An Introduction To Buddhism Summary

Harvey, P. (n.d.). An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (1st ed., Vol. 2). Cambridge University Press.
When starting on understanding Buddhism and its complexity, first get a basic knowledge of what it is about. Basic knowledge is key when trying to go in depth into such a complex subject such as another religion. Harvey’s “An Introduction to Buddhism” is an excellent first choice of book to begin learning what exactly Buddhism is. It’s an easy to follow book with well written and understandable phrasing of the complex ideas behind the religion. It takes topics and ideas that are often made very simple for western culture to understand and explains them into their full meaning for a better understanding. It also does …show more content…
It is made out to be a book about everything you could want to know about Buddhism. Physically the cover is quite nice but the inside is full of mistakes and poor explanations of this quite complex religion. It is very vague and wishy washy about the subject matter and oversimplifies the teachings. There are many punctuation and grammar mistakes within the book making it hard to read and understand. It has a hard to follow writing style that is quite awkward to try and read and confusing when the grammar and punctuation errors are added into the mix. The book includes an introduction to the Buddhist holy book, the Dhammapada, as well as the Metta Sutta but does a poor job in trying to explain them. It would be better to just go ahead and just read those and avoid this book. It tries to explain the history of Buddhism and the Buddha but does so in just a few pages making it seem rushed and very little information is presented. Mestre published this book himself and he has no qualifications that should lead anyone to believe he is qualified to write a book about Buddhism and try to teach anyone about it. It seems like it is more of a money …show more content…
They are the opposite end of the subject like the argument side. This particular one is a personal blog about the subject making it not very reliable. This is also just one person’s experience that they decided to write about. There are no reputable sources or references. This is just a story that this person experienced and decided to put out on the internet to sway people. There are no facts to back it up and it goes against a lot of the main Buddhist beliefs making the story itself questionable. It would be a very unreliable source because it hold no valuable information and no actual points for an argumentative side. The site itself looks nice, it is simple and well laid out, but there is little to no actual information available and no reliable points for an argument made other that personal experience and opinion. It is one to watch out