No one enters Burmese traffic with any assumptions about fundamental rights. Pedestrians, certainly, enjoy no “right of way.” No one, by the same token, is ever excluded from the game as long as they remain in motion. […] If you get ahead, you were right to try. If you don’t, you were right to yield. What’s to argue?

When it comes to hierarchies, Southeast Asia can be frustratingly (even scandalously) foreign for those of us raised in egalitarian, Western democracies. This is a book which explains clearly and sympathetically, but not uncritically, the logic behind Burma’s hierarchical arrangements with a close focus on the unique role of monks and gender.

In the course of the ritual, pardon is asked of the earth goddess, Nāng Thōranī, for despoil­ing her both in the collection of sand for the ceremony and during the agricultural season.

A discussion of the long history (and enduring present) of nature-focused ceremonies in Theravāda Buddhist traditions.

A better translation can be found here.

A discussion and Pāli edition of this text’s (16th century? Cambodian?) commentary by Venerable Ñāṇamaṅgala can be found on Academia.edu, here.

to the Buddha, Dhamma, & Saṅgha I go…

What we can take from this history is the precarious thread by which Theravāda came down to us today. It only survived by a very narrow margin in more than one instance.

An introduction to the trials and tribulations of the Saṅgha in Sri Lanka.

At the third council, the Canon was closed. The one, very important, addition that was made was the Kathāvatthu: the final book of the Abhidhamma as a summary of the positions of the various schools that were deemed heretical.

It’s useful for us, understanding the Buddha’s teaching, to see it (as it were) through ancient Indian eyes and to put ourselves in the space of his contemporaries.

An introduction to society at the time of the Buddha and the broader historical moment he lived in.

In those days, of course, there was no easy transportation or communication, so there was a natural tendency for different groups of Bhikkus to begin drifting apart and a crisis moment arrived about a hundred years after the Buddha.

The earliest events are the legendary visits of the Buddha to Burma. These can be doubted of course, but are an important part of Burmese mythology.

An overview of Burmese Buddhist History and its relevance today.

In the 17th Century there was established an examination system where monks would have to take an oral test of translating Pāḷi passages into Thai. So, there was an attempt to regulate the quality of the Saṅgha and there’s still an examination system in Thailand today, although it’s evolved quite a bit (as we’ll talk about later) in the Bangkok period.

A brief overview of Thai, Buddhist history.

The rule in Buddhist countries is that even the King bows to the monks.

The whole history of these schools, as obscure as it is, illustrates the very human tendency of religions to split and divide on points of doctrine, but it also highlights a particularly Indian love of philosophic speculation and love of debate.

A history of the “Hīnayāna” sects from the Theravāda perspective.

Where, then, did this now pervasive idea come from that meditation lies at the heart of Buddhist life?

The peace movements are weaker and largely reactive to and restrained by the [state-backed,] radical, Buddhist nationalist movements.

In the same way, a mendicant with eleven qualities can meditate observing impermanence in the eye … meditate observing letting go.

The formulaic expansion of AN 11.17 into 960 suttas.

… mindfulness and sati have [relationships] to particular conceptions of Temporality, Affect, Power, Ethics, and Selfhood.

Based on ethnographic data gathered from over 700 psychiatrists, Buddhist monks, lay practitioners, and others in Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and the United States, the article suggests some key mental associations in mindfulness and sati that converge and diverge across different cultural contexts.

The Buddha calls right view the forerunner of the path (pubbaṅgama), which gives direction and efficacy to the other seven path factors.

Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli’s translation of MN 9 and its commentary by Buddhaghosa. This sutta, expounded not by the Buddha but Sāriputta, is an expansive study into the different facets of Right View.

… how is a mendicant qualified to be called ‘astute, an inquirer’?

Beginning by praising a wise person, the Buddha goes on to explain that one becomes wise by inquiring into the elements, sense fields, dependent origination, and karma.

