In my approach to Buddhism, accompanied by a commitment to Zen and Tibetan Tantrism which lasted about twenty years, I made a point of distinguishing Theravada Buddhism from Mahâyâna Buddhism and its various currents. Orthodox Buddhism, for me, was represented by the current of Theravada, and heterodox Buddhism by the currents of Mahâyâna Buddhism.

But today, after years of research, I have changed my mind on this question.

And I consider that Theravada Buddhism is a kind of living fossil, survivor of the first centuries of Indian history of Buddhism, but without being the original Buddhism. And it is following its failure, and the failure of its teachings as well as its practices, that the currents of Mahâyâna emerged in order to propose another way of awakening, less ossified and more adapted to new needs or to other cultures.

If the latter have suffered a fate similar to Theravada, they nonetheless represent attempts at spiritual innovation, just as they are a reflection of the Theravada's failure to express on its own true Buddhism and the only way towards enlightenment.

A first article brings together letters exchanged with a Theravâda specialist, and expresses my doubts and disagreements on points of doctrine. The second deals with the question of the origins of Buddhism, which too often responds to an ideal vision of the history of religions. And I propose another vision of these origins.