The Story of Buddhism: A Concise Guide to Its History & Teachings

By Donald S. Lopez Jr.

Book Overview

This engaging introduction to Buddhism by leading Buddhist scholar Donald S. Lopez Jr. offers an expert but lucid account that demystifies Buddhism and explains its practices, teachings, and schools. Blending penetrating analysis with engaging storytelling, Lopez makes Buddhism accessible and compelling as he reveals the commonalities and differences among the major traditions. The Story of Buddhism focuses on actual lived practice and shows why Buddhism has been so appealing and helpful through many centuries and many cultures, including our own.

Lopez begins with the creation and structure of the Buddhist universe and then tells the story of the life of the Buddha, weaving a tapestry of history, legend, and doctrine (a traditional approach in Buddhist literature). He explores important concepts such as dharma -- including devotional practices and techniques of meditation -- and sangha -- the communities of monks, nuns, and laypeople who follow the teachings of the Buddha. Finally, the author probes the meaning of enlightenment as a path to the realization of one's true nature and freedom from suffering.

Complete with a glossary, detailed index, and comprehensive bibliography, The Story of Buddhism is a rich presentation of the Buddhist tradition. Whether you are a practicing Buddhist, a student of world religions, or both, this concise, accessible introduction to the teachings, practices, and historical development of Buddhism is an invaluable guide that will set the standard for years to come.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060699760
• ISBN13: 9780060699765
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Good Book for an Excellent Class

I am enjoying reading this book in conjunction with an Eastern World Religions Class. I would not recommend trying to understand Buddhism without an instructor or guide. However, making the effort to find someone to help with the religious and cultural references is well worth it. I also recommend: A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life.

Best of the bunch

I've been a Buddhist Universalist for about 20 years, and have read various explanations and teachings about the Buddha. This book is the best overview of all -- showing the basic teachings, the contradictions, and the regional differences. Buddhism is much more diverse than we generally think, and this book shares that diversity with the reader.

A Scholar's Introduction to Buddhism

Donald Lopez, a professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan, is one of the best scholars who attempt to present a balanced, accurate picture of Buddhism as it has been practiced over the generations. His book "The Story of Buddhism" considers the actual practice of Buddhism, in all its diverse forms, in Asia, superstitions, magic, idiosyncracies, and all. In this way, it differs from most books that present Buddhism to Americans. These books typically focus on meditation, on the liberating, non-theistic character of the Buddha's teaching, and of Buddhism as a guide to life in the difficulties of secular 20th and 21st century America. Such works are valuable and important, but they fail to give the reader a historical sense of Buddhism.Lopez's book opens with a short treatment of Buddhist cosmology, including its picture of the universe, the earth, and the heavens and hells. There is an all-to-brief discussion of the key Buddhist teaching of Dependent Origination.The chapter on cosmology is followed by a discussion of the life of the Buddha, taken from a wide variety of textual sources, of the Dharma, Monasticism, Lay Life, and Enlightenment.The focus of the book is on the various schools of Mahayana Buddhism and on the Buddhism of Tibet. I found surprisingly little discussion of Theravada Buddhism, (practiced historically in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand) which is likely the earliest version of Buddhism we have today. Lopez describes well how various Mahayana thinkers broke away from earlier teachings but doesn't tell us much about these early teachings themselves.There is a great deal of emphasis in the book on how the Buddha's teaching was applied and modified over the years. Most of lay practice, Lopez informs us, was devoted to the accumulation of merit by the practice of good deeds. A regular meditation practice, much less textual study of the Sutras, was simply unavailable to most people who have over the generations called themselves Buddhists, either laity or monastic.Lopez describes well the ritualistic practices of any number of Buddhist schools, emphasisizing matters such as relic worship, ancestor worship, fortune-telling and horoscopes, miracle cures, magic, mandalas, and what the modern reader is likely to view as superstition. He briefly describes for the reader a number of Buddhist schools and practices,including Tantric Buddhism, the Pure Land School, and Zen, and their different paths to enlightenment. There is a wonderfully detailed picture of a ritual involving the Heart Sutra, repeated many times, with the use of icons and statues.This book is a welcome, clear-minded corrective to those who approach Buddhism ahistorically. But there is, indeed, more to the story than this, as Professor Lopez realizes. For all his objectivity, I think Lopez has some grasp of the power of the Buddha's message which has led many to it, including modern Americans, over the millenia. This is most clearly indic

Erudite and Insightful

Donald Lopez combines enormous erudition and a subltle artistic touch to take the reader behind the history, myths and practice of Buddhism. Appropriately titled the "story" rather than the "history", the book combines history, legend, anecdote, philosophy and anthropology to clarify and amplify on the numerous paths that we simplistically lump under the term "Buddhishm" while at the same time finding the common ground in all. The Book's effect is to break up what appears as a single point of light into a unified yet divergent spectrum of colors. Striking in its objectivity (the author does not hold back from revealing the all too human elaboration of the Buddha's message throughout history), the book is also a readable presentation of the author's insight into the essence of Buddhism and its potential for tranforming a person's life.

Outstanding!

Lopez is the most objective scholar writing accessible books on Buddhism. This particular book is an even-handed overview of Buddhist history, beliefs and practices. If you only are interested in the "adapted for modern Western audiences" version of Buddhism that is found in most books, then you might not be interested in this. But, if you are interested in an historical view that attempts to date, for example, when and where and by whom various sutras were written, when (and to some extent why) the mahayana school developed, and in general how Buddhism developed and has been taught and practiced in various places, then this book is for you. I also recommend Lopez's Prisoners of Shangri-La (if you want a more inside, critical understanding of Tibetan Buddhism).