The Pageless Book

Photo by Pétursey

If you are a Buddhist, and you are on-line, you’ve probably already bounced around this website more then a few times. Perhaps, however, you are like me and are interested in Buddhism in addition to your other spiritual pursuits, in which case you may not know about this website. It’s worth a good long look.

Buddhanet is the central hub for everything related to Buddhism. Whether your interest in Buddhism is curiosity or serious study, you will find that this website can provide you with the information you need. Buddhanet began as a dial-in bulletin board and slowly evolved into the website we see today. It proudly proclaims itself to be “a non-sectarian organisation, offering its services to all Buddhist traditions. It aims to facilitate a significant Buddhist presence in the ever-expanding realm of computer communications technology, applying this technology to helping make the Buddha’s teachings freely available to all.”

If you are new to Buddhism, a good place to start would be under the Buddhist Studies link. They not only have a general over-view of what Buddhism is, but also provide a complete course study in Buddhism. If you are a teacher, the website also provides lessons for your students, as well as a guideline on how to teach Buddhism.

The next thing I would recommend checking out would be the Buddhazine Online Magazine. Most people prefer to casually browse online articles and this section of the website is custom made just for that purpose. Not only does it provide articles on Buddhist traditions, meditation, art, and wisdom, but it also boasts a section devoted to women in Buddhism as well as a section devoted to children.

The website is thorough, as well. Buddhanet provides you an entire library of Buddhist texts. In addition to this, they feature multimedia such as audio files, photos and artwork.  And what if you want to visit a temple? No matter were you might live, Buddhanet can find local Buddhist temples and schools for you. The only thing that I have found this site to be lacking is a sufficient discussion forum, which is ironic seeing as it began as BBS. Seeing as they have just about every Buddhist website available in their suggested links, wouldn’t be too hard to find a good Buddhism Discussion Forum.

Whether you have a full day to waste on one website or just a few moments, I would suggest spending your time on Buddhanet. With so much information and so much to do, it’s hard to get bored. Even if you are like me and can only find time to browse websites occasionally, it still does a soul good to be infused with the wisdom of the Buddha.