Do you happen to have any recommended books from a Buddhist perspective? I'm mostly just familiar with Soto Zen by way of America. I'm curious about perspectives from other traditions.
I'm somewhat of a committed Theravadin, so my recommendations will reflect that bias, but if Buddhism is something that you wish to study of and by your own accord (as I mostly have), then a more Theravadin approach is arguably the best (perhaps only) route to take. Zen might be okay, too, but it's typically quite meditation heavy (Zen is the 'Japanification' of Chan which in turn is the 'Sinologization' of jhana which is the Pali term for essentially a virtuous meditative trance), which is fine, but I also find that its conceptual framework is a little too free-flowing given the subject matter for me to make very good heads of on my own. And most of Mahayana or Chinese Buddhism has a skillful means doctrine, which means that many of the concepts in texts are actually purely pedagogical (they're proximate or analogical to the truth, essentially) which means that you're effectively learning it under a teacher who can illuminate the esoteric to the student and keep them centered on the path.
But the 'OG' suttas don't have quite that same distinction, and are canon for
every Buddhist (even if they think there's some later revealed doctrine that points the way more effectively), so everyone benefits from reading the sutta pitaka. It also seems to retain a lot more clarifying etymology when kept in that Indo-European language (Pali or Sanskrit) versus being translated into Chinese. At least maintaining a connection to that text seems more precise for inventorying and naming a bunch of novel or newly articulated skillful or unskillful mental states/emotions, mental factors or capacities, components of the human person as aggregate of name and form ('mind and matter'), penetrating realizations, etc (b/c compound words that have their word order or grammatical function expressed in their form). So for an individual studying this stuff, I think it's easiest to get a grip on philosophically, because if you want to you can google this one specific 30-letter long word and get specific and narrow use cases that can be really useful for learning the extension of a particular concept or subject. But I suspect the schools of Buddhism thing might very well boil down to taste or some kind of individual praxis, so ymmv.
Bhikku Bodhi is well lauded as a scholar monk, and for good reason. I also like Bhante Punnaji a lot (and Sri Lankan Buddhism in general, perhaps because it's the most orthodox or I find it has a good balance between scholasticism and jhana/meditation focus). I also can't recommend Piya Tan's
The Sutta Discovery Series enough, and it's incredible how often I've turned to him as a secondary source in developing an understanding of some more obscure subject or framework. And as for where to
start start, admittedly it's been a while since I started studying Buddhism, so I sort of forget what it's like to start with it, but I think Bhikku Thanissaro's website gives a pretty good primer:
Others mentioned:
Also, if you have any specific questions, I can do my best to answer them.
