num_pages: 381
description: Some twenty-five centuries after the Buddha started teaching his message continues to inspire people across the globe including those living in predominantly secular societies. But what does it mean to adapt religious practices to secular contexts? Stephen Batchelor an internationally known author and teacher is committed to a secularized version of the Buddha's teachings. The time has come he feels to articulate a coherent ethical contemplative and philosophical vision of Buddhism for our age. After Buddhism the culmination of four decades of study and practice in the Tibetan Zen and Theravada traditions is his attempt to set the record straight about who the Buddha was and what he was trying to teach. Combining critical readings of the earliest canonical texts with narrative accounts of five of the Buddhas inner circle Batchelor depicts the Buddha as a pragmatic ethicist rather than a dogmatic metaphysician. He envisions Buddhism as a constantly evolving culture of awakening its long survival due to its capacity to reinvent itself and interact creatively with each society it encounters. This original and provocative book presents a new framework for understanding the remarkable spread of Buddhism in todays globalized world. It also reminds us of what was so startling about the Buddhas vision of human flourishing.
language: English
title: After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age
publisher: Yale University Press