Abstract

Eviatar Shulman’s Rethinking the Buddha: Early Buddhist Philosophy as Meditative Perception offers an important reminder to take early Buddhist texts seriously as meaning what they say, with regard to the four noble truths, dependent origination, and selflessness. Shulman’s book ably makes this interpretive point, but is frustratingly unclear in its more general discussion of the relationship between philosophy and meditation. Shulman’s main thesis is that the four noble truths, as they are customarily taught today, are a...