Minds need a context. Mind needs fire and water, breath and ritual, it needs stories and song… it needs to establish a living relationship with those that came before and those yet to come, to offer in devotion and to enact its place in the cosmos. Such realizations return us to the sacredness of form. We find that all of the supposedly ‘non-essential’, ritual, form-based aspects of tradition actually architect a mind that has true fullness

If your spirituality is just that you want to take yourself beyond, of course this is just illusion. But imagine that for, say, an Amazonian tribesperson. If they were to say that the forest they live in is ‘just illusion,’ they’d be dead within a day, right? Ecology requires us to have a deep attentiveness to the [relational] way reality manifests

Nature is full of intermediary forces. Traditions will always find their way back to intermediary beings because I think we need them.

‘Animism’ is just a Western term to describe the way everybody sees the world.

one can speak of a mature philosophical system only when a coherent edifice of demonstration and argumentation has been perfected. In this sense, Buddhism has reached its maturity.

At whatever time, monastics, there are dishonest kings, […] the gods become agitated.

When the rulers of society are dishonest, that is a time of climate change

These tales provide us with a glimpse of the ways that cosmologies do not materialize fully formed but are cumulatively built over time, subject to continual reshaping in different contexts. In this book I argue that preta narratives do not merely illustrate a changing cosmological system after the fact but played a crucial role in the process of the formation of that system

We very much doubt that most Thai Buddhists would be bothered by any need to distinguish a “miraculous” category. Their traditional religion teaches that at the highest level of enlightenment all forms are illusions; thus the whole world and everything in it can be interpreted as metaphors or “names” ultimately. Nothing in such a world can, in essence, ever be real or unreal, illogical or logical in the Western Aristotelian sense.

The murals are an assertion of certain core values expressed in ancient Buddhist symbols as a defense of the totality of the religious system against perceived threats from competing modern values.

[These] murals help to make Buddhist ideas concrete

By examining abject preta bodies in accordance with their aesthetic description and function in relation to Buddhist understandings of karma and rebirth, we can observe two overlapping somatic discourses at work. The first speaks to the ultimately impermanent nature of the body, while the second depicts bodies as simultaneously ethical subjects and objects.

In this article, the author examines depictions of the abject bodies of disgusting pretas in early South Asian narratives. She explores what these abject bodies reveal about early, Indian Buddhist attitudes toward embodiment and difference.

The disconnect between the popular portrayal of pretas and the reality of these early texts drives the first half of my book, which looks at how the concept of the ghost solidified over time. But what really interested me about these stories was the bodies of these pretas: how horrific they are…

The fact that narratives have the potential to be an “act of social imagination” and serve as the foundation for moral agency fits well into Shabkar’s own understandings of the functions of Buddhist life stories.

This essay explores how Shabkar’s autobiography makes an indirect case for vegetarianism and ethical treatment of animals. By portraying animals as important participants in his stories, Shabkar shifts the focus from a human-centered view to one of impartiality. This approach, an example of the “act of social imagination,”  subtly encourages a vegetarian lifestyle and stands out from other Tibetan Buddhist arguments for vegetarianism. Shabkar’s storytelling invites readers to imagine a more ethical way of living, which helps build the foundation for moral choices.

Offerings should be given for the dead

If you don’t answer me, I’ll drive you insane…

The famous story of the spirit Āḷavaka, who tries to bully the Buddha, but is soon converted through a surprisingly insightful series of questions and answers. This discourse provided the background for several elaborate legends in the later traditions.

Good man, didn’t you see the third divine messenger that appeared among human beings?

The Buddhist “judgment day.”

Firstly, a person meditates spreading a heart full of love to one direction, and to the second, and to the third, and to the fourth…

The Brahma Vihāras lead to rebirth in the Brahma Realm. And from there, it depends…

Just now, reverend, as I was descending from Vulture’s Peak Mountain I saw a skeleton flying through the air.

