhism” – deeply inflected by Western consumerism, individualism, rationalism, and secularism, responding to the erosion of faith in middle-class aspirations and Judaeo-Christian assumptions, and cognizant of contemporary concerns with cultural diversity, moral relativism, and ecological catastrophe – is beginning to question or even supplant the dichotomy of Theravada-Mahayana and signal the full-fledged entry of the West into the mainstream of Buddhist thinking and living. Buddhism may be an ancient religion, but it has proven amazingly versatile in demonstrating its persistent relevance even in relation to those problems that seem most uniquely contemporary. Wherever the thought of the Buddha goes, it will have much to face, but also much to draw on.
On this page you can find the best resources for exploring fundamental themes in Buddhist doctrine and practice. Each book listed below is linked to WorldCat, where you can discover library holdings for that item in your region. Resources within each gallery box are arranged from the newest to the oldest publications, left to right. Areas below select galleries highlight a few recent or especially notable works from the gallery immediately above.