And who is the bearer of the burden [of the five aggregates]? The individual (puggalo), it should be said;

This infamous passage became a point of contention centuries after the Buddha, as the “Pudgalavādins” argued that the “puggalo” here was an ultimately real being “neither identical with nor separate from the aggregates” — a position which earned them much ridicule from the Theravādins.

But, if we don’t read this passage as metaphysical, how should we read it?

Bhante Sujato, in his notes on this translation, proposes that we read this sutta instead as a reformulation of the Four Noble Truths, with “bearing the burden” here meaning not “what metaphysical entity owns the aggregates” but rather, “who is responsible for them?”

Focusing on the shock (saṃvega) that may occur when one is reminded of things one has forgotten, the paper argues for the ethical significance not so much of remembering the past as of remembering that one has forgotten it. The colorful tales from the Divyāvadāna serve as brilliant and humorous reminders of the enormity of all we have forgotten.

These, and other, statements of his have been reinterpreted in ways that I feel Nāgārjuna would find difficult to recognize as fitting into his Buddhist worldview.

On taking Nāgārjuna seriously as both a philosopher and as a Buddhist

The suttas were intended to be heard; long suttas were, and often still are, performative, listened to over sometimes several hours, embedded in rituals designed to highlight their efficacy. This article shows that the recital of key repeat passages within the long suttas is linked to specific and often distinctive literary and meditative effects, particularly adapted for oral performance. It suggests that such passages should not be marginalized but rather seen as central indicators of meaning.

An analysis of the function of the repetitions in the Brahmajāla Sutta (DN 1) and the Mahāsamaya Sutta (DN 20) and the role of community, ritual, and meditation in the reading of Buddhist canonical texts.

If you notice anything erroneous or missing, your feedback is welcome here.

He thinks and he feels, but—as far as I can tell—he does not speak, nor is he simply the previous animal rebirth of an eventual human being. There is something powerful, I contend, about the mute presence of such an animal—its noble silence, its freedom from the glibness of human language

On how Pali and other Indian literature used animals as both stand-ins for and foils of its human characters.

The monk Soreyya replies that his attachment is stronger for the sons of which he is the mother.

A (transgender?) parent and monk overcomes their attachments and gains enlightenment in a famous story that Dhammadinnā Bhikkhunī shows is not devaluing “motherly love” so much as “super-valuing” equanimity towards all.

If you have any questions or thoughts on the article, feel free to reply to its thread on SuttaCentral.

The notion of poetry I have in mind relates not so much to its formal properties, but to the realms of experience or types of consciousness it involves.

When we look at the texts assembled in the KN, we find that the concern with the character of the Buddha, and in a broader sense with Buddhist holy men and women, is a central, constitutive interest of the collection.

The employment of metaphor points us in aesthetic directions, suggesting meanings that emphasize experience, rather than theory.

This article discusses the antiquity of the Aṭṭhakavagga of the Suttanipāta seeing it not as an attempt to lay out the earliest Buddhist teachings, but instead as an example of early Buddhist poetry meant mainly to inspire our faith in the goal.

I have taught the Dhamma, Ānanda, without making a distinction between inside and outside. The Tathagata has no closed fist of a teacher in regard to the teachings.

The Buddha overcomes an illness and gives Ānanda a sermon on how he leads the Saṅgha—and how the Saṅgha should function after he’s gone.

This essay is in particular a response to Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi’s thoughtful critique of this position.

The reason the teaching of anattā can serve as a strategy of liberation is precisely because it serves to rectify a misconception about the nature of being, hence an ontological error. It accomplishes this task by promoting a correct comprehension of the nature of being…

This essay is a response to Ajahn Geoff’s “The Not-Self Strategy”.

Bhikkhu Bodhi agrees with his contention that “the Buddha’s teachings on self and not-self are strategies” but disagrees strongly when he says that “true and false can be put aside.”

For Ajahn Geoff’s reply to this essay, see “The Limits of Description.”

Formerly, Anurādha, and also now, I teach just suffering and the cessation of suffering.

Venerable Anurādha is questioned by a number of ascetics, and ends up by saying that the Realized One is described in terms other than “existing after death” and so on. The wanderers say he’s a fool, so he checks with the Buddha, who says that a Realized One is not even apprehended in this life, so how can he be described after death?

Ven. Sunyo on D&D makes a compelling argument that the Buddha’s final statement here is meant categorically, not pedagogically.

You should neither approve nor dismiss that mendicant’s statement. Instead, having carefully memorized those words and phrases, you should …

How to determine if something is an authentic teaching of the Buddha.

Contemporary Buddhist studies has been strongly affected by its origins in the Victorian era, when Western religious scholars sought to rationalize and historicize the study of religion. Modern Asian scholars, trained within the Western scholarly paradigm, share this prejudice. The result is a skewed understanding of Buddhism, emphasizing its philosophical and theoretical aspects at the expense of seemingly ‘irrational’ religious elements based on the direct experience of meditation practice.