While walking for alms down Vulture’s Peak, Venerable Moggallāna smiled at something invisible. The Buddha confirmed that the man he had seen had been a butcher in his past life.

You should train like this: ‘We will fear the fault apparent in the present life, and we will fear the fault to do with lives to come.’

Could you explain whether the intermediary state is the same as what people call “ghosts”?

… harbingers of death, visions of hell, the Lord of the underworld, and the benefits of making donations to Buddhist monks and temples, can be understood within the framework of beliefs and customs unique to Southeast Asia.

Mendicants, don’t fear good deeds. For ‘good deeds’ is a term for happiness…

The Buddha recalls the results he himself has experienced from doing meritorious deeds.

The accumulation
of a single person’s
bones for an eon
would be a heap
on a par with a mountain

In early Buddhism paccekabuddhas are liminal figures in two senses: they appear between Buddhist dispensations, and they are included as a category of awakening between sammāsambuddha and arahat. Because of their appearance in times of no Buddhism, paccekabuddhas feature regularly in jātaka literature, as exemplary renouncers, teachers, or recipients of gifts. This article asks what the liminal status of paccekabuddhas means for their interactions with the Buddha and his past lives as Bodhisatta.

This article looks at the various narrative uses of Paccekabuddhas in the Jataka, Apadna, and also the Pali canon and its commentarial tradition. In particular, Appleton highlights the tension between the bodhisatta and paccekabuddha.

But the single mass of water at that time was utterly dark. The moon and sun were not found, nor were stars and constellations, day and night, months and fortnights, years and seasons, or male and female. Beings were simply known as ‘beings’. After a very long period had passed, the earth’s substance curdled in the water. It appeared just like the curd on top of hot milk-rice as it cools. It was beautiful …

In contrast with the brahmin’s self-serving mythologies of the past, the Buddha presents an account of evolution that shows how our choices are an integral part of the world.

‘When Master Gotama teaches in this way, is the whole world saved, or half, or a third?’ But when he said this, the Buddha kept silent.

Venerable Ānanda answers on the Buddha’s behalf with the simile of the citadel.

When those seven days have passed, having emerged from their hiding places and embraced each other, they will come together and cry in one voice, ‘Fantastic, dear foe, you live!’

In illustration of his dictum that one should rely on oneself, the Buddha gives a detailed account of the fall of a kingly lineage of the past, and the subsequent degeneration of society. This process, however, is not over, as the Buddha predicts that eventually society will fall into utter chaos. But far in the far future, another Buddha, Metteyya, will arise in a time of peace and plenty.

The grass, sticks, branches, and leaves of India would run out before that person’s mothers and grandmothers.

Saṃsāra has been going round for a long, long time.

… consumers faced with mortality salience tend to increase overconsumption likelihood when they have a weak belief in karma.

You have to have Right View first for the contemplation of death to have positive effects.

The wardens of hell punish them with the five-fold crucifixion. They drive red-hot stakes through the hands and feet, and another in the middle of the chest. And there they feel painful, sharp, severe, acute feelings—but they don’t die until that bad deed is eliminated.

A fool suffers both in this life and the next, while the astute benefits in both respects.

The entire cosmos, from top to bottom, encompassing all its fascinating and terrifying variety, is saṃsāra. It is the arena of all manifestation, action (kamma) and result of action (vipāka). It is dependently arisen, contingent, imperfect, and all forms within it are impermanent and subject to change and dissolution.

This book details the early Buddhist view of the cosmos. Using mostly Pali sources, Punnadhammo Mahathero covers topics such as time, space, the various realms, and the qualities of the beings that inhabit them.

If as spiritual practitioners we ignore the discoveries of science, our practice is also impoverished…

dwell with a mind in which conceit has been struck down

The six senses are like a sheaf of barley struck with six flails; and the desire for rebirth is a seventh. The Buddha goes on to speak of a cunning trap set by the gods; but the trap of Māra is even more subtle still.

What do you think, mendicants? Which is more: the little bit of dirt under my fingernail, or this great earth?

