| Welcome to From the Academy, a monthly newsletter for Premium subscribers offering a scholarly take on topics in Buddhist thought and practice. Each issue highlights a key theme and points to further readings and videos for exploration. |
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Behind Buddhism for Beginners |
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In early 2024, Tricycle editors initiated a revamp of the Buddhism for Beginners website. The previous material was written in 2017–2018, and since then, both Buddhist studies and Buddhist communities have experienced significant change. Ongoing research has refined scholarly understanding of Buddhist history, doctrine, and practice, while contemporary Buddhist life has been shaped by globalization and will continue to evolve.
Online engagement with Buddhism has also shifted significantly. AI-driven search tools now play a major role in how people encounter information, prioritizing content that is clearly structured and current. The original Buddhism for Beginners site was not designed with AI in mind. Addressing this challenge required more than a technical redesign; it needed careful editorial judgment about how Buddhist knowledge is organized, explained, and presented.
Thanks to funding from the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, Tricycle now has two Buddhism Public Scholars in residence. Their academic expertise, combined with the editorial experience of the Tricycle staff, has shaped the rebuild of this free, trustworthy introduction to Buddhism—one that reflects contemporary scholarship and the reality of how people seek knowledge today. |
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Knowledge and Practice
Scholarly work can support Buddhist practice, even though book knowledge is sometimes framed as an obstacle. Alan Watts once remarked that “A scholar tries to learn something every day; a student of Buddhism tries to unlearn something daily.” The distinction is important, but it can be overstated. Unlearning matters, yet learning also shapes how Buddhist teachings are understood and transmitted.
Many common ideas about Buddhism persist because they go unexamined. Oversimplified accounts of meditation, doctrine, or the early Buddhist texts can begin to feel authoritative through repetition alone. Historical and comparative perspectives provide context, not to undermine practice but to firmly ground it.
Buddhism for Beginners draws on academic research while keeping explanations concise and readable. The challenge is deciding what matters most for beginners and then how to explain it without overwhelming the reader. Easier said than done. |
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 | This new map for Buddhism for Beginners traces Buddhism’s spread across Asia. It represents broad historical patterns rather than every channel of exchange. Many such maps exist, but each slightly differs because the spread was far more dynamic than any one map can show. This illustrates the challenge of presenting complex ideas in a relatable format, as editors must choose which information to include. | Illustration by Wouter F. Goedkoop at thevoyagersworkshop.com |
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Many Buddhisms
Buddhist traditions are far from uniform. They have always developed in conversation with surrounding religious, cultural, and political circumstances, resulting in significant variations across time and place. No brief introduction can capture this breadth, but a responsible overview can present diversity without flattening it—acknowledging distinct beliefs and practices while also noting ethical debates, doctrinal disagreements, and ritual change.
Early Western scholarship often treated certain texts as a privileged window into “original,” or authentic, Buddhism. That assumption has now been largely set aside. Buddhism has never been monolithic, and globalization has brought practitioners from many traditions into closer contact than ever before. Learning to navigate this variation provides an essential foundation for understanding Buddhism today and for situating one’s own practice within a wider context. |
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Looking Ahead
The updated Buddhism for Beginners content reflects this dynamic picture of Buddhist history and practice. Many core topics are already in place, but the project remains ongoing. A new page on Buddhist holidays is planned for 2026, with additional expansions to follow. Each update will continue to rely on careful editorial decisions and current scholarship to present material that is accurate, accessible, and useful. The goal is to offer newcomers—and those revisiting familiar material—a reliable framework for understanding the basics of Buddhism in a changing world. |
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Additional Material- Rita Gross, “Historical consciousness and traditional Buddhist narratives,” in International Journal of Dharma Studies, 2014. The late Buddhist studies scholar Rita Gross examines how modern scholarship can deepen, rather than threaten, Buddhist practice by distinguishing historical inquiry from the symbolic power of traditional narrative.
- John Makransky, “Buddhist Constructive Reflection Past and Present: Recurrent Reinterpretation in Meeting New Cultural Needs and Challenges,” video keynote lecture, European Academy of Religion, 2023. Scholar and meditation teacher John Makransky explores how the recurrent reinterpretation of teachings in response to cultural needs helps bridge historical traditions and contemporary challenges in Buddhist thought and practice.
- John S. Harding, Victor Sōgen Hori, and Alexander Soucy, “Introduction: Alternate Buddhist Modernities,” Journal of Global Buddhism, 2020. This article questions the idea of a single, uniform Buddhist modernism, showing instead how multiple, and even contramodern, forms of Buddhism have emerged and continue to evolve.
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