Treasures of Buddhism: A New Translation with Selected Letters

By Frithjof Schuon

Book Overview

In his classic work on the subject, perennialist author Frithjof Schuon explores the vast and varied landscape that is Buddhism. Every reader interested in Buddhism from whatever angle will here find much that speaks to his or her condition. Schuon presents Buddhism not as an historical artifact of the past but as a living spiritual force. In describing the essentials of Buddhism, he frequently makes use of comparisons with other traditions, including Western religious thought. The rich and diverse world of Buddhist art--from its statuary to the tea ceremony--is a subject treated with particular importance. A valuable section on Shinto, the indigenous Japanese tradition of the "way of the gods", concludes the book. This revised edition, containing over 75 pages of new material, features a fully revised translation from the French original as well as previously unpublished selections from Schuon's letters and other private writings. Also included is an editor's preface, editor's notes, a glossary of foreign terms and phrases, an index, and biographical notes.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1936597586
• ISBN13: 9781936597581
• Release Date: September 2018
• Publisher: World Wisdom Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 3.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

An antidote against "neo"-buddhism

Edited by Marco Pallis, a well known scholar on Buddhism, these articles by Frithjof Schuon provide us with an original perspective on a tradition too often mixed in the West with New Age ideas and neo-spiritualism. By contrast with such modernist view, Schuon insists on the metaphysical and intrinsic orthodoxy of Buddhism, explaining its difference of perspective with Advaita Vedanta and other traditional doctrines. Far from being simply a "philosophy" or a kind of subtle Atheism, Buddhism, in Schuon's view, is an initiatory method (rather than a metaphysical doctrine), based on a non-anthropomorphic perspective on the Absolute, considered less as a metaphysical Principle than as a State (Nirvana). A true antidote against contemporary neo-buddhism.