The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

For Buddhism I might recommend Thich Nhat Hanh's "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching" [1]. He's very clear and is careful to make sure he points out when a particular teaching he's describing might not be emphasized in other schools of Buddhism, but are still there as a foundation across all of them. There are tons of sutras available at Access to Insight [2], which all schools of Buddhism use, but one (the Theravada) uses almost exclusively. Another book that I found really illuminating was Chogyam Trungpa's "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" [3]. It helps point out how the teachings can be put into practice. [1] https://plumvillage.org/books/the-heart-of-the-buddhas-teach... (https://plumvillage.org/books/the-heart-of-the-buddhas-teaching/) [2] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ [3] https://www.shambhala.com/cutting-through-spiritual-material... (https://www.shambhala.com/cutting-through-spiritual-materialism-458.html)

Welcome to the club! The same happened to me 3 years ago. At that time I also started reading "Man's search for meaning". The following book had the biggest impact on my world view: The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation, by Thich Nhat Hanh I personally don't believe in any religious things, and I still don't. But now I look at the world differently. Buddhism is know for reincarnation, which looks a bit silly to me. But as this book points out, it is not reincarnation, but rebirth in (Zen) Buddhism. Both are completely different. There is nothing silly about rebirth, and it's actually more accurate that how we, as individualistic westerners, view the world. As someone who loves science, after reading this book, I have a more realistic view on the world than I had before, and than most of my rational friends right now. The (Zen) Buddhism in this book is not so much a religion with believes, but more a philosophy on how to look at life and the world.