The Buddha explains the fruit of Stream Entry.

The teaching of rebirth crops up almost everywhere in the Canon, and is so closely bound to a host of other doctrines that to remove it would virtually reduce the Dhamma to tatters.

In this article, Bhikkhu Bodhi explains how rebirth is an intelligible view, both intrinsically and in terms of the Dhamma, and how the concept of rebirth can help a person make better sense of the world. It is further shown how the concept of rebirth is crucial if the Dhamma is to be a consistent set of teachings. The Venerable approaches the topic from three philosophical standpoints: the ethical, the ontological, and the soteriological.

Kamma gives us opportunities to learn.

In his usual wit and humor, Ajahn Brahm explains the functioning of kamma in our daily lives and its relation to the various rebirths one can have.

Our daily lives in the vast universe are integrally related to and can never be separated from time and space. How successful a person is and how effective one handles one’s affairs depend on one’s management of interpersonal relationships, one’s utilization of time, and one’s allocation of space.

Through numerous, and some humorous, stories, Master Hsing Yun explains time and space from a Buddhist perspective and how practitioners must transcend their limitations in order to “seize eternity within an instant and to see the wondrous reality in each flower, each tree, each body of water, and each rock.”

Just as I must eventually forsake this life,
So too must I take leave of relatives and friends.
When I must go alone on death’s uncertain journey,
What concern to me are all these enemies and allies?

A verse translation of chapter 2 from the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra on confessing to the wider universe of enlightened beings.

Pray to your master and to the Three Jewels,
and strive to be wholesome – physically, verbally and mentally.

In this brief poem, the great Tulku and Yogini, Sera Khandro, exhorts readers to wholeheartedly practice the Dharma. Khandro points out the importance of impermanence and karma to help practitioners overcome attachments and develop wholesome behavior. Other pieces of advice are to remain in solitude, establish mindfulness, and develop bodhicitta.

Having heard what was said by the Completely Awakened One, I shall now speak briefly about deeds good and bad to be done or to be eschewed by you.

A brief introduction to and English translation of the Pañcagati-Dīpanaṃ (“Illumination of the Five Realms of Existence”) thought to be a Southeast Asian recension of Aśvaghoṣa’s Chagatidīpanī (Sadgatikārikā?).

This text explains the five realms of rebirth and the actions which lead to rebirth in each one. It’s an excellent example of how the teachings on karma were elaborated after the Buddha’s passing, and how those teachings circulated around Asia in premodern times.

I feel it’s really important to reach the heart, because people have got to change from within. They’ve got to change because they want to change. And if you batter at them and try to blind them with science, they don’t want to listen to you. But if you can quietly tell a story, then you may reach the heart. And that’s when people change.

An interview with Jane Goodall, primatologist and anthropologist, on her research and what her findings can teach about human nature and the current climate crisis. Goodall highlights how humans are similar to chimps, being capable of both altruism and aggressive behavior. The interview also covers climate change, meat consumption, and how stories can help change people’s views.

In their ignorance and delusion, the Buddha said, human beings are unable to realise and remember any single vestige of the sufferings they had experienced in their previous existences, and in their deluded cravings for and clingings to sensuous pleasures they are inevitably reborn to a world where their cravings, clingings and kamma take them.

A thorough explanation of the thirty-one realms of existence that a human may be reborn into, depending on their kamma. Suvanno Mahathera warns readers about the horror to which unskillful action leads and how to gain better rebirths through wholesome actions.

Whenever we perform an action with intention, such action deposits a “seed” in the mind, a seed with a potency to bring about effects in the future.

A brief but thorough explanation of kamma, its potential for creating one’s future, and the various realms of rebirth that it can lead to. Bhikkhu Bodhi ends by reminding us that the trajectory of our lives is in our hands, and that the ultimate aim of Buddhism is to reach the freedom of liberation.

‘All exists’: this is the oldest cosmology, brahmin.

The Buddha rejects all such views as too extreme.

… the suffering that’s over and done with is more, what’s left is tiny.