I used to break off reed grass with my hands and make my hut…

Lanka’s pre-eminence was not a given, as by the early thirteenth century, the religious and intellectual centre began to shift towards Bagan in Myanmar. But the sudden decline of Bagan after the Mongol conquest at the end of the thirteenth century prevented the completion of Theravāda’s ‘great translocation’ to Southeast Asia.

… an outline of the Pāli cosmopolis during the second millennium of the Buddhist Era

… the history, myth and cult of a Burmese Buddha image standing in the middle of the [Shan] city of Chiang Tung and the ways in which religious visual culture expresses ethnic-religious identity.

Religious art, as a symbol of culture, is inevitably political. And yet, for whatever reasons an icon might be installed, it’s only a matter of time before it becomes adopted by its hosts.

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.

The fact that there are so many scripts is hardly a pretext for learning none of them.

Along with information about the pronunciation of Pāli across Southeast Asia, the organization of the canon, and links to several resources for learning more about the language itself.

I had unshakable faith in the Triple Gem. I practiced the precepts and delighted in giving and sharing.

A deva explains how they came to be reborn in heaven.

… one who wishes happiness in the human world and the heavenly world should offer fruit

Why were women not ordaining at a time when our world is so in need of the wise counsel and compassion of women monastic leaders?

… the Pali Canon is in effect where Buddhists can still have an audience with their Teacher and learn his Teaching even though he passed away over 2,500 years ago

… a brief survey of three modern day insight meditation traditions (I), followed by examining their common roots in the medieval scheme of insight knowledges (II), which in turn I trace back to the early discourses in the Pāli Nikāyas (III).

For a talk on this paper, see here.

We need to catch “that which is aware” as a process. That which is aware during meditation is not a stable entity. It’s just a process. If we see it as a stable entity, we’re going the wrong way.

A talk on Bhante Analayo’s paper of the same name. For Bhante’s slides, see this PDF.

The main themes of the book are the diversity and flexibility of the way that the Buddha taught meditation

Making sure to cover all forty of the traditional meditation subjects and placing them within the context of sense restraint, this anthology is an excellent introduction to the textual foundations of Buddhist meditation.

… 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.

… this self-effacing, almost anonymous commentator’s proneness to being loved or hated, exalted or reviled, is certainly one of the least expected outcomes of Buddhist history.

… one traditional account of Buddhaghosa’s own death has the moribund commentator mentally revising the three meanings of the word ‘death’ while expiring, and it seems clear that this, rather than a parody of pedantic intellectualism, was intended as praise

On modern Theravāda’s ongoing struggle to appraise the legacy of their tradition’s greatest scholar.

Theravada, like any religious tradition, has evolved and changed over the years.

… some major points of distinction between Early Buddhism and Theravada

Its selection of chants is still influential in Theravāda liturgies today.

… seven Dhamma topics, then seven topics concerning meditation, the middle of the 37 Factors of Awakening, the new section with Abhidhamma-type topics, and then a series of seven topics concerning the special qualities of the Buddha […] given in Pāli, with a very exact line-by-line (interlinear) translation

… independence was perceived as an opportunity for a particular ethnic group

This inspiring and engaging collection of short stories will be useful for both scholars and students of Thai Buddhism who are curious to learn what the tradition was like before the modern state.

… central to the process of reform was the production of new forms of Pali literature, which helped create a new conceptual and social coherence within the [Buddhist] community

On the political turmoil of 12th c. Sri Lanka and how it (as much as the unification under Parakramabahu I) was responsible for the century’s prolific writing and reforms which continue to shape Theravāda Buddhism today.

… people from 30 yojana around flocked to witness this spectacle, and you can well believe it. This must have been the most astonishing and spectacular thing that they had ever seen

On how the early legend of Sankassa gives us confidence that the Pāli-Canon was well-preserved.

