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    Buddha For Beginners
    Buddha For Beginners
    Buddha For Beginners
    Ebook263 pages1 hour

    Buddha For Beginners

    By Stephen T. Asma

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    About this ebook

    Despite the widespread popularity of Buddhist practices (like meditation), there is little understanding of the complex philosophy behind Buddhism. The historical Buddha, Gautama, was a real person—a radical—who challenged the religious leaders of his day. Buddha For Beginnersintroduces the reader to the historical Buddha, to the ideas that made him change his life, and to the fascinating philosophical debates that engaged him and formed the core of Buddhism.

    Buddha For Beginners compares Buddha’s philosophy with those of his contemporaries, the later Buddhist schools, and Western Philosophy. The book includes a survey, distinguishing the philosophical differences among later schools of Buddhism, such as Theravada, Madhyamaika, Tantric, Zen, and others.

    Buddha For Beginners is not a book you read, it is a book you experience. It makes you stop and close your eyes. Through some magical combination of words, drawings, and intuitive wisdom, Buddha For Beginners conveys not only the facts of Buddhism, but the peace, the silence...the feel of it. It is historically accurate, spiritually challenging, and the white spaces mean as much as the words.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFor Beginners
    Release dateApr 15, 2015
    ISBN9781939994349

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    Reviews for Buddha For Beginners

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      Read this to help with stress. Agree with some of it. Have to re-read. A lot makes sense to me just need to work on it.
    • 4/5
      So not really a graphic novel but an educational primer for the life of Buddha rich with humor and illustrations. Sort of falling in the grey area that is no pronounced in the graphic novel medium.
    • 3/5
      Buddha For BeginnersWritten and Illustrated by Stephen T. AsmaI really really liked this 162 page masterpiece on depth and enlightenment with a generous helping of some of the coolest illustrations out there, all wrapped up in this blessedly irreverent package. I totally believe that we learn through love and laughter and the author gets it in aces. The book is easy to follow, lighthearted and yet deals with some fairly serious subjects, like ego and life, but in the gentlest of ways.This precious read is one of those I just couldn't put down, it kept my inner child totally preoccupied and I just raced from one great concept and phrase to another. Te cartoons are nothing short of phenomenal and I just loved the one on karma, the steamroller and the prayer wheel. I would recommend this much needed teacher to anyone looking for a deep and meaningful way through the 8 fold path. Thanks Stephen for showering us with your God-given talents. My spiritual toolbox is getting a little full, but I am sure there is always room for a gem such as this.Love & Light,Riki Frahmann
    • 4/5
      Buddha for Beginners by Stephen Astma gives a great and visually pleasing over view of the core teaching of the historical Buddha. I found most enjoyable with this book that it gives a great overview that is easily digested for someone just wanting to get an overview of Buddhism.That is what it did well. What it did extremely well was place the core teachings into a modern context without any New Age terminology. Just the basic philosophical tenets with an added bonus of being critical of some of the newer (relatively) sects of Buddhism. I, myself, being a member of one of these sects notwithstanding, I found the clarity and wit to be refreshing. I would recommend this to a person of any age interested in a quick reference for what Buddhism is. From this you can build up to the MANY other texts out there that dive deeper into this subject. I agree with BTRIPP's review except to say that I don't think another addition is needed. I would rather see this work remain light and "cartoonish" and serve as a wonderful supplement to more "serious" texts.

    Book preview

    Buddha For Beginners - Stephen T. Asma

    Also by Stephen T. Asma

    The Gods Drink Whiskey

    Why I am a Buddhist

    Against Fairness

    On Monsters

    Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads

    For Beginners LLC

    155 Main Street, Suite 211

    Danbury, CT 06810 USA

    www.forbeginnersbooks.com

    Text and Illustrations ©2008 By Stephen T. Asma

    This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

    A For Beginners® Documentary Comic Book

    Originally published by Writers and Readers, Inc.

    Copyright © 2015

    Cataloging-in-Publication information is available from the Library of Congress.

