When someone seeks to understand Buddhism, where should that person start? With the meaning of taking refuge in the three jewels? With the four noble truths? The Dalai Lama, when asked this question, suggested that for many in the West today, understanding the two truths--conventional truth and ultimate truth--is the best place to start.

When the Buddha awoke from the dream we still dream, he saw the ultimate reality of things just as they are. There are shifting appearances and conventions, the manners and traditions of the vast and diverse world; and then there is the mystery of the sheer reality of things. And yet we cannot find this reality anywhere else but right here.

Each system of Buddhist philosophy has its own way of explaining exactly what these two truths are and how they relate to one another. In exploring these systems, we are looking over the shoulders of Buddhist thinkers as they grapple with a basic question: 'What is real?' This is not an idle intellectual exercise but a matter which cuts to the heart of our practice in life.
Appearance and Reality: The Two Truths in the Four Buddhist Tenet Systems, Guy Newland, Snow Lion, Paperback, 107 pp, $17.95

Guy Newland is Professor of Religion and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Central Michigan University, where he has taught since 1988. He holds a Ph.D. in the history of religions from the University of Virginia, where he studied Tibetan Buddhism with Jeffrey Hopkins. Newland has also studied with many Tibetan scholars in the U.S. and India. He is an editor of the three-volume translation Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment and Changing Minds. He is the author of three other books on Tibetan Buddhism, including The Two Truths and Appearance and Reality.

CONTENTS: Appearance and Reality
Introduction		7
1.	Two Truths in Four Systems	11
2.	The Great Exposition System	17
3.	The Sutra System	25
4.	Great Vehicle Tenet System	37
5.	The Mind Only System	41
6.	The Middle Way System	59
7.	The Autonomy System	63
8.	The Consequence System	75
9.	The Two Truths and the Bodhisattva Path	95
Notes		99
Sources		105