Motilal Banarsidass International

What I’m doing with this book and in my life’s mission is that I’m after people’s mind stream. I want to make imprints on your mind stream so that now and in future lifetimes you will be helped by the information that I am promoting. My intention is to steer people in the direction of the real Buddha while encouraging them to work with pseudo Buddhism. With discriminating insight I have loaded this book full of documented evidence that will dispel false beliefs about Buddhism. This book is about loyalty and honesty. I am loyal to Gotama Buddha so I am honest about Buddhism. Even if uncomfortable for you, the reader, once a message is in your mind stream, then it is planted in the most sensitive field of karma-storage and any suggestions that you have registered with your senses will send seeds into your deepest mental continuum. Therefore, the heart and soul benefits of reading this book can flower now or in lifetimes to come. Perhaps in your next life you will be walking down a hallway and instead of looking at a poster on your left, you will look at a poster on your right and see something about a Buddhist talk, and then you will go to that. That’s the kind of influence I want this book to have upon you.

For the reader with a general interest in Buddhism, the two parts of this book progress from an easy to read basic course on meditation and the major aspects of Buddhist wisdom, to a provocative landscape of diverse essays that challenge and stretch the readers’ imagination. This book was not written to reinvent the wheel and offer up “just another introduction to Buddhism.” To repeat the same teachings printed in many other introductory books on Buddhism would only add further pollution to the world by creating more confusion, diluting the many excellent dharma books available. Not only is this a fresh approach to Buddhism, but this book stirs up dust in areas that most people have not thought of. There are Buddhist teachers who will discuss things privately such as Buddhist views on UFO’s, Adolf Hitler and the historical Jesus, but they will not give public talks or publish books about these controversial subjects. In this book I have decided to do just that, because I feel that the subject matter is very important and relevant to our lives, our history and our destiny. Buddhism provides a special cosmological perspective on our modern world, and I believe that this should be shared in Buddhist books. Not only does it help us with a mythology, but it helps to promote Buddhism by relating the dharma to new territories of thought in the Western mind. I feel that people can read and decide for themselves what is the truth.

The title of this book Freeing the Buddha was selected because studies indicate that a provocative title can increase book sales from 5% to 15%. Freeing the Buddha does not mean Freeing the Buddha Within (that’s been done before). It literally means freeing the Buddha from the false words that have been put in his mouth. The meaning is appropriate because the author is a Theravada Buddhist and a major theme in this book is about how the Mahayana Buddhists have distorted, diluted and deemphasized the Buddha’s words. As a Theravada Buddhist I claim greater orthodoxy and seniority over the entire institution of Mahayana Buddhism. Althought this book is very sympathetic to Mahayana Buddhism, “freeing” means giving back to the Buddha the more central importance that he deserves in the Buddhist religion. This book raises awareness for the need to free the Buddha and his teachings from the cultural traditions that Buddhists have been piling all over him, and to free the Buddha from being associated with false sutras. The tendency to “defer to the guru” can be wrong and cause people to be convinced that the true is false and that the false is true. The “Large Scale Concerns” part of the subtitle was taken from a talk by the Dorje Loppön Lödro Dorje in which he referred to the great compassionate view of the bodhisattvas. “Diversity on a Sacred Path” was chosen because these essays explore how Buddhism relates to the diverse picture of humanity in the world. Also, because of the diverse aspirations of sentient beings, there are diverse ways for people to enter onto the Buddhist path to enlightenment. Below the subtitle it states “a dangerous collection of essays.” because Oscar Wilde said, “An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.