FAQ & Technical Forum

Discovering Buddhism at Home, Discovering Buddhism Online and the Discovering Buddhism DVD are all products associated with the Discovering Buddhism education program and thus follow the same topic themes and structure. Below is an overview of each of these methods for accessing Discovering Buddhism so you can decide what works best for you.


Discovering Buddhism at Home is a complete study program that takes approximately two years to complete. Each module contains teachings, guided meditations and readings, as well as instructions for how to conduct a short practice day (retreat) on the topic. For those following the program for a completion certificate, assessment questions are provided in order to establish successful completion. All materials are provided on audio CD or MP3 CD.

Discovering Buddhism Online is essentially the same program as Discovering Buddhism at Home. The main difference is that all of the study and practice materials are available
to you online immediately, rather than shipped to you in hard copy form. Additionally the online version of the program includes the following advantages:

• Each Online module contains the 30 minute video clip from the Discovering Buddhism DVD series associated with each module (see description below).
• The Online version includes electronic quizzes for each session of each module. These quizzes are an excellent way to check your understanding, aside from being very fun! (The at Home program provides a professor who will read your assessment questions and respond directly to you).
• The Online version features a bulletin board for every module, whose elder (a senior Buddhist teacher who moderates the discussions) is the original teacher of the module. This differs from the at Home version which grants access to only a single electronic bulletin board regardless of the module being studied.

The Discovering Buddhism DVD series presents each of the thirteen topics of the Discovering Buddhism program in thirty minute intervals. Within those thirty minutes, a Tibetan teacher and a Western teacher each explain the subject. These teachings are followed by exclusive testimonial from Western students discussing what the topic means to their lives and practice. The DVD is extremely well done, informative, and serves as an excellent introduction to both the topics and many of the prominent Gelug teachers of our time. Because of this, we highly recommend the DVD as a standalone introduction to Buddhism, or as a supplement to the Discovering Buddhism at Home program.

You can read more about the Discovering Buddhism program here, while a description of the subject matter of each module can be found on the Foundation Store.