Buddhism without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor

Buddhism without Beliefs - Stephen Batchelor, Bloomsbury, 138 pages (June 4, 1998).

Title & Author:	Buddhism without Beliefs Stephen Batchelor
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Stephen Batchelor was born in Britain, became a Tibetan monk and translator. He then studied Korean Buddhism, and became a monk in that tradition. He now teaches Buddhism in Britain as a lay practitioner.

In Buddhism without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor reminds us that the Buddha was not a mystic. His awakening was not a shattering insight into a transcendent truth that revealed to him the mysteries of God, and he did not claim to have had an experience that granted him privileged, esoteric knowledge of how the universe ticks. What the Buddha taught, says Batchelor, is not something to believe in but something to do. He challenged people to understand the nature of anguish, and to realize its cessation.

Stephen Batchelor doesn't demand that we believe or disbelieve in literal rebirth and karma, but rather to approach these matters with a healthy scepticism. This approach  follows the Buddhist Middle Way. In the sceptical West, it may help to ensure Buddhism's survival here.