Because I Didn’t Read It -- The Dhammapada

We now venture east from Greece to the roots of the Himalayas to show that philosophy is not just a thing for Westerners and especially that Buddhism is not merely a "religion." Indeed, "Buddhism" itself is not a thing until European imperial forces travel east and categorize the myriad ways of the Dharma as such. This makes understanding the Buddha, his teachings, and how they spread across the Asian and, reportedly, African and European continents a rather sticky endeavor.

After this necessary preface, we cover the life of Siddartha Gautama, a prince in the Indian peninsula around 600 BCE, who left palace life and eventually became the Buddha, the enlightened one. The Dhammapada is a collection of reported teachings of the Buddha, or, in other words, constitute his various upaya, or skillful means, to aid humanity in becoming liberated from the cycle of rebirth and dissolve back into the cosmic void. We also cover the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, or the Eight-Pointed Wheel of the Dharma.

Buddhism in its entirety is far too vast and deep to cover in one episode. Consider this a basic crash course to whet your palate to want to seek out more on your own.

For those who would like to learn more about European imperialism and how it created almost everything we know about "the Orient," Buddhism, and religion more broadly, we recommend the following texts:

"The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism" by Tomoko Masuzawa

"Orientalism" by Edward Said (we will likely cover this in a much later episode)

Here is the Big Joel video that we mention in the episode: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=big+joel+ben+shapiro