Denise Cush is Head of the Department of the Study of Religions at Bath Spa University College. This article first appeared in 2001 in the autumn edition (24.1) of Resource, the Journal of the Professional Council for Religious Education. Reproduced with permission.
A Buddhist Bookshelf - or rather, a Bookshelf on Buddhism.
I suppose that I have been collecting books on Buddhism for quarter of a century, since my conversion in 1976 - a conversion not from Christianity to Buddhism, but from Theology to Religious Studies consequent on becoming familiar with the work of the late Ninian Smart. Although a long acquaintance with Buddhism has had its effects on my personal beliefs and values, I do not call myself a Buddhist. My bookshelf therefore reflects the interests of a sympathetic scholar rather than a practitioner. Indeed, my bookshelves have in the past caused offence to one Buddhist friend in that in spite of my attempts to be systematic, my 'Dharma books' tend to get mixed up with other books or indeed may be as likely to be found in piles on the floor than in their designated place on the shelves! At least this means they are use rather than ornament.
Perhaps the first book I read which touched on Buddhism was my mother's old copy of Henrich Harrer's Seven Years in Tibet (The Reprint Society,1955) which in spite of later criticisms ignited an interest in Tibetan Buddhism, and the story of the Dalai Lama in particular, which has never left me. I enjoyed reading the Dalai Lama's autobiography Freedom in Exile (Cardinal 1991) in particular remembering his claim that 'I suppose I am still half Marxist' and that 'all religions pursue the same goals: those of cultivating goodness and bringing happiness to all human beings'. When studying Tibetan Buddhism back in the 1970s, I found that Chogyam Trungpa's Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (Shambala 1973) helped interpret the tradition for a Western reader. I have to admit that, in common with many 'Westerners', my interest in Buddhism is tinged with romanticism. This romantic attachment is not a new phenomenon, and a very useful book chronicling the Victorian love affair with Buddhism is Philip Almond's The British Discovery of Buddhism (Cambridge University Press 1988). This book also deals lucidly with the contention that Buddh-ism (in common with other so-called 'isms' ) was not so much discovered as constructed by Westerners from the nineteeth century onwards, a theme which is very much a current issue in Religious Studies.
The Blackwell's on-line bookshop lists 2,310 titles on Buddhism, which makes it difficult to know where to begin. I would suggest that probably the best one chapter overview of Buddhism is that by Lance Cousins in A New Handbook of Living Religions (ed. J. Hinnells Penguin 1997). Among the one-volume introductions, Peter Harvey's An Introduction to Buddhism (Cambridge 1990) has deservedly become the classic university text book. Paul Williams' Buddhist Thought, a Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition (Routledge 2000) is a recent purchase which is an excellent and accessible guide to 'an understanding and appreciation of the central concepts of classical Indian Buddhist thought…opening up the latest scholarly perspectives and controversies'. So says the 'blurb' and so it is - highly recommended for anyone wanting to catch up on the latest scholarship in this area without the time to do the research oneself.
One of the references that Williams makes is to G. Schopen's Stones, Bones and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy and Texts of Monastic Buddhism (University of Hawaii Press 1997) which everyone in the world of Buddhist Studies rates very highly as applying the underused resources of archaeology to vexed issues in the history of Buddhism. Other one volume introductions which can be recommended are Rupert Gethin's The Foundations of Buddhism (Opus 1998) and Andrew Skilton's A Concise History of Buddhism (Windhorse 1994). A beautifully illustrated and useful reference volume is Bechert, H. & Gombrich,R.(eds.) The World of Buddhism: Buddhist Monks and Nuns in Society and Culture (Thames & Hudson 1991). Paul Williams' Mahayana Buddhism: the Doctrinal Foundations (Routledge 1989) is another volume that my students and I find very useful. One book I particularly enjoyed and is easy to read, Elizabeth Harris's What Buddhists Believe (Oneworld 1998), introduces Buddhism by means of material gained through first hand interviews. As well as a summary of 'basic' Buddhist beliefs, there are chapters on Meditation, 'Socially Engaged' Buddhism and Women in Buddhism.
