Our Original Face

About the Topic

The topic may suggest different interpretations and questions:

Is Buddhist thought a study of religion, philosophy, or psychology?

Who was Siddhartha?

Why have thinkers continued to return to these teachings?

How do the schools differ?

How can we approach such a large body of texts?

Does the path lead toward nihilism?

Where can an ordinary person begin to practice?

We will work toward these questions together.

“Buddhadharma is a practice through which human life continues to develop toward fulfillment.” — Master Yinshun

Are Buddhist ideas remote from us? They may be familiar without feeling close.

We encounter them in old temples, pagodas, sculpture, and Chinese literary imagery. The distance lies in difficult texts and a tradition that can appear closed to outsiders.

Yet it has not always been an esoteric field.

Chinese scholars drew on Confucianism in public life, Daoism in self-cultivation, and Buddhism in attending to the mind. This repertoire was disrupted by history and taken up again in the early Republican period. In the West, exchanges across cultures and reinterpretation through philosophy, psychology, and life sciences have brought these ancient Indian ideas into practices of attending to oneself.

At an intersection of traditions and amid abundant information, we can examine where this old, active field came from and where it is going.

The talk has four parts:

First, we return to Lumbini in ancient India and follow Siddhartha’s development of a teaching through reflection and experience.

Second, we trace 2,600 years of changing schools on a map.

Third, we set aside divisions among schools and consider how Śākyamuni taught young followers to examine their minds.

Fourth, we introduce a general outline of practice shared across schools.

This talk does not assume religious devotion or a mystical worldview.

Its approach treats Buddhist thought as inquiry into the mind, grounded in seeking understanding rather than mystery or reassurance. Curiosity about oneself offers a place to begin reading the teachings.

As a student still at the threshold, I am motivated by that curiosity too.