Today, we at OBU are proud to announce six new bibliographies for you on Theravāda and human society.

Theravāda Buddhism’s national forms

This month we’ve added four new bibliographies on:

On each page you’ll find a mix of books, papers, and talks covering that country’s unique religious history and how it came to shape the doctrines and flavors that Buddhism took in each.

For example, this medieval, Pāli chant put the recollections of the Buddha, friendliness, unattractiveness, and death at the center of monastic practice across the Theravāda world. You might argue that those recollections were already present in Theravāda’s earliest texts and they certainly were. But we make history by walking. And each generation of Dhamma teachers decides which Dhammas to emphasize and their own way of teaching them.

The Wide, Social World

And to help advance understanding of our multicultural world, this month OBU is also proud to launch two, new, secular sections on:

With governments around the world failing in their responses to the global refugee crisis and people everywhere wondering how to respond to rising tyranny, and how to act out their gloom, I think it’s more important than ever for us Buddhists, Śrāvakas and Bodhisattvas, to embody the ideal of “Good Spiritual Friendship”.

Our Karma is not just incidentally interpersonal. In Saṃsāra, there is no escaping living in dependence on each other: even at the South Pole, let alone Mars. So, let us choose to live together, as best as we can, in friendliness and in grace.

Wishing you happiness and good company until next time,
Khemarato Bhikkhu
Chief Librarian at the Open Buddhist University