As Alan Watts said, Buddhism is Hindusim stripped down for export. Thirdwind, check out the diamond sutra. I find it to be quite an enlightening text.
Cool. I'll be sure to check it out. Thanks. Any recommendations about Taoism and Chinese metaphysics would be great. I was actually thinking of buying this a few weeks ago. I heard it's one of the essential texts of Eastern philosophy. I also came across the Heart Sutra, but I read that the Diamond Sutra is the more complete text of the two.
[MENTION=5272]thirdwind[/MENTION]: Taoism is a lot easier to research in the beginning, so start with Tao Te Ching and there's an interesting book on daily meditations called '365 Tao' by Deng Ming Dao. Chinese metaphysics encompasses the entire yin-yang philosophy and sciences, which are all interrelated. I started with feng shui, but it wasn't until I studied BaZi that I actually understood the five elements relationship and with it, the rest of the classical theory. I did several courses with feng shui masters over the years and they really are the best, but Joey Yap has loads of books on BaZi too. If you want to start there, the two 'Destiny Code' books and a 'Ten Thousand Year Calendar' are a great start. Beware though, a minimal knowledge of Chinese characters is essential, and to a Western brain, it takes a long time to 'get it'. Once you do, it all makes perfect sense, but to get there it takes a long time. Chinese medicine is an enormous topic, best handled when you have a firm grip on BaZi, feng shui and some taoism. Otherwise, it is so easy to get misguided by bad new-age advice which only aims to sell crap from feng shui shops which not only doesn't work, but is misleading in a sense that people think you just need to put a rhinocerous statue or a pagoda in south east and you'll be rich, and similar nonsense. So avoid all of those because they are a complete waste of time and will only confuse you once you finally get to the classical theory.
I just looked through the Amazon page for this book, and it looks like something I'd be very interested in reading. Thanks for the recommendation.