    ISBN # 978-1-939994-33-2 Trade

    Manufactured in the United States of America

    For Beginners® and Beginners Documentary Comic Books® are published by For Beginners LLC.

    First Edition

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    Contents

    Acknowledgments

    A New Introduction

    Chapter I

    The Quest of the Young Prince

    Chapter II

    The Wheel of Becoming

    Chapter III

    Nirvana and the Noble Truths

    Chapter IV

    The Evolution of Buddhism

    Postscript

    Some Further Reading

    Index

    Acknowledgments

    First, in this and all things, my little Julien, and his mother, Wen.

    Next, I wish to express my thanks to those who helped create and support this book, both in its earlier incarnation and its present manifestation. Many thanks to Jane Hagaman, Stacey Ruderman, and my old friend Peter Altenberg. Many years ago, Heidi Wagreich inspired much of the humor in this book and I remain grateful. I wish to acknowledge the fine folks at Hampton Roads Publishing, also my wonderful colleagues at Columbia College Chicago. Special thanks to my editor Greg Brandenburgh—a kindred goat, in a land of sheep. I am grateful to those friends, students, and teachers who understood that laughter is the proper response to sacrosanct dogma. Finally, this book is dedicated to my parents, Ed and Carol, who must be Bodhisattvas in disguise.

    A New Introduction

    This book first appeared in the late 1990s and found a substantial audience among the Buddha-curious, and even initiated Buddhist practitioners. Over the years it has been translated into Spanish, Hindi, and Chinese. I am proud to bring out this new revised edition with Hampton Roads Publishing, because it allows me to clarify further and nuance the basic arguments of the Buddha.

    The original impetus for this book was the fact that Buddhism seemed deeply misunderstood in the West; unfortunately, that fact has not changed much. Unlike most other religious scriptures, which are comprised of parables, legends, and allegories, Buddhist teachings also contain actual philosophical arguments that were advanced by the Buddha himself. My little illustrated book is primarily about those arguments. I would accept a happy irony if my cartoon drawings lured people into those decidedly un-cartoonish philosophical arguments.

    So skewed is the Western view of Buddhism that it will probably come as a surprise to many people that the Buddha gave rational arguments and empirical evidence in his teachings. Recently in one of my classes, an undergraduate student informed me that people in the East, like Buddhists, don't logically argue with each other—instead, they simply look at each other and read each other's minds with compassionate understanding. She had gathered this wisdom from American television shows, commercials, and movies, which proffer a cadre of mystical monk characters—usually helping some confused Westerner pick the right soda, or cell phone service, or some such consumer quandary. Stereotypes die hard, I know, and the tedium of consumer culture may always lead us to romanticize exotic monastic traditions. But it is my hope that this book will give searchers a little more grasp on the ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and even logic of Buddhism.

    Since this book first appeared, more than one person has asked me why my drawings of the Buddha look like Osama Bin Laden. I find this a little funny, but also a little disconcerting, since such a weird and unpleasant connotation hardly helps me make my case for Buddhism. I've had to assure readers that Bin Laden was not on my radar, nor anyone else's it would appear, when I first drew the Buddha several years before 9/11. The fact is that I first drew him modeled on myself, which I admit sounds like the height of narcissism—but as any illustrator knows, in the absence of a model, one has to rehearse facial expressions and body movements in a mirror. So Gautama, and many of the other characters, got rather exaggerated and modified versions of my own tired mug. No one really knows what the Buddha looked like, except to say that he had the ethnic features of a northern Indian. He was definitely not fat, nor did his features resemble those of Chinese or Japanese—and of course both those misrepresentations (fat and Far Eastern) are common. It is understandable that we should forget the Buddha's Indian origins, since Buddhism ceased to be prevalent in India about twelve hundred years ago, while it continued to dominate Asian cultures right up to the present.

    Geographic prevalence explains the ethnic confusion, but why is he usually portrayed as fat? Two considerations may solve the mystery. First, we have to remember

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