/lit/ - Literature

>>20362737
The core Theravadin texts are the Nikayas. You can get away with reading only selected suttas from the Majjhima and Samyutta nikayas, there's a nice summary in "In the Buddha's Words". Make sure to read the Dhammapada and Suttanipata at the very least.
The core Mahayana texts are the Heart sutra, Lankavatara sutra and Diamond sutra. There are others like the Platform sutra and Avatamsaka sutra. Mahayana is extremely vast so you can spend a lifetime on it without even touching the Tibetan stuff.

Are all the sutras just various expansions on the Heart sutra? They seem to be mostly saying the same thing.
That said, have any western philosophers formulated ideas close to what can be found in those sutras? I'd like to engage with such things from a more familiar perspective.

>>17241931
And I also saw this recently.

What is the best reading order for the sutras of mahayana buddhism? I read introductory texts (Dhammapada, some Pali sutras) and I'm now looking to get into the philosophy and metaphysics of Mahayana but I don't know how to proceed, there are too many texts.