For someone who has seen the truth (i.e. attained Stream Entry), the suffering eliminated is comparable to the Himalayas; what remains is just seven bits of gravel.

In this essay, I examine the intertwining concepts of merit, power, Buddhist virtue, and the moral rendering of the physical universe apparent in late nineteenth-century Khmer vernacular texts.

This article looks at Buddhist literature in nineteenth-century Khmer. It argues that the literature of this period was a direct response to French colonialism, and though modern Cambodians questioned religious traditions and cosmologies, the law of karma and the framework of a moral universe persisted.

The concept of the Paccekabuddha presented the opportunity to include pre-Buddhist recluses and seers in Buddhism and in doing so it continued these pre-Buddhist traditions. In this respect it becomes clear why Paccekabuddhas are referred to in the scriptures with all other terms that could be used to denote ascetics: muni, isi, samaṇa, tāpasa, jaṭila, terms which emphasise different aspects of asceticism

An in-depth study of the Paccekabuddha as described in Pali Canonical and Commentarial Literature. This includes pre-Buddhist ideas of sages, i.e. munis, and the importance given to renunciation and solitude in the suttas. Also, this work looks at a Paccekabuddha’s way of life and meditation practices, leading to nibbāna. As the Buddha tells us, “no one but me equals a paccekabuddha” (Isigili Sutta).

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet…

Curled thrush song staggering over moral tally
Number is all wrote Baudelaire
Fox kits hunting solitary voles
So many beings here without despair

Calling a galaxy a “wheel” is certainly appropriate for as we know from modern astronomy a galaxy is like a huge Catherine wheel revolving round a centre or hub.

Within the framework of experience, there is no quantum enigma; the boxed cat, being outside of one’s experiential frame of reference, doesn’t exist. Once I observe the cat, then it exists

You know how it goes. You love something dearly…

The resulting synthesis leads to a worldview based on information that overcomes limitations of the currently dominating physics-based worldview.

Again & again one wearies & trembles.
Again & again the dullard goes to the womb.

A brahmin complains when the Buddha visits for alms many days in a row. The Buddha takes the chance to point out that all natural phenomena repeat in cycles, and only an awakened one escapes the cycle of rebirth.

At a time when a great wind blows, it stirs the water, and the water stirs the earth.

At the end of his life, the Buddha explains to Ānanda the eight causes of earthquakes.

Bhikkhus, based upon the Himalayas, the king of mountains, the nagas nurture their bodies and acquire strength.

But, bhikkhus, when a Tathagata arises in the world, an Arahant, a Perfectly Enlightened One, then there is the manifestation of great light and radiance; then no blinding darkness prevails, no dense mass of darkness…

Still, bhikkhus, the gross creatures in the ocean would not be exhausted even after all the grass, sticks, branches, and foliage in Jambudipa had been used up and exhausted. […] So vast, bhikkhus, is the plane of misery.

Your rebirths are more numerous than the leaves in India.

Bhikkhus, just as a stick thrown up into the air falls now on its bottom, now on its top, so too beings roam and wander on…

Beings who have not seen the four noble truths roam on from one birth to another, like a stick thrown end over end.

For people trying to make sense of a religious perspective or simply questioning materialism, you should be looking at the missing heritability problem.

In the canonical account there is no indication that for the bhikkhu to become female is the result of bad karma, or that for the bhikkhuni to change into a male is the result of good karma.

While hell realms seem pretty distant from the serenely meditating monks and mindful contemplation that Buddhism is usually associated with in the Western imagination, Buddhism has some of the most elaborate hell realms in the history of religion.

i have so much hope for the future

i hope everyone gets everything they deserve

When villages, towns, and cities are burning up, there is sometimes an occasion when the mother finds her son and the son finds his mother.

Perils that tear mothers and children apart.

Drawing on extensive ethnographic research in Dharamsala, India, this article considers how sems pa chen po (vast or spacious mind) can be understood as emblematic of the Tibetan Buddhist view of resilience.

