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I have been studying Buddhism for many years, mostly Tibetan Buddhism, but so far it's been a bit of a scattergun approach where I would just read bits here and there and try various practices often trying to do higher practices like Tantra and Dzogchen, but after reading and listening to Alan Wallace (thanks to the people on this site for putting me onto him) he has convinced me in the value of getting a firm footing in the foundations of the first few turnings of the wheel of Dharma. I have also realised that many of the books and approaches I have already studied assume you already have this foundation, so I have been getting ahead of myself and need to start again from the beginning. What I need now is some sort of path or guide to how to gain this foundational understanding, what texts and books are recommended? as there are so many thousands of books it is overwhelming to know where to best put our time and effort to gain a firm understanding of the basics. I have tried in the past reading the Pali texts of The Middle Length discourses of the Buddha but I found it too boring and repetitive to maintain my interest, so was wondering if there is any other way.