This sequence of images of cities may lie behind the location of Nibbāna at the pinnacle of a cosmological hierarchy as has been frequently noted in ethnographic studies of contemporary Theravādin Buddhism.

The Nibbānasutta displays, at least in part, the processes through which summaries and new suttas were created in the Theravāda tradition.

A late, apocryphal “sutta” in the Theravāda tradition, building on the famous simile of Nibbāna as a hidden, jungle city.

… prostitutes do not, or at least do not necessarily do, wrong, and do not break the Third Precept. Men who visit them likewise do not

A preliminary investigation of the orthodox, Theravāda definition of “sexual misconduct.”

The letter sent to the royal court at Kandy on behalf of the king of Siam, and published [here], includes some information of considerable interest for the study of the history of Pali texts. For a shipment, which comprised no less than 97 books no longer extant on the island and therefore asked for in a second document accompanying this letter, is said to have been dispatched together with the letter.

… the alleged, extraordinary natures of such powerful relics and images compelled certain individuals to narrate and recount how they were found or made, where they traveled, and the various miracles they performed as a testament to their great power

For a critical response to some of Collins’ assertions, see this essay by Bhante Sujato.

We may begin with one simple list, but the structure of early Buddhist thought and literature dictates that we end up with an intricate pattern of lists within lists

Over 15,000 photographs of Buddhist archeological sites, pilgrimage centres, and temples in SE Asia, as well as Videos, Maps, Posters, etc.

The Western adoption of Buddhism was fascinated by the intellectual side, but its enormous success in Southeast Asia and elsewhere came about by becoming so deeply embedded in the society.

An interview on a new translation of stories from the Thai collection of post-canonical Jātaka tales.

Only a couple of them are famous and some of them are just too over-the-top for words, but I was thinking when reading these, “you know, they’re not actually that different from super hero movies.”

Ananda, Upali and Devadatta act out a theoretical quarrel about Buddhist attitudes to law

An interesting allegorical reading of three prominent characters in the Theravāda Vinaya.

… here is a book to take up at quiet times

A haphazard collection of inspirational quotes on the Lord Buddha’s nine virtuous qualities taken mostly from the Pāli Canon.

The book doesn’t pretend to have a thesis or an agenda. It’s merely a ready companion for your devotional recollection.

… a historically and contextually sensitive understanding of elite lay Buddhist women in Sri Lanka, bringing a “critical yet empathetic look” at their participation in ethno-nationalist Sinhala Buddhist hegemony

This translation by T. W. Rhys Davids also contains his own introduction to the Jātakas, which remains worth a read even a century later.

This book is intended to provide an introduction to the teachings of the Buddha which will shed some light on a subject that, to non-Buddhists, can appear both unexpectedly rational and exotically strange.

A consise and admirable introduction to Theravāda Buddhism by one of Thailand’s most charismatic converts.

… 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.

… teachings from twelve of the greatest masters and monasteries in the Theravāda tradition

This classic book on insight meditation introduced the West to the Theravāda Tradition of Southeast Asia and launched the career of not only its author, but also many of his readers who subsequently sought out, learned from, and carried on the tradition of these venerable masters.

It’s basically impossible to understand modern Theravāda Buddhism without being familiar with at least most of the teachers featured in this outstanding book, but its value isn’t strictly historical as the wisdom and advice it contains is invaluable not just to scholars but also to any serious meditator intent on realizing the fruits of insight practice.

For a deeper historical look at this phenomenon, see Levman, 2017.

In Theravāda monasteries, nuns, even those who have been ordained for decades, typically sit on a mat on the floor, while monks, even those who have just been ordained, sit on a raised platform above them. The seating arrangement of nuns below or behind the monks is symbolic of [their] subordinate position

With the exception of the Heart Sutra (and certain Pāli phrases in their feminine variants) this book represents a fairly typical Theravāda chanting manual.

Since the footprints of the Buddha are understood to represent the physical presence of the historical Buddha, they are especially venerated in such Theravāda Buddhist countries as Sri Lanka and Thailand, although they also exist in other Buddhist countries.

