Form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness. These are called the things that should be completely understood. And what is complete understanding? The ending of greed, hate, and delusion.

Even the Stream Enterer and Anāgāmīn understanding of the Aggregates is provisional. Only the Arahant completely understands the Five Aggregates.

Is the one who acts the same as the one who experiences the result?

This paper investigates the impacts worldviews have on the nature and trajectory of meditation-related challenges, as well as how worldviews change or are impacted by such challenges. […] We identify and discuss the various impacts that religious and scientific worldviews have on meditation practitioners and meditation teachers who navigate periods of challenge associated with the practice.

I have seen, bhikkhus, the hell named ‘Contact’s Sixfold Base.’

gazing into coals,
I skydive and pass through
stages of youth

I urge you to meditate beforehand, i.e., before you come across old age, sickness and death

Six brief talks given by Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw in 1952 around Asia on the path to Nibbana while on a tour sponsored by the newly-independent Burmese government to drum up support for its then-upcoming Sixth Council.

Neither behavioral nor imaging analyses supported the hypothesis that altruists’ reduced social discounting reflects effortfully overcoming selfishness. Instead, group differences emerged in [brain regions corresponding to] the subjective valuation of others’ welfare

Loving Kindness Meditation training did not result in more generous behavioral or neural patterns, but only greater perceived difficulty during social discounting. Our results indicate extraordinary altruists’ generosity results from the way regions involved in social decision-making encode the subjective value of others’ welfare.

It is a difficult task to compile the Buddha’s teachings, especially on the premise that one is presenting the true or genuine teachings, even if one cites passages from the Pali Canon which are considered the words of the Buddha.

The authoritative book of Thai Buddhist doctrine.

… if this person were to die at this time, as if carried there he would be placed in heaven.

Having flown across the sky,
the birds resort to this delightful base

Mendicants, when what exists, because of grasping what and insisting on what, does the view arise: ‘The one who acts does nothing wrong…’

Clinging to different aggregates yields very different philosophies, but all trend towards moral nihilism.

Why do you live as if lost?

I used to pay homage to constellations,
worshiping fire in the forest…

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

Venerables, how does a noble disciple have right perspective?

Venerable Sāriputta gives a detailed explanation of Right View, the first factor of the noble eightfold path. At the prompting of the other mendicants, he approaches the topic from a wide range of perspectives.

In order to reach a proper understanding of the Buddha’ s Teaching, it is necessary to discover exactly what is meant by the five aggregates of clinging. For these are, as we see, dukkha…

It’s easy to think of Emptiness as the “right” view in an ontological sense. What the sutra is saying is that there isn’t a “right” way to characterize reality. “Thusness” is ineffable. So, Emptiness is not so much the “right” characterization as it is the remedy to our tendency to reify things into essences.

A lengthy interview with Prof Waldron on his new book which explores Yogacara thought within its Indian, Buddhist context and in light of contemporary neuroscience and politics.

Mendicants, meditate in retreat. A mendicant in retreat truly understands.

Mendicants, when a mendicant’s mind has been well consolidated with wisdom it’s appropriate for them to say: ‘I understand…’

Nine reflections by which a mendicant knows their mind has wisdom.

For the time being stand on top of the highest peak.
For the time being proceed along the bottom of the deepest ocean.
For the time being three heads and eight arms.
For the time being an eight- or sixteen-foot body.

All being is time.

Is the aim to have right view, or go beyond views; or is right view about not being attached to any view?

This discourse, without known parallels, is a reminder that, however important the development of wholesome mental states and the elimination of unwholesome mental states, it is equally important to also develop those states conducive to Nirvāṇa if you want to escape Saṃsāra.

All his doubts then vanish since he understands
Each thing along with its cause.

The Buddha, soon after awakening, summarizes what it is he awakened to.

Monks, whether Tathāgatas arise or not, this aspect of the world remains the same…

Impermanence, suffering, and not-self are natural laws discovered by the Buddha.

With the fading away of ignorance and the arising of true knowledge, ‘I am’ does not occur to him; ‘I am this’ does not occur to him; ‘I will be’ and ‘I will not be’…

When you identify anything as self, you always identify one or another of the five aggregates.

When one holds no more views concerning the past, one holds no more views concerning the future.

How penetrating the aggregates leads to liberation.

What if I were to dwell in dependence on this very Dhamma to which I have fully awakened, honoring & respecting it?

What a Buddha bows to.

And why, bhikkhus, do you call it form? ‘It is deformed,’ bhikkhus, therefore it is called form.

The Buddha explains how to view rebirth.