The “big mind” view acts as a kind of north star principle, guiding the way, even and especially among those who are struggling. A spacious mind is not merely an outcome, but a pathway, a method, and a horizon, orienting those who are suffering toward recovery. This article explores resilience from a perspective that suffering is inherently workable, and in fact, can be a great teacher. This argument is framed theoretically within an “anthropology of the good,” which seeks to understand resilience as moral experience; more aptly explaining what Tibetan Buddhists do in the face of adversity than the dichotomy of trauma/resilience, which is rooted narrowly in a Euro-American view of mental health.

… why did you get up from your seat and leave while there was still more left to do?

A corrupt tax-collector is (partially) redeemed by an encounter with Venerable Sāriputta.

… the appearance of three people is rare in the world…

See also, SN 36.21.

… even for King Pasenadi there is alteration; there is change

A sutta on using anicca to make the transition from samatha to vipassanā.

This article proposes a new reading of the mirror analogy presented in the doctrine of Chinese Yogācāra Buddhism.

In contrast with existing interpretations of this analogy as a figurative way of expressing ideas of projecting and reproducing, I argue that this mirroring experience should be understood as revealing, whereby we perceive other minds through the second-person

… his 1962–1966 memoirs and 1963 poem “Butterflies over the Golden Mustard Fields” set out what we call his ecological humanism: his paradoxical overcoming of self-alienation through a close rapport with relatively wild nature.

Please, O Lord, may all the boons
for which I fervently pray
come true at once and come to be
from now until nirvana’s time!

… highlights of the Cambodian Dharma song tradition. Many of the most popular songs are included, along with others of exceptional interest or literary merit. All of the major themes of the genre are covered: the life of the Buddha, gratitude to parents, the impermanence of the body, and [the] aspiration for nirvana.

Listen to an interview with the author on the New Books Network or hear him perform a few of the songs from this book on Shambhala’s website. And for the author’s previous translations and performances, see his open-access album “Stirring and Stilling” (2011).

The book also contains a number of original essays on the history of Cambodian Buddhism and its poetry, alongside a thorough bibliography for the author’s sources.

On the eighth day of the fortnight, mendicants, the ministers and counselors of the Four Great Kings wander about the world…

The gods rejoice when they see people practicing well.

When a deva is due to pass away from a company of devas, five prognostic signs appear…

How does a god die?

Ninety-one eons ago, the Buddha Vipassī arose in the world, perfected and fully awakened…

The story of the Buddha Vipassī which later came to be grafted onto Buddha Gotama’s biography.

We can simply answer, from the Buddhist point of view, that we put ourselves here.

The bee sting is nothing: get out of the well!

When one’s house is ablaze
The vessel taken out
Is the one that is useful,
Not the one left burnt inside.

A deity recites some verses to the Buddha.

Should any non-human think to overthrow their mind, they’ll eventually get weary and frustrated.

As it is not possible to bend back a spear, it is not possible to overthrow a mendicant who has developed love.

Giving is always great.

A deva explains…

Because of these meritorious deeds, I have been born as a very beautiful devata

A deva explains how keeping the precepts and being a follower of the Supreme Buddha can bring happiness.

I happily offered alms to that Arahant monk with my own hands. Because of this meritorious deed, I have been born as a very beautiful devata

Mendicants, there are eight lost opportunities for spiritual practice.

On how the Human Realm at a time of a Buddha is a unique opportunity for spiritual practice.

Worlds upon worlds appear, each with bejeweled pagodas, within each pagoda a buddha

Then Māra came up out of Moggallāna’s mouth and stood against the door

Venerable Mahāmoggallāna confronts the evil one with a surprising tale.

It is remarkable that there was a cosmology in Buddhism twenty-five centuries ago that doesn’t conflict with modern physics.

Ajahn Brahm explores how Buddhism and scientific inquiry aren’t opposed but complement each other.

I’m not afraid
    of danger
    of fear

Guttā, why did you go forth?