The origin story of the Licchavis, retold in two commentaries on Nikāya texts, has received some scant attention in the modern scholastic record, yet has usually been either cast aside as so much myth or has been recast in thematic or structural studies that align it with other tales of incest, foundling narratives, or origin stories of gaṇa-saṅghas. This article argues against those interpretations and offers a thorough rereading of the story as not only encoding a class hierarchy but also, in so doing, critiquing the Brahmanical class structure and the concept of svabhāva by birth.

But by fully understanding what is expressed
One does not misconceive the speaker.

Four translations of this sutta from John Ireland, Ajahn Geoff, SuttaFriends, and Bhante Sujato respectively showing how Pāḷi poetry can often be translated in various ways.

… for a long time you have learned the teachings, remembering them, reciting them, mentally scrutinizing them, and comprehending them theoretically. But a disciple should value following the Teacher, even if asked to go away …

A group of mendicants have taken to socializing too much, so the Buddha teaches on the importance of seclusion in order to enter into emptiness.

A faithful laywoman would rightly aspire: ‘May I be like the laywomen Khujjuttarā and Veḷukaṇṭakī, Nanda’s mother!’

Leading examples for the four assemblies.

To practice meditation is to look deeply in order to see into the essence of things.

A translation and commentary on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta by the renowned Vietnamese reformer.

What do you think, bhikkhus, which is more numerous: these few siṁsapa leaves that I have taken up in my hand or those in the siṁsapa grove overhead?

The Buddha taught only a fraction of what he knows.

who wants to listen, memorizes the teachings, examines their meaning, and practices accordingly, and is diligent when it comes to skillful qualities can expect growth, not decline, in skillful qualities, whether by day or by night.

At Naḷakapāna the Buddha invites Sāriputta to teach. He speaks of ten qualities that lead to decline or non-decline.

The point of commonality of the teachings is that they are all concerned with how something works: none of them is concerned with what something is, or, indeed, with what it is not. Most crucially, they are focused on how all the factors of human existence in the cycle of lives are dependent on other factors.

Drawing upon the Yogācārin model, Dharmakīrti explains that the contemplative must first grasp the objects through cognition born of listening, ascertain them through reflection based on reasoning, and finally cognise them through meditative cultivation. This leads to valid perception.

In early Buddhist logic, it was standard to assume that for any state of affairs there were four possibilities: that it held, that it did not, both, or neither. This is the catuskoti (or tetralemma). Classical logicians have had a hard time making sense of this, but it makes perfectly good sense in the semantics of various paraconsistent logics, such as First Degree Entailment (FDE).

Matters are more complicated for later Buddhist thinkers, such as Nagarjuna, who appear to suggest that none of these options, or more than one, may hold. The point of this paper is to examine the matter, including the formal logical machinery that may be appropriate.

… in sketching out what the councils were, I hope to indicate how they might be fruitfully studied

… if someone were to say: ‘[Sensual pleasure] is the highest pleasure and joy that can be experienced,’ I would not concede that. And why not? Because there is another kind of pleasure which surpasses that

The Buddha resolves a disagreement on the number of kinds of feelings that he taught, pointing out that different ways of teaching are appropriate in different contexts, and should not be a cause for arguments. He goes on to explain the importance of pleasure in developing meditation.

Mendicants, there are these five opportunities for freedom.

… in a future time there will be mendicants who won’t want to listen when discourses spoken by the Realized One—deep, profound, transcendent, dealing with emptiness—are being recited.

… that is how the discourses spoken by the Realized One—deep, profound, transcendent, dealing with emptiness—will disappear.

As an ancient drum has disintegrated, so too will the true teachings eventually be forgotten.

… once you’ve understood what the text is saying in this deeper way, you can find yourself addressed by it

A very brief overview of Buddhaghosa’s commentarial project.

There’s enough overlap to make conversation possible and enough difference to make that conversation worthwhile.

Philosopher Jay Garfield talks about getting into Buddhist philosophy from the Western, academic tradition, and introduces the classic book of Mahāyana ethics by Śāntideva.

… if the Buddha exhorts his disciples to take attā and Dhamma as an island and refuge, those two terms, dhamma and attā, denote the same reality. This identity […] is highly problematic

A straightforward refutation of the absurd claim that a famous idiom of the Buddha contradicts the central doctrine of non-self.

There is indeed a third alternative for resolving such inconsistencies, and it comes in the form of the doctrines of neyārtha and nītārtha. It is neither the authenticity nor the pragmatic truth of the [offending] scriptures which the [Mahayana] tradition questions, but [rather] their intended meaning.

… what text does not contradict reality? Different schools of Buddhist philosophy have answered this question in different ways. Indeed, it is this fact which makes them different.

An introduction to Mahāyāna hermeneutics.

… the eightfold path is but one of several differently worded statements of Gotama’s course of practice

An astute comparison of five alternative formulations of the path and an excellent example of how to study the Pāli Canon.

… so many warriors perished on the battlefield. The response of the arahants is truly astounding.

How “motivated reasoning” led ancient Sri Lankan monks to create a problematic theology to justify murder which is still haunting the Theravāda today.