Now on that occasion the following pernicious view had arisen in a bhikkhu named Yamaka: “As I understand the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One, a bhikkhu whose taints are destroyed is annihilated and perishes with the breakup of the body and does not exist after death.”

Convinced by the Venerable Sāriputta that the aggregates are already not-self, Yamaka lets go of his mistaken view and sees the Dhamma.

Of the ascetics and brahmins who say that through annihilation of existence one escapes from continued existence, none have themselves escaped from continued existence, I say.

Shortly after awakening, the Buddha contemplates rebirth.

Bhikkhus, held by two kinds of views, some devas and human beings hold back and some overreach; only those with vision see.

How craving for being or annihilation blind us to dependent origination.

A ‘position,’ Vaccha, is something that a Tathāgata has done away with.

Refusing to take a stance regarding useless metaphysical speculations, the Buddha illustrates the spiritual goal with the simile of a flame going out.

Unless these five dangers and threats are given up, one is said to be unethical, and is reborn in hell.

What is truly dangerous is breaking the precepts.

The right view module enjoins adopting a correct basic attitude to karma, rebirth, as well as merit, giving and sacrifice that is informed by the Buddhist requalification strategy, so that it becomes integral to the Buddhist path and its emerging dāna ideology. The import of such an explicit promotion of a human recipient of worship or sacrifice can hardly be overestimated. This is a world apart from the ontological and cosmogonical yajña of the Ṛgveda

The faithful succeed, not the faithless. The ethical succeed, not the unethical. The energetic succeed, not the lazy. The mindful succeed, while the unmindful do not.

Nandiya the Sakiyan moves to Sāvatthī to be near the Buddha. At the end of the rains, he asks the Buddha’s advice on how to live and the Buddha outlines a series of meditations for cultivating Right View.

So too, bhikkhus, that a bhikkhu with a rightly directed view, with a rightly directed development of the path, could pierce ignorance…

Rather, the breakthrough to the Four Noble Truths is accompanied only by happiness and joy.

Even more than if you’re being tortured with spikes, you should make an effort to realize Nibbāna.

Suppose a stick was tossed up in the air. Sometimes it’d fall on its bottom, sometimes the middle, and sometimes the end. It’s the same for sentient beings roaming and transmigrating, shrouded by ignorance and fettered by craving.

Just as the great ocean has but one taste, the taste of salt, so too, this Dhamma and discipline has but one taste: the taste of liberation. This is the sixth astounding and amazing quality…

Spirits delight in the ocean for eight reasons, and likewise the mendicants delight in the Dhamma for eight similar reasons.

That’s how it is for one who is not without passion for fabrications.

The Venerable Tissa is roused by an interview with the Buddha.

… by eating their son’s flesh they would cross the rest of the desert.

It is in such a way, bhikkhus, that I say nutriment should be seen.

The Buddha defines the four kinds of “food” or “nutriment”, which include edible food, contact, intention, and consciousness. He illustrates them with a series of powerful and horrifying similes.

And if a person who was being swept along by the current grabbed the wild sugarcane, kusa grass, reeds, vetiver, or trees, it’d break off, and they’d come to ruin because of that.

If you grasp at the aggregates as a self, you will meet with calamity, like a man swept down by a mountain river.

Suppose, bhikkhus, a man was being borne along by the current of a river…

An extended metaphor for the dangers of “going with the flow.”

Mendicants, ‘danger’ is a term for sensual pleasures…

The Buddha explains how addiction to sensual pleasures is perilous.

… the four noble truths, the four seals of the view, the four mindfulnesses, the four schools of Buddhist philosophy, and the four reliances

Religion tends to rely upon faith alone, and philosophy on understanding alone. But the Buddha, in his teaching of the Truths, stresses the even balancing of five faculties: faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and understanding

These four essays serve as a stimulating introduction to important aspects of Buddhist thought, i.e. the eightfold noble path, faith and its purpose, cessation, and consciouness.

We should see the truth that the mind that performs a deed is kamma itself and the subsequent mind is the result (vipāka) of that kamma. Other results that follow it are only uncertain by-products, since they may or may not occur, or do not keep up with our expectations due to other interfering factors.

Explains kamma (karma) as it is understood in Buddhism and how to use kamma (action) in a way that leads to the end of action and results: Nibbāna.

By a misperception of emptiness
A person of little intelligence is destroyed.

A translation of a select seventy verses from Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

When right view is assisted by five factors, it has liberation of mind as its fruit…

… right view is the forerunner and precursor of skillful qualities

[The] discourse appears indeed as a rather formidable assemblage of stern messages. Yet, for one who is familiar with the Buddha Word, this will be softened by the fact that in numerous discourses the Buddha spoke of his Teaching as one that offers “gradual training, gradual progress.” It is here that the Buddha’s gentleness and compassion appears, his forbearance with human frailties, and his wise and patient guidance of men.