An extremely useful and comprehensive introduction to ethical issues in Buddhism is Peter Harvey's An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics (Cambridge 2000). Particularly useful, as rarely covered elsewhere, is his chapter on 'homosexuality and other forms of queerness'. There is an on-line journal worth knowing about, the Journal of Buddhist Ethics. Damien Keown has edited or written several books on Buddhist approaches to ethical issues. The one on my bookshelf is Buddhism and Abortion (Macmillan 1998), but there is also The Nature of Buddhist Ethics (Macmillan 1992), Buddhism and Bioethics (Macmillan 1995) and (with Prebish and Husted) Buddhism and Human Rights (Curzon 1998).
The 'issues' that I have taken most interest in include the role of women in Buddhism, environmentalism, and Buddhist attitudes to other religions. On women, as well as Elizabeth Harris's chapter above, two chapters and one book by Rita Gross are interesting: 'Buddhism after Patriarchy?' in After Patriarchy: Feminist Transformations of the World Religions (eds.) P.Cooey, W. Eakin & J. Mc Daniel (Orbis 1991), 'Buddhism' in Women in Religion J. Holm and J. Bowker (eds.) (Pinter 1994) and Buddhism after Patriarchy: a Feminist History, Analysis and Reconstruction of Buddhism (SUNY 1994). I am currently halfway through E.B. Findly, (ed) Women's Buddhism, Buddhism's Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal (Wisdom 2000), a collection of 31 articles and personal reflections by scholars from various disciplines, Buddhist practioners including nuns, ex-nuns and laywomen (and a few men), and Buddhist activists, exploring on a global scale how Buddhist women past and present have overcome traditional limitations on women in areas such as ordination, teaching lineages, political and social change, art and architecture, and health and healing. One useful feature of this volume is that a symbol marks whether the article is to be received as from the scholarly voice or the personal one, an helpful indicator in a world where it is increasing important to ask questions of provenance about the huge volume of potential information.
A positive view of Buddhist environmentalism, including examples of practical projects, is taken in Batchelor, M. and Brown, K. Buddhism and Ecology (Cassells 1992), whereas romanticism on the topic is dispelled by Ian Harris, who has written several articles querying whether it can really be argued that traditional Buddhist teaching upholds an environmentalist ethic starting with 'How Environmentalist is Buddhism?' Religion 21 1991 pp.101-114 and most easily accessible in 'Buddhism' in J.Holm and J. Bowker (eds.) Attitudes to Nature (Pinter 1994 pp.8-27). Padmasiri de Silva's Environmental Philosophy and Ethics in Buddhism (Macmillan 1998) is also useful in relating environmental ethics to those of economics and 'development'. My favourite book on Buddhist attitudes to other religions is Masao Abe's Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue (Macmillan 1995) although an interesting range of views is collect by Paul Griffiths, in Christianity through non-Christian Eyes (Orbis 1990).
Western scholarship in the past tended to stress the scriptural and doctrinal so that any encounter with actual practising Buddhists led to talk of 'folk religion', or Buddhism being 'mixed up' with previously existing traditions. Although there is an element of truth in this, in that Buddhism had proved adaptable to many different cultural contexts, in part scholars had constructed a Buddhism of their own imagination, divorced from the real life context. A counterbalance to this is to read accounts of Buddhism from anthropologists 'in the field', two classic texts being Spiro, M. Buddhism and Society: a Great Tradition and its Burmese Vicissitudes (Allen and Unwin 1971) and Tambiah, S.J. Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North East Thailand (Cambridge 1984). I very much enjoyed reading Richard Gombrich's Precept and Practice: Traditional Buddhism in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon (The Clarendon Press 1971) which made local Sinhala Buddhism 'real' for me. His notion that the Buddha can be 'cognitively human but affectively divine' rang particularly true. Among more recent studies, for Tibetan Buddhism, a comprehensive treatment combining fieldwork with historical scholarship is Geoffrey Samuel's Civilised Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies (Smithsonian Institute 1993) and for the neglected Newar Buddhists of Nepal, David Gellner's Monk, Householder and Tantric Priest (Cambridge1992 - now out of print, but available in libraries, or from India and Nepal). As well as neglecting the rituals and practices of everyday life, a concentration on scripture and doctrine can also lead to a neglect of the social and political dimension of a tradition. A useful corrective is Harris, I. (ed.) Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth Century Asia (Pinter 1999).