Much as a soaking in good oil will prime a lamp’s wick for the lighting, miracle stories prepare the audience for the cultivation of potent emotions and resultant ethical transformation.

To formulate a viable, systematic Buddhist environmental ethic, they must clarify on Buddhist grounds what an optimal world might be

Deep contemplative experiences and the philosophical conclusions which they yield are beyond history. Or are they?…

The argument that a nun called Sthūlanandā really did have pendulous breasts and large buttocks is, pardon the pun, a thin one. As stock images of uncouth femininity, these outsized and ungainly physical features serve the representational project of this passage

A survey of post-modern hermeneutical strategies for critical and historical readings of Canonical Vinaya literature.

… in many cases, I did not know how the inscriptions could possibly mean what I had said they meant, and as a result of not knowing how they could mean what I had said, I had great doubts about what they did actually mean. And so my study of the Aśokan inscriptions led to a situation where every year I understood less and less.

A classic series of ten lectures exploring the languages of ancient India and how they help us unravel the mysteries of early Buddhist history.

A period of disorientation or depression is a small price to pay for more accurate knowledge.

… whether or not a story could have been captured by a camcorder as an empirical fact does not really matter. Its truth lies in its symbolic meanings

An impassioned call for dogmatic Buddhists to take seriously both historical fact and religious myth.

Wisdom and consciousness–these things are mixed, not separate. And you can never completely dissect them

Venerable Sāriputta deftly defines a bewildering array of terms.

I have taught the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding onto. Understanding the Dhamma as taught compared to a raft, you should let go even of Dhammas, to say nothing of non-Dhammas.

In this famous and much-celebrated sutta, the Buddha teaches how to properly grasp Buddhist philosophy so as not to lead to more suffering.

He doesn’t assume consciousness to be the self, or the self as possessing consciousness, or consciousness as in the self, or the self as in consciousness.

The Buddha gives a long discourse on the five aggregates ending in his own repudiation of the idea that not-self contradicts the law of karma.

… how to interpret Buddhist Sanskrit texts in such a way as to avoid unnecessary bastardization of the English language, while still performing the scholarly task of making available the meaning of such texts to the scholarly community

Whatever does not belong to you and does not belong to others, these things should quickly be eradicated and relinquished.

A clever Bhikkhu quickly understands a pithy teaching.

A good place to start, is their How To Guide but I also love the posts on keeping a personal “medicine cabinet” and on using sutta checklists.

The tale is best understood in the light of the need of the early Buddhist tradition to demarcate its position in the ancient Indian context vis-à-vis ascetic practices and ideology.

Bhikkhu Analayo teaches us how to read the Vinaya in light of the Suttas and parallels and against the background of its ancient Indian context.

In the Nettipakarana there is a three-fold definition of a sutta which may be useful to consider and may help one think more deeply about these sayings.

These two cases may already suffice for the time being to alert us to the possibility that gender discrimination in the Pāli canon may well be the result of later developments. Regarding the overall attitude towards nuns in early Buddhism, I think it stands beyond doubt that an order of nuns was in existence, and from that I would conclude that the Buddha approved of its existence.

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

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

You can find part two here.

I say it’s not possible to know, see or reach the end of the world by traveling. But I also say there’s no making an end of suffering without reaching the end of the world.

The mendicants ask Ānanda to explain this enigmatic statement derived from the famous story of Rohitassa.

The text jumps inside me to help me out.
…
So, when you’re studying Buddhism, what are you studying?
I know the answer. I’m studying me.
I’m studying me.

How does a person both make a hole and live in it?

Four people similar to mice.

For a more thorough index, see The Comprehensive Index of Pali Suttas.

Consistent precedence given to the development of contentment during all activities as well as when settling down for formal meditation goes a long way in preparing the ground for what is, in a way, the direct result of contentment: a mind that is happily settled within and therefore able to gain deep concentration.

Part two of Anālayo’s “excursions,” he continues to explore key Pāli terms, this time exploring Upādāna, Sakkāyadiṭṭhi, Sammādiṭṭhi, Saṅkhārā, Vitakka, Yoniso Manasikāra, Vipassanā, Samatha & Vipassanā, Samādhi, Viveka, Vossagga, and Suññatā.

These two complementary perspectives on happiness — distinguishing between unwholesome and wholesome types and treating the stages of development of its wholesome manifestations — run like a red thread through the entire compass of the teachings in the Pāli discourses, from instructions on basic morality through the path of mental purification all the way up to full awakening.

Bhikkhu Anālayo analyzes a dozen key doctrinal terms in depth: exploring their meaning, nature, imagery and importance.

Discriminatory views and practices are the antithesis of Right View, and they undermine the Middle Path by perpetuating identification with concepts of independent, constant, inherently existing selves and others

A brief outline of the discrimination faced by women across the Buddhist world, and a thoroughly cited argument for rejecting sexist views, even those that can be found in the Buddhist Canon.

A very famous example of poetic analysis and hermeneutics in action at the time of the Buddha, this sutta gives several subtle cues on how to read obscure passages.