Nyanaponika Thera’s translation of MN 22 including notes mostly from the commentarial tradition. Contains well-known Buddhist similies such as the famous one on getting hold of a snake and the parabale of the raft illustrating the right way to hold views.

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.

Rather than seeking to put forward a philosophical view about the nature of reality or knowledge, Nāgārjuna uses arguments for emptiness to purge Madhyamaka Buddhists of any view, thesis, or theory whatsoever, even views about emptiness itself.

There is no single bhikkhu, brahmin, who possesses in each and every way all those qualities that were possessed by the Blessed One, accomplished and fully enlightened. For the Blessed One was the arouser of the unarisen path

Some time after the Buddha’s Parinibbāna, Ven. Ānanda and some brahmins discuss how the Saṅgha will carry on without him.

You Licchavis are so fixated on sensual pleasures!

For the conclusion, see AN 5.195.

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.

Many people have this paradigm of seeing it all as natural, but…

… mendicants, gaining these four continents is not worth a sixteenth part of gaining these four things.

Even a universal monarch may have a bad rebirth, but someone who has attained Stream Entry is freed from such unfortunate destinies.

How do you know the natural world is real?

The Buddha’s provisional worldview could not be purely materialistic. He established this point with the line that his followers posted in the first line of the Dhammapada: “The heart/mind is the forerunner of all phenomena.” With this line, the Buddha rejected the worldview in which the mind is simply the passive recipient of sense data, or in which its functions are nothing more than the after-effects of physical processes.

In order to end suffering, a provisional worldview was adopted by the Buddha. This article discusses that view and the strategic reasons for adopting it.

What here is a man’s best treasure?

A series of questions on what is best.

Fast to death and get Enlightened? It really doesn’t work that way. You have to come back. You have to be able to deal with these emotions.

Why we revere them, why it’s important to keep them in mind, and why we appreciate them

A rambling talk about the Buddha and the Cosmos.

This is all a misunderstanding because reality is based on the mind.

The word “suffering” just means everything that can make you unhappy, that stops you from being a peaceful and happy and content person. When we really look at it, that comes down to just about everything! Everything we come into contact with has the potential to cause us suffering.

By what is the world afflicted?
By what is it enveloped?

The world is burning with desire.

Transmigrating, I went to hell…

No life is eternal, not even that of the gods;
what then of sensual pleasures so hollow…

The Princess Sumedhā pulls out all the stops to convince her family to let her ordain, showing off her impressive knowledge of the Buddha’s teachings.

How do you see things as they are?

David had a hunch about what had caused his panic attack: his meditation practice.

Without a foundation in view and ethics, many Westerners are finding themselves unable to handle the arising of meditative insight.

What advice would you give the meditators in this article?

All beings by nature are Buddha,
As ice by nature is water.

Kyeho! All activities within saṃsāra are pointless

“Right View” is to see and let go.

A meditative reflection on Right (and Wrong) Views and starting the practice on the Right foot.

… what the Buddha knew and what he told us is a hard-to-come-by, transcendental truth which will make us happy all the time

A collection of Than Ajahn Suchart’s early Dhamma talks in English.

Volume 2 can be found on Google Drive here.

Buddhism is not likely to be at variance with science so long as scientists confine themselves to their methodology and their respective fields without making a dogma of materialism.

… my main intention is to indicate a new approach to philosophy which the Buddha tends to suggest in the modern context

A pitch for taking Buddhist Philosophy seriously

The third, and most important, reason [Buddhism uses narratives to communicate its ethics] is that we are narratives ourselves.

A defense of Buddhism as Philosophy from the Western perspective.

There are three ways: best, intermediate and inferior.

It is interesting to compare this sutta to AN 5.71 which seems to compare Enlightenment with tearing down a city.

… even this view of yours, Aggivessana—‘All is not pleasing to me’—is even that not pleasing to you?

Deftly outmaneuvering an extreme skeptic, the Buddha discusses the outcomes of belief and disbelief. Rather than getting stuck in abstractions, he encourages staying close to one’s experiences.

If anyone were to learn his dhamma for the purpose of censuring or reproaching others who held different views with feelings of hostility, or for the purpose of defending one’s own dogma against the criticism of others, the Buddha says that they make an abuse of the dhamma.

There’s form, feeling, perception, fabrications, and consciousness. These are the things that, if you cling to them, are going to be suffering. But you have to use them for the path. I think it’s important to realize that when the Buddha talks about “the raft” image, he’s not talking about a yacht: You put together the things you’ve been using in the past in a new way.