The notion of 'scripture' as the source of religious authority is perhaps a peculiarly 'Western Protestant' one, and in the Buddhist world, numerous and diverse sacred texts are preserved in so many different languages. However, even in translation, primary texts are an important aspect of understanding the teachings considered sacred and authentic by believers. Handy anthologies include the old but still useful ones by Edward Conze Buddhist Scriptures (Penguin 1959) and Buddhist Texts through the Ages (Harper Row 1964) and W.T. De Bary, (ed.)The Buddhist Tradition in India, China and Japan (Vintage 1972). Other 'scriptural' favourites are, from the Pali Canon, the Dhammapada (eg the 1973 Penguin translation by Juan Mascaro), and the so-called semi-canonical 'Questions of King Milinda' (Volumes 35 and 36 of the 'Sacred Books of the East'). Perhaps the best known and most influential Mahayana 'scripture' is the Saddharmapundarika or 'Lotus Sutra', worth reading to get the flavour and central teachings of some forms of Mahayana Buddhism. It is also worth dipping into the various texts which come under the heading of the Prajnaparamita ('Perfect Wisdom') literature to get a feeling for the teaching of 'emptiness.' One of my favourite Mahayana texts is the Bodhicaryavatara by Shantideva, a new translation of which (1996), by Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton, is available in the OUP World's Classic Series.
There is a huge and growing literature on 'Buddhism in the West', in all its diversity, including new movements. Useful books and articles include Batchelor, S. The Awakening of the West: the Encounter of Buddhism and Western Culture (HarperCollins 1995); Baumann, M. 'Creating a European Path to Nirvana: Historical and Contemporary Developments of Buddhism in Europe' Journal of Contemporary Religions 10.1 (1995) pp.55-70; Fields, R. How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America (Shambhala Publications 1992); Rawlinson, A. The Book of Enlightened Masters: Western Teachers in Eastern Traditions (Open Court 1997); Wilson, B. & Dobbelaere K. A Time to Chant: The Soka Gakkai Buddhists in Britain (Clarendon Press 1994) and Waterhouse, H. Buddhism in Bath: Adaptation and Authority (University of Leeds 1997). The last named is based on local fieldwork with Buddhist groups including Thai Theravada, the House of Inner Tranquility, Soka Gakkai, the New Kadampa Tradition, and Tibetan Karma Pakshi.
The development of a specifically Western tradition, the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, is chronicled in Subhuti's Buddhism for Today: a Portrait of a New Buddhist Movement (Element 1988). Philip Mellor caused quite a stir in the early 90s by suggesting that the Thai Forest Sangha and the FWBO in particular could be understood as forms of 'protestant Buddhism,' a term originally coined to refer to Sinhalese Buddhist modernism, in his article 'Protestant Buddhism? The Cultural Translation of Buddhism in England' in Religion 21 (1991) pp. 73-92. Western Buddhism (HarperCollins 1997) by Kulananda, a leading member of the UK FWBO, gives an 'insider' perspective on the 'Western' development of the tradition. For contacts with Buddhist Groups in this country, the Buddhist Society's Buddhist Directory 2000 (Buddhist Society Publications 2000) is an excellent starting place. A final piece of lighter travel reading, which nevertheless warns against the Western tendency to turn Buddhism into yet another consumer commodity, is Jeff Greenwald's Shopping for Buddhas (Lonely Planet 1996), recommended for reading on the plane to Kathmandu.
The books I have chosen to mention are a personal selection and several were found by accident (eg being asked to review them) than by any systematic scholarly research. I have not included much on Chinese and Japanese Buddhism such as Zen. It may well be that of those 2,310 books available from Blackwell's I've managed to miss the most crucial or obvious. However, as I work in religious education as well as religious studies, my personal selection may have some relevance to the readers of Resource.
[Denise Cush is Head of Department of the Study of Religions at Bath Spa University College. She is author of Buddhism (1994) Hodder & Stoughton, which has become the standard textbook for A level and is also extensively used in universities. Among her other publications on Buddhism are a one chapter summary 'Buddhism' in The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of World Religions C.Richards (ed) Element 1997, Buddhists in Britain Today Hodder & Stoughton 1990 (based on a series of interviews in the late 1980s with Buddhist from various traditions), 'British Buddhism and the New Age' Journal of Contemporary Religion 11.2 1996 and several articles on teaching Buddhism in primary and secondary schools.]