… when the teachings have been followed by ear, recited by speech, examined by mind, and well penetrated by view, four rewards can be expected

The Buddha assures us that we can attain stream entry as a deva.

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert….

… this world of ours, when seen as part of the universe, is as tiny as a grain of sand

… these four things are unthinkable. They should not be thought about

If you try to think about these things you will go mad or get frustrated.

My object in discussing the three themes of the ancient Teaching is to invite all sincerely, seriously investigating people to question deeply the so-called “given realities” of our lives and to reflect thoroughly on the nature and predicament of our existence.

Yet it is just within this fathom-long body, with its perception & intellect, that I declare that there is the cosmos, the origination of the cosmos, the cessation of the cosmos, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of the cosmos.

The god Rohitassa tells how he tried to go to the end of the world, and the Buddha explains how to do it successfully.

For Venerable Ānanda’s own exegesis of this sutta, see SN 35.116.

… humans are driven by feelings. We feel the world, and when things feel right, we get a greater sense of meaning. And so it is with Buddhism.

Didn’t you know beforehand how the world of men is? Sometimes we have to let go of the things we like.

An orphaned boy is raised by an old hermit on a small barge in the middle of a scenic, mountain lake where he learns about the cycle of life and death.

For an overview of critical interpretations of the film’s symbolism, see Green and Mun’s 2019 article, “Representing Buddhism through Mise-en-scène, Diegesis, and Mimesis” (IJBTC 29.1).

is one a brahmin due to birth,
or else because of actions?

Two brahmin students ask the Buddha about what makes a brahmin. The Buddha points out that, while the species of animals are determined by birth, for humans what matters is not your race or caste but how you chose to live.

With my head I pay homage to the 512,028 Sambuddhas

How did the Theravadins come up with this figure?

The (possibly tenth century?) epistle had some influence on later summaries of the doctrine. It shows how essential cosmology and ethics has been for the preservation and dissemination of “the True Dhamma.”

This article contains just the translation from Hazlewood’s 1983 Master’s thesis on the text.

For my part, I have no instruction more profound
Than altruistic love and compassion

Māra was largely a way to differentiate Buddhism from Hindu competitors by drawing on a number of Hindu stories and then subverting and redeploying their symbolism.

Kind protector, compassionate deity, heed me now, I pray

Notice how the self-empowering doctrine of Karma leaves a strong yearning for an external source of grace. A common trend in later Buddhisms was to provide such a God: either as a tantric Buddha, like here, or as a “distant” Buddha, like in the Amitabha and Maitreya cults.

異なる声の元が
喉元までとどく
そこまで見えたものが
消されてしまう前に

By thinking of all sentient beings
As more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel…

For a commentary on these verses, see Finding Genuine Practice.

However many lives I’ll have to suffer,
I’ll never give my heart you again.

Three poems composed by famed, Thai modernist Angkarn Kallayanapong translated into English by a famed, American modernist.

Only a man could dream of Heaven as a place where he can lie about all day, surrounded by beautiful women

On how the Buddhists transformed the Indian image of heaven.

The way the denizens of the ancient Indian pantheon appear in early Buddhist texts exemplifies a mode of thought that scholars have called “inclusivism”.

I have seen the Blessed One;
This is my last body,
And I will not go
From birth to birth again

… individual Brahmās (Sahāṃpati, Baka and an unnamed Brahmā) have different characters … lower than the Buddha and his great disciples[, their] individual names are a new design, not shared in the Vedic tradition of Brahmanism.

They do not know bliss
Who have not seen Nandana

A deva thinks his pleasures are supreme.

If we study these teachings we will gain deeper understanding of how we should purify our own minds, and by studying the responses of the gods we can find models for our own behaviour in relation to the Master and his teaching.

A short survey of the Buddha’s interactions with the Devas.