While I disagree strongly with many of Bhante Dhammika’s proposed “solutions” (and even a few of his “problems”) I still think that the issues raised are important enough to be worth a read. I especially recommend this book to Westerners considering ordination, as disillusionment is a common problem for us converts: an issue best addressed directly, whilst faith is still strong.

… the trajectory of the term theravāda from its earliest occurrence in the Pāli canon to its present day usage as a designation of the form of Buddhism found in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

… the Theravāda version of events in the Nandakovāda-sutta conveys an attitude towards nuns that is considerably less favorable than the attitude underlying the parallel versions

How the Theravāda elders managed to make the suttas sound misogynistic through small redactions.

Many of the individual translations from this book were released for free distribution and have been collected into this open source ebook for your convenience. The entire book can be read on the publisher’s website with a free account.

… the vinaya is nearly as central to the Buddhist religion as the shari’a is to Islam. If we were to rank religions in order of legalism, Theravāda would come at the legalistic end of the scale, near to Islam and far from, for example, Taoism.

The fascinating history of Burmese law demonstrates and explains the relationship between textual conservativism and legal sovereignty in the Theravāda world and the profound effect this had on Buddhist discourse in the region.

A highly technical but mostly accurate map of the path, this article in particular shows the places meditators can get stuck on the path without realizing it.

And make sure to add the “Sanskrit (Latin)” keyboard to get access to all the ḍīācṛīṭīcś.

If you’ve ever heard a Theravāda monk talk about the “forty kammaṭṭhānas” this is the list they are referring to.

For at least the Pāli Buddhist tradition, the cessation of suffering is the sole intrinsic good.

If you can intentionally kill out of compassion, then fine, go ahead. But are you sure? Are you sure that what you think are friendliness and compassion are really friendliness and compassion? Are you sure that some subtle aversion and delusion have not surfaced in the mind?

… in Burma the book has actually been included in the Sutta Piṭaka itself, as part of the Khuddaka Nikāya or Miscellaneous Collection. Although the Buddhists of the other Theravāda countries have not gone quite so far in expressing their esteem, in all those lands where the Pali Tipiṭaka reigns supreme the Milindapañhā stands just behind it as a weighty textual source

Then, not receiving his parents’ permission to go forth, the clansman Raṭṭhapāla lay down there on the bare floor, saying: “Right here I shall either die or receive the going forth.”

This long sutta tells the story of Raṭṭhapāla’s going forth: a model of monastic behavior for Theravādins even today.

An alternate translation can be found here.

The ghosts who lust for our dedication [of merits] are like beggars. Only a tiny fraction of the merits we have accumulated can be shared with them

Seeing this, a learned noble disciple grows disillusioned with the eye, sights, eye consciousness, eye contact, feeling, and craving. Being disillusioned, desire fades away. When desire fades away they’re freed.

Note that, pace the title, this philosophy is not what the Buddha taught “as it is” but is rather the Pāli as interpreted by the commentarial tradition.

“Why, exactly, do you teach some people thoroughly and others less thoroughly?”

The chief Asibandhakaputta asks the Buddha why, if he has equal compassion for all, he teaches some more than others. The Buddha answers with a simile of a field: a farmer knows to put most of their effort into the fertile land.

The dhamma-cakka, the ever moving Wheel of Law, is the most prominent symbol of the Buddhists.

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.

Walpola Rahula’s book has had a dramatic impact on the shape of Buddhist thought in the West but its interest is far from merely historical: it remains one of the most lucid and sympathetic introductions available in English, even today. Recommended for newcomers to Buddhism or anyone looking for a solid grounding in Buddhist doctrine.

You can also find the book read out loud on YouTube, or you can order a physical copy of the book for free by contacting the Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation.

You can also listen to the book on YouTube.

You can also listen to this essay on YouTube.