There are now three major sects of Buddhism: Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana.[1] Here is a short historical account of how it came to be. Previous, we talked about how two of King Ashoka’s children, Mahinda and Sanghamitta, were sent to Sri Lanka as Buddhist...
In May 1998, in New York City, there was a historic dialog between two highly revered masters from two different sects of Buddhism. One was the Dalai Lama, the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the other was the Chinese Zen Master Sheng Yen. They were sharing a...
The greatest achievement of the Buddha was the founding of the Sangha. It might seem that becoming a Buddha was his greatest achievement. But fully realizing the Dharma was what made him a Buddha, so realizing the Dharma was more important than the mere label...
“Yes, there is a lot of Buddhist texts to read, but don’t worry, I’ve downloaded all of it for you.” (Context: The Early Buddhist Canon.) As a skeptic, the very first question I’d ask is: how do I know if the Nikāyas are an authentic...
(Context: The Early Buddhist Canon.) Even though the Nikāyas were formulated at the First Buddhist Council only months after the Buddha passed, the Pali Canon was actually written down much later, like 300 years later[1]. Why did it take so long? For a...
Compilation of discourses With Ānanda and Upāli giving testimony, and the gathering of 500 arahants verifying the correctness of their testimonies, the early Buddhist canon was thus established. The compilation offered up by Ānanda was so large it was divided into...
