This book is a rare critique of the Buddhist Tradition. Patrick Foster, a former Buddhist himself, brings to this exploration the tools of professional Religious Studies and Philosophy. Its examination of early Buddhism and later Mahayana are an in-depth study of one of civilization's oldest, largest, and most complex religious traditions. There are four informative appendices on semantics, logic, meditation, and self. Whether you are a practicing Buddhist, a scholar, or someone interested in how religion fits into the modern world, this book will make you think.

Living in The Material World is a novel of historical fiction, set in both ancient India and in modern America. Part I is the story of an Indian carpenter in the Buddha's time who becomes one of the world's first secular teachers. His philosophy of life is shaped by meeting various yogis and monks, including the Buddha, a Jain monk, and a famous materialist. The complex religious cauldron of ancient India surrounds the life of this member of a carpenters' village outside one of the Buddha's favorite towns. Part II is the fictional journal of a Baby Boomer, set in India and America. It mirrors the life of the Indian carpenter in the first part of the book, and it uncovers the fundamental issues that the post-World-War-II generation has been grappling with over the last fifty years.

This book is a major critique of civilization's traditional worldview--with concrete suggestions for exploring a new one. Up until recent times this has not been possible, but now Patrick Foster has articulated and organized the semantic and logical tools to show how our old worldview is not only dysfunctional but illogical, a 5,000-year-old mistake. On top of his deep critique, he shows where we must go to begin fashioning a new world. (The Appendices contain the solution to the mind-body problem, a new language semantic, a critique of post-modernism, a more coherent materialism, and ideas for education appropriate to a new worldview.) Nothing short of worldview change--change at the deepest level--will correct the urgent problems we have been grappling with since civilization began.

Jiddu Krishnamurti was one of the most well-known spiritual teachers of the 20th Century. Though he himself refused to be considered anyone's guru (and he had followers administering his schools and foundations, supporting his material life, reading his books, and attending his talks), he was nonetheless embraced as guru by many. Krishnamurti also denied being Hindu or Indian or a philosopher, but his teachings assumed much of the traditional Indian religious worldview--even as they warned against following one's cultural and psychological conditioning. J. Krishnamurti's life work is still very close to us (he died in 1985), but it is time we began to look critically at this larger-than-life figure. In some ways he is the last of the gurus--for the worldview within which guruhood makes sense is in transition to a new worldview where that side of Indian and New Age spirituality will fade away. And, ironically, Krishnamurti was himself instrumental in the beginning of this worldview transformation. This is the first serious investigation of Krishnamurti's teachings, of his identity, and of his place in the spiritual life of the modern world.