What is the primary Buddhist text?

[Spoiler?]siddhartha[Spoiler?]

>>9816003
Agama

>>9816003
There isn't one. However, the Dhammapada is read in all branches of Buddhism and is fairly short, that might be a place to start.

>>9816003
Buddhism for Dummies is a good place to start if you're a beginner OP

>>9816003
Pali Canon for Theravada Buddhism, and Mahayana Sutras for Mahayana Buddhism.

If you try to go into primary buddhist texts without any cultural/religious context you'll get bored.
Read the foundations of buddhism by rupert gethin if you want to get the best grounding, assuming that you have a historical/cultural/religious interest.
Frankly I think a lot of asian buddhists should read it as well.

Depends on the school or sub-school. Depends on whether we're talking Theravada, Mahayana or Vajrayana.

In a nutshell:

Theravada: Pali canon - Nikayas/Agamas
Mahayana: Avatamsaka Sutra/Lotus Sutra/Diamond Sutra depending on sect.
Vajrayana: Depends on school

"What the Buddha Taught" is a personal favourite. And although it's not directly related to Buddhism, you might want to check out the 道德經.

>>9816991
This seems too complicated. Maybe I'll try to learn about a more straightforward religion first.

>>9817959
there are no straightforward religions really, we are dealing with millenia-old traditions with massive textual corpuses and a wide variety of practices and doctrines.
as per one anon's recommendations, read through Gethin's Foundations and then use that to zoom in on something that strikes your fancy.

>>9816003
Buddhism is decentralised as fuck, senpai.

>>9816003
Pali canon

>muhayana sutras are legit!

kek

>mayavadi "philosophy"

Try with bhakti-yoga

>>9817877
Just write dao de jing, you pseud

START WITH THE HARAPPANS

>>9816003
as mentioned elsewhere, there's no "the primary text" i.e. an analogue for the Bible, but some are more primary than others

the Pali Canon is where it began, and that's where you should start. Get "In the Buddha's Words" by Bikkhu Bodhi. it's a compilation of key suttas from various primary texts in the Pali Canon. it's a decent equivalent of a buddhist bible for anyone looking to get a concise, concentrated dose of the buddha's teachings.

the Pali Canon taken as a whole is massive and full of redundancies; there's tons of great stuff but it doesn't need to be read exhaustively by anyone but the most intense aspiring dharma-scholars

>>9817959
buddhism is actually quite straightforward on a certain level, it just happens to be textually diffuse. just check out the bikkhu bodhi text, it's enough to get a pretty good idea about most of the buddha's core teachings

>>9819019
Good post. Thank you. I'll check out the Bodhi book.

>>9819076
See also Sayings Of The Buddha, by Rupert Gethin, it's another collection of the Buddha's teachings from the Pali canon.

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429KB, 1280x720px

>>9816003
The Hero Yoshihiko.

"You're cruising for a Buddha Beam, here!"

>>9819019
>In the Buddha's Words
Will I be able to appreciate or develop an understanding of buddhist doctrine from reading it?
Or will it only make sense for people with a grounding in Buddhism?

>>9819765
Theravada Buddhism (really, Buddhism in general) is pretty accessible to the layperson. Besides some slight references to concepts from Hinduism, I can't imagine anything would fly over the heads of non-Buddhists.