Why not “In the Buddha’s Words”?
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There are numerous scholarly monographs that focus on specific topics.
For epistemology, there’s KN Jayatilleke, “Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge”.
Gombrich’s “What the Buddha Thought” is a classic which discusses various issues, like Buddha’s view of karma and how Early Buddhism relates to Brahamanism.
Collin’s “Nirvana and other Buddhist felicities” focuses on Nirvana.
And there’s also Peter Harvey’s “The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvana in Early Buddhism”
Etc
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This is a book that we studied with our former French Dhamma group. It’s one of the pieces of the puzzle that brought me where I am now. 
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the-truth-taught-by-all-the-buddhas.pdf (4.7 MB)
I believe this might help you greatly… Straight from’not ordinary venerable monk’.
the-truth-taught-by-all-the-buddhas.pdf (4.7 MB)
I believe this might help you greatly… Straight from’not ordinary venerable monk’…
Regarding the teachings or philosophy in EBTs based on both Pali and Chinese versions, the following books by Dr. Choong Mun-keat may be useful:
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The Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism: A Comparative Study Based on the Sūtrāṅga portion of the Pāli Saṃyutta-Nikāya and the Chinese Saṃyuktāgama (Series: Beitrage zur Indologie Band 32; Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2000). (PDF) The Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism: A comparative study based on the Sutra-anga portion of the Pali Samyutta-Nikaya and the Chinese Samyukta-agama | Mun Keat Choong - Academia.edu
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The Notion of Emptiness in Early Buddhism (1995; second revised edition, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1999). (PDF) The Notion of Emptiness in Early Buddhism | Mun Keat Choong - Academia.edu
The book I recommend and give to everyone is Bhikkhu Bodhi’s In the Buddha’s Words. Each section has a priceless introduction that draws on BB’s lifetime of wisdom.
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This book, What the Buddha Taught by Rahula, may be useful:
http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/what%20the%20buddha%20taught_rahula.pdf
The work is mainly on the four noble truths based on the Pali texts.
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Early Buddhist Teachings by Y. Karunadasa?
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I have been reading Buddhist Life/Buddhist Path: the foundations of Buddhism based on earliest sources
by
Bhikkhu Cintita (John Dinsmore)
In it, Bhikkhu Cintita reviews practices from both a lay and monastic persepctive (characterized as life vs. path). Both are available and relevant to both groups, but the lay perspective places Buddhist practices in a context typically considered more accessible to lay practitioners (e.g. merit-making, faith, etc…), while the monastic perspective delves into more and nuanced detail of the eightfold path and so-called higher trainings. All of this deriving from EBT/suttas with no reliance on commentarial and abbhidhamma works.
Not sure how well recieved this work is from more experienced practitioners, but I’ve found it quite good.
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Hi @sean.farrell,
Welcome to the D&D forum!
Enjoy the multiple resources here available: may these be of assistance along the path.
Should you have any questions, feel free to contact the @moderators.
With Metta,
Ric
On behalf of the moderators
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I feel like we should clarify: are we talking about a general introduction to the teachings in the EBTs? Because there are several good books that have been suggested here for that.
But if we’re talking specifically about philosophy, then there are, so far as I know, only a few specialized studies like Jayatilleke.
A book on early Buddhist philosophy would discuss things like:
- epistemology, i.e. the theory of knowing
- ontology, i.e. the theory of being (what does it mean to say that something “is”?)
- the foundational principles underlying EBT ethics
- the theory of mind, what it is and how it works
- the nature of causality
And so on. There is plenty of material in the Suttas on these and related philosophical questions, but a philosophical analysis is different than a summary of teachings. Many of the more general books will touch on philosophical issues, but few will really go into them with any depth. A philosophical analysis would attempt to uncover the systematic or theoretical principles that describe the different diverse statements, and would place that in relation to the history of ancient Indian thought, and possibly modern philosophy as well.
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That is indeed exactly what I was looking for - something along the lines of, for example, Mark Siderits’s new book “How Things Are An Introduction to Buddhist Metaphysics”.
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Yeah, idk. Imma have to push back on that a bit. Who says the Buddha’s teachings aren’t “proper” philosophy? That’s just Eurocentrism
Western philosophical preoccupations are not objective, neutral categories but come (“always, already”) with cultural assumptions and baggage.
If you want to study Buddhist philosophy “As It Is” you need to understand the indigenous categories first and only then engage in second-order projects like metaphysics. If you try to start with secular philosophical categories, you just get e.g. Steven Bachelor.
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Yes, I think you make a very good point about the indigenous categories.
No-one. But as he clarified, the OP was not looking for a summary of the Buddha’s teachings.
The whole point of the thread was literally that hardly anyone in the EBT field has really done anything other than trying to understand the indigenous categories. Some of us have been doing this for more than 20 years, and it is perfectly reasonable to ask (1) whether we can draw any abstract principles from concrete teachings and (2) how such abstract principles relate to the way wisdom has been understood elsewhere. Which is one of the things abstraction is good for. It helps you integrate diverse things.
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What comes to mind then are more general books that do this with a wider scope, either EBTs+Theravāda (like Harvey & others), Indian Buddhism generally (like Siderits, Garfield, Westerhoff), or even Indian Philosophy (Perrett).
In terms of early Buddhism it’s scattered around in books/chapters/papers, sometimes by philosophers that Buddhists and Buddhist scholars read less of.
There might be PhD theses on some of this floating around tho…
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There are these two articles from encyclopedia of philosphy about the Buddha’s philosophical teaching based on Pali Nikayas and other modern writings :
Buddha (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Buddha | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Perhaps this is what the TS looking for 
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According to the essential teachings of SA/SN suttas, the indigenous categories of EBTs philosophy are:
- Discourses Connected with the Aggregates
- Discourses Connected with the Sense Spheres
- Discourses Connected with Causal Condition
- Discourses Connected with the Nutriments
- Discourses Connected with the Truths
- Discourses Connected with the Elements
- Discourses Connected with the Path: the Stations of Mindfulness, etc., of the Enlightenment Factors
These are in the five major sections (varga) on aggregates, sense spheres, causal condition (including nutriments, truths and the elements) and path of the extant Saṃyukta-āgama/Saṃyutta-nikāya. In the Saṃyutta-nikāya the section on the truths is located in the Mahā-vagga (= the path section of the Saṃyukta-āgama).
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Buddhist Romanticism, by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu could be of interest.
An in-depth study of the pervasive influence of early Romantic thought in shaping the way Buddhism is taught in the West, and of the practical consequences of following the Romantics rather than the Buddha in approaching the problem of suffering and stress.
as well as Skill in Questions: How the Buddha Taught, treatise about discernment in action, centered on the Buddha’s strategic use of discernment in framing and responding to questions.
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