The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha: Early Discourses, the Dhammapada and Later Basic Writings

A great over view of each Buddhist school, covering the basics of each. Commentary and translations of original discourses.

If you are interested in getting to what scholars know to be the "actual" teachings of the Buddha, before it grew with dogma and practices, this book is a good reference. For the most part it is decipherable as to what his teachings were, as back then some were written in hymns, and I am not that scholarly to make sense of those. But for the most part, the author adds valuable notes and gives the reader some background. I've been studying Buddhism on my own for several years and just wanted to get down to the basic origination point for what the Buddha taught. This book is good for that.

This was a reorder of a book that meant a lot to me back in the day. I ordered it to have it for my library. It is what I cut my teeth on when I was a teenager and I would still recommend it today.

The very best. I read from it every day.

I would give it 4 stars because I would have wanted a better condition for the book, however, you get what you pay for and it's respectable. A lot of annotations.... but all the pages are there and it's exactly the book I need for class. Cover is in good condition but I would like to not have so many "used" stickers on it.

There is no better place to start when learning your Dharma. At least for me it was the only starting point and I constantly return to it.

It was just what I needed.

Great to learn about Buddism

EA Burtt's classic 'Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha', is still the most accessible scholarly overview of Buddhism, esp. of Theravada Buddhism.