THERE IS NO ‘REAL’ BUDDHISM, BUT MANY STRANDS AND TRADITIONS
There is no real-Buddhism but rather a gigantic tradition, a great Dharma Mountain with many meandering footpaths, refuges, and activities on its slopes. This ‘Great Dharma Mountain’ includes everything and also its opposite and yet remains one single Mountain. In fact, there were 84,000 paths taught by the Buddha 2,500 years ago and many more discovered since – many paths, one Mountain.

There is no real-Buddhism but rather a gigantic tradition, a great Dharma Mountain with many meandering footpaths, refuges, and activities on its slopes. This ‘Great Dharma Mountain’ includes everything and also its opposite and yet remains one single Mountain. In fact, there were 84,000 paths taught by the Buddha 2,500 years ago and many more discovered since – many paths, one Mountain.
Almost every Buddhist will tell you what Buddhism is ‘really‘ but this tells more about the likes and dislikes of the author than Buddhism. Buddhists will often insist on which beliefs and practices should be accepted and which ones disguarded and not surprisingly their favourite bits are the parts they emphasise while the others aspects, they maintain, should be discarded (how fortunate it’s not the other way round). The truth, however, is that there is a huge variety of practices and beliefs that are included in Buddhism just like there are many ways to skin a cat or many paths to climb a mountain.
There are certain strands that one can identify within the tradition but none are quintessentially Buddhist. Even the famous ‘no-self’ (anattā) which despite being a constant strand and sometimes said to be the defining feature of Buddhism it has still caused heated debate down the centuries and some sutras such as the Nirvana sutra go as far as saying:
“in truth there is the Self [ātman] in all dharmas [phenomena]” and “The Self (ātman) is reality (tattva), the Self is permanent (nitya), …the Self is eternal (śāśvatā), the Self is stable (dhruva), the Self is peace (siva).”
