The BuddhaSasana home page introduces us to full text materials written in two languages: English and Vietnamese. This web site contains e‐books on Buddhism, the Suttas or Buddha's discourses, and Buddhist literature for both beginners and advanced students of Buddhism. The information on the page is concise and laid out nicely with graphics and easy‐on‐the‐eyes fonts. I visit the site often, and I must give credit to Dr Anson for his great effort in updating frequently and often adding new material to the site. I have noticed many new books are in both the English and Vietnamese language sections. Readers can see that the latest updating date was 16 October 2004
The Vietnamese language section is not a mirror of the English section. The Vietnamese section has a different content and more detailed and in‐depth articles. The authors of these are mostly monks and nuns. To read the Vietnamese language section, readers need to have VU‐Times and VU‐Arial fonts. The site has links to download the instructions and the necessary fonts. As readers step into the English section of the site, one can see right away a few useful, full text articles: What is Buddhism? Buddhism in a nutshell and Basic Buddhism – a modern introduction to the Buddha's teaching which may generate enough forces to pull one into reading and learning about Buddhism. Overall, I find the writing is easy to understand.
The content page is divided into five sections: Books, Suttas (Discourses), Meditation, Other Dhamma Essays and Other Information. All the works in this site are for both beginners and advanced students of Buddhism. The authors are mostly well known teachers in the realm of Buddhist literature in the West and in Asian countries. There are font files and dictionaries that are helpful in reading the Pali text and/or to find a word's definition. I used the English‐Pali Dictionary to find the meaning of SASANA (teaching, order, message, doctrine, a letter). Therefore, BuddhaSasana is Buddha's teaching, etc.
At the beginning of the Books section, there is one interesting item: a Chanting Book with accompanied MP3 sound files. The chants are done in Pali language and/or in English language. Readers can follow the chants because there are lyrics of the chants following the MP3 files. I have a feeling that the materials on this site are carefully selected because there is a flow from a basic understanding of Buddhism to some of the more difficult practices in Buddhism such as the teaching of the Noble Eightfold Path. One example is the full text of a book called The Noble Eightfold Path: The Way to the End of Suffering by Bhikkhu Bodhi followed by a book (full text) called Eightfold Path for the Householder by Jack Kornfield. Jack Kornfield is a well‐respected Western Buddhist teacher in the USA.
In the beginning of the Suttas (Discourses) section, there is a well‐organized chronology of the Buddhist Literature and Publications. These are followed by some of the most common and well‐known discourses by the Buddha. The Meditation and Other Dhamma Essays sections offer an extensive collection of articles on the why, how, when, where, which and what about mediation and its many techniques. Examples are the “Basic method of meditation”, “Fundamentals of meditation”, or “Meditation at home”. It also offers techniques, discussion and lectures on different types of meditation; two prominent types of meditation are the “Mindfulness meditation” and the “Loving kindness meditation”. There are enough useful and interesting readings in these two sections for everyone. One recommended reading is Ajahn Chah's Wisdom. This is short and light yet there are many surprise answers which readers may just have to consider. In this section readers can find materials and/or answers to his or her interests. In the “Other information” section, there are details of Buddhist societies, one in Australia and the other in Malaysia.
Through searching and reading the pages on this site I found all the links to be live; I did not encounter one that was broken. This is a great achievement and the owner should be praised. To conclude, the BuddhaSasana site is an impressive work and is sure to be widely consulted by anyone who would like to read and learn about Buddhism. This site is worth adding to the reference list for its excellent collection of Buddhism literature.
