Cynthia's Reviews > What the Buddha Taught

This is exactly what it says it is -- a brief summary of what the Buddha taught. Unfortunately, it isn't very readable, and in that sense it's not a very practical or informative or realistic elucidation of the Buddha's teachings, which were always presented taking into account the audience's ability and capacity to understand. This is a pretty old volume (dating back to the 1950s) and I suspect that a lot of the heavy lifting this book was intended to do was to dispel racist/imperialist/nationalist assumptions. But this book meets the needs of neither bhikkhus nor curious laypeople at this moment. Go elsewhere for an intro: there are lots of clergy out there fulfilling their obligation to teach in more relatable ways.