Great World Religions: Buddhism

By: Malcolm David Eckel, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Malcolm David Eckel

Discover why Buddhism is such an astonishingly lively and adaptable religion with this series. In just 12 accessible lectures, you'll learn how Buddhism transformed the civilizations of India and much of Asia, and has now become a vital part of Western culture.

Buddhism's core philosophy, as you'll learn, is that nothing is permanent - all is change. With this in mind, you'll plunge into an introductory look at this faith. You'll unpack the Buddhist idea that all of life is "suffering" and that there is no permanent self. You'll learn about the life story of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, his teaching (Dharma), and his community of disciples (Samgha). You'll also gain a clear understanding of key Buddhist terms such as nirvana, tantra, mandala, bodhisattva, and Zen; survey the lives of contemporary, well-known Buddhists such as the Dalai Lama; and examine Buddhist responses to some of the fundamental problems of life-responses that share some surprising similarities and differences with those of other faiths such as Christianity or Islam.

These lectures are a chance for you to travel around the world and back in time, surveying Buddhism from its origin in India in the 6th or 5th centuries B.C.E. to the present day. It's a 2,500-year history that will give you a fascinating window into how a faith can grow from a tiny religious community into a movement that spans the globe.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2003 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2003 The Great Courses

good intro

this was a pretty interesting introduction to what Buddhists believe and where those thoughts came from.

the performance was good. at times the presenter would pause, and it was long enough that I had to check if my app had stopped. by the time I checked, he'd start talking again. not a complaint, just kind of a peeve.


it's interesting to note the similarities Buddhism has with Catholicism, in that traditions of human beings have been added on to the original source material to become what we know today. so, for any of you comparative types out there.

in the end, although this is interesting to learn about, I'm glad I didn't become a Buddhist when I was checking religions out as there just didn't seem to be any real sense of assurance it was the right choice.

check it out if you want to see where Buddhism came from and how it's changed over the years.

A Nice Course about the History of Buddhism

I got this audiobook with the expectation that it was going to focus more on the core beliefs of Buddhism and elaborate on how believers perceive it. This book focuses more on the early history of Buddhism, how it has spread throughout Asia, and how it's changed. While it defied my expectations, it was a very good introductory course for theology students or people just interested in Buddhism in general.

The narrator was decent enough. He seemed knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the subject matter, and had some interesting stories about his experiences related to Buddhism. I also think he did a good job at conveying the mindset of Buddhist beliefs to a western audience. However, there were often these long pauses between words and sentences as he spoke, which was distracting and made it kind of difficult to follow what he was saying sometimes. Besides that, I thought he did a pretty good job.

Great intro

This is a great intro to the subject.

This gives you the basics to move on to more complicated texts and questions.

All your questions won’t be answered but again a great introduction and overview so you are prepared for more complex Buddhist readings and questions and such in the future if you so choose.

Great Introduction

Buddhism was mostly a mystery to me until I listened to this course and learned more about the rich tradition they have, as well as their view of the greater universe.

A Good, Broad Overview

Like most Great Courses, this is generally a good sampling of the wider Buddhist world, but just enough to lead you to which areas you may want to look into further. A decent high level overview. Would have preferred if the SE Asian/Theravada lecture spoke about that school instead of shifting and focusing almost exclusively on the political-Buddhist links in those countries.