I invite the reader to join me in a search for what could be found in the textual corpus of early Buddhist discourses

In the first chapter I investigate the bodhisattva conception as such, surveying relevant passages from the early discourses. With the second chapter I turn to the meeting between the previous Buddha Kāśyapa and the bodhisattva Gautama, examining the relation of this meeting to the notion of a vow the bodhisattva took to pursue the path to Buddhahood. The future Buddha Maitreya is the theme of the third chapter, in which I take up the notion of a prediction a bodhisattva receives in assurance of his future success.

… there’s no other ascetic or brahmin—whether past, future, or present—whose direct knowledge is superior to the Buddha

The Venerable Sāriputta extols the Buddha’s many remarkable qualities.

For a comparison of this sutta to its parallels, see DiSimone 2016.

… without showing any disrespect simply because it is worded in Sinhala, if you listen to this marvellous Dhamma with worshipful devotion and gladness, you will surely gain heavenly bliss

A Sinhalese poem on the dangers of Saṃsāra and the benefits of the practice, showing that the southern lineage of Buddhism also had a thriving literary tradition.

For a more poetic translation, see The World’s True Welfare and to hear the poem in the original Sinhala, see Archive.org.

So, Ānanda, deeds are the field, consciousness is the seed, and craving is the moisture.

How consciousness, karma, and craving create and sustain future lives.

But does this gift really aid departed relatives and family? Do they actually partake of it?

The Buddha informs a brahmin that gifts offered to dead ancestors can only go to ancestors reborn in the ghost realm, but assures him that the gift yields a reward for the donor no matter where they are reborn.

Just as the sun is valued not only for its own intrinsic radiance but also for its ability to illuminate the world, so the brilliance of the Buddha is determined not only by the clarity of his Teaching but by his ability to illuminate those who came to him for refuge

The Buddha’s first generation of followers established the traditions and values of the early Sangha. Indeed, it is nearly impossible to understand Buddhism without understanding the lives of the early Buddhist saints. This rich and inspiring series of biographies edited by Bhikkhu Bodhi mainly draws from the traditional commentaries of the Theravāda tradition and so provides an excellent balance between readability and faithfulness to the source material. A must read for all students of Buddhism.

Mister, that man attacked the king’s enemy and killed them. The king was delighted and gave him this reward.

The Buddha clears a layman’s doubts and confusion about the correct way to understand the law of karma.

Also includes a fascinating description of the Koliyan police — apparently known for their floppy hats and thuggish ways.

It is possible to know the original intent of our sacred literature.

An impassioned defense of mythology and orthodoxy in the modern world.

There are a few English translations of this classic of world literature. Steven Bachelor has a free translation (linked above), but I strongly prefer the Padmakara translation published by Shambhala in 1999 for its unparalleled accuracy and force.

Interesting to note: one of the methods mentioned was tried recently, with results exactly as reported.

Thought is the source of desire.

A fairy sings a love song for the Buddha, and Sakka asks a few deep questions.

Master Gotama, what is the cause and condition why human beings are seen to be inferior and superior?

The Buddha explains to a brahmin how your deeds in past lives affect you in this life.

To approach what, for the want of a better term, we call the mythic portions of the Nikāyas with the attitude that such categories as “mythic symbol” and “literally true” are absolutely opposed is to adopt an attitude that is out of time and place. It seems to me that in some measure we must allow both a literal and a psychological interpretation. Both are there in the texts.

Note that I (~KhBh) have removed pages 206–210 from the linked PDF as they contain a lengthy and irrelevant digression into Mahāyāna doctrine. If you’re interested, you can find the full article here.

We wouldn’t say “this is proof of reincarnation,” but I would say it’s strong evidence of something like it.

It is, Ānanda, because it is empty of self and of what belongs to self that it is said, ‘Empty is the world.’

Have you seen the variegated and different colours of a caraṇa bird?

The Buddha encourages the monks to investigate the five aggregates, giving a few colorful similes to illustrate their nature.

We waste our whole lives neglecting our minds. And this is really what our purpose is in being human: it’s to develop our minds.

An end to The Los Angeles Course, Bhante encourages us to use our human life wisely.