GQGA

It going back a while ago now, but years ago a group of students from the NSU came to be saying that they would like to ask me some questions about Buddhism. I sat with and they asked away and while they did I distinctly recall thinking how simple, and in some cases how simplistic, their questions were and that they had been unable to think of answers to them themselves. Later I learned that Singapore’s education system (at least at that time) tends to have this effect on young minds. Anyway, this prompted me to write some of these questions down, add a few more that I am often asked and turn it into a booklet. That was in 1987 and now, 21 years later over 153,000 copies of Good Question Good Answer have been printed, it has gone through dozens of editions in at least nine countries and it had been translated into 19 languages, most recently Polish, Laotian and Serbo-Croatian. Selections from the book have been reprinted in numerous magazines, newsletters and web sites, one Sri Lankan monk has plagiarized parts of it while an Indian writer had included a barely disguised paraphrase of nearly half of it in one of his publications without any reference to the original. I'm flattered. There are also three different Burmese translations, the translators of each informing me that theirs is better than the previous ones. I am happy to take their word for it.
On one hand I’m happy that something I have written has found such a wide readership and done so much to introduce people to the Dhamma or help them understand it better. On the other I'm a bit frustrated that this book rather than some of my other far more ‘mature’ ones is so popular. It is after all, a very basic, simple and apologetic piece of writing. When I was invited to address the Buddhist group at Cambridge University I literally cringed when I was introduced as ‘…and the author of that wonderful book Good Question Good Answer.’ At Cambridge University for goodness sake! Nonetheless, I am intrigued by why it is so popular. I often ask people why they like it so much and they all pretty much say the same thing – easy to read, catchy analogies, complex ideas simply explained and answers to ‘the very questions I had been asking myself.’ Sadly, it’s a formula I have been unable to repeat in any of my other books.
If you haven’t read it and want to have a look at it go to www.goodquestiongoodanswer.net If you read Serbo-Croatian have a look at the new translation into that language at http://www.yu-budizam.com/lib/dhammika/dhammika.html.