For a translation of this sutta’s semicanonical commentaries, see Bhikkhu Bodhi’s The Root of Existence.

If the fragmenting forces of late modernity have shattered the illusion of a fixed self, anātman provides a way of rethinking subjectivity in its absence.

‘I don’t say it’s like this. I don’t say it’s like that. I don’t say it’s otherwise. I don’t say it’s not so. And I don’t deny it’s not so.’
A sensible person reflects on this matter in this way: ‘This teacher is dull and stupid.’

Venerable Ānanda lists eight warning signs to avoid when choosing a spiritual teaching: starting with materialism and ending with a few answers to common questions about the Arahants.

… 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.

We talk about “Right View” and “Wrong View,” but what we actually have, if we really look at our minds, is confusion!

You can use logic and reason and so on in a destructive manner and if you do that too much, of course, you can get what we’re all familiar with: the kind of modern nihilism and cynicism and all of these kinds of things. That comes from too much of that. So, obviously there needs to be a balance. There needs to be some ability to deconstruct, but that needs to go hand-in-hand with a constructive and a positive approach, so that the deconstruction has a context

Intuition is just a natural function of the mind, that’s all. Sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong. […] It’s not the infallible voice of God. It’s just a part of us.

The Buddha’s bad karma refers to ten problematic incidents that happened in the life of the historical Buddha. […] The texts related to the bad karma of the Buddha can be divided into two groups: those texts accepting the bad karma and those rejecting the whole matter.

… he believed in nothing but himself. Actually, this is neither Buddhism nor Chan

Doctor, if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world

This is the kind of inquiry one has to make for oneself. We call that, “biting into the mango.”

By the ariya, the cessation of sakkaya is seen as happiness. This is the reverse of the outlook of the entire world!

Some explanitory comments on SN 9.6 and on how the enlightened see the world.

In this world, you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.

How is a sentient being defined?

Rādha asks the Buddha, who compares craving and rebirth to a child playing with sandcastles.

This article translates the sixth fascicle of the Saṃyukta-āgama, which contains discourses 111 to 138.

With contributions by Kin-Tung Yit, William Chu, Teng Weijen, Shi Chunyin, and Kuan Tse-fu.

More than 800 of the individual translations from the collection are available for free distribution and have been collected into this open source ebook for your convenience. The rest of the book can be read on the publisher’s website for free (by signing up for an account).

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.

Reverends, all things are rooted in desire. Attention produces them.

The Buddha gives an extraordinary ten-point summary of the path from things to the cessation of things.

Now suppose that in the autumn—when it’s raining in fat, heavy drops—a water bubble were to appear & disappear on the water, and a man with sight were to see it. To him it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance could there be in a bubble? In the same way, a man with wisdom sees a feeling. To him it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance could there be in a feeling?

I have never yet had the question why good things happen.

Robina Courtin talks about how to teach the theory of karma to Westerners.

The root of all of these
Is not taking your own mind to be paramount

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.

We call that “Progress”
But it’s just movement

An upbeat song about spiritual perspective.

Sensual pleasures give little gratification and much suffering and distress, and they are all the more full of drawbacks. Even though a noble disciple has clearly seen this with right wisdom, so long as they don’t achieve the rapture and bliss that are apart from sensual pleasures and unskillful qualities, or something even more peaceful than that, they might still return to sensual pleasures.

A lay person is puzzled at how, despite their long practice, they still have greedy or hateful thoughts. The Buddha explains the importance of absorption for letting go. But he also criticizes self-mortification, and recounts a previous dialog with some Jain ascetics.

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.

… if one has an underlying tendency towards something, then one is measured in accordance with it; if one is measured in accordance with something, then one is reckoned in terms of it.

The Buddha teaches a pithy discourse to a mendicant who wants to go on retreat.

‘By this virtue or observance or asceticism or holy life I shall become a great god or some lesser god,’ that is wrong view in his case. Now there are two destinations for one with wrong view, I say: hell or the animal realm. So, Puṇṇa, if his dog-duty succeeds, it will lead him to the company of dogs; if it fails, it will lead him to hell.

It isn’t just breaking the precepts that can lead one to hell. Contrary to contemporary ecumenical sensibilities, the Buddha pulled no punches condemning wrong view. What do you think makes wrong view so “wrong” in this case?

… a young tender infant lying prone does not even have the notion ‘identity,’ so how could identity view arise in him?

A little baby has no wrong views or intentions, but the underlying tendency for these things is still there. Without practicing, they will inevitably recur.

Tucked away in the Samyutta Nikāya among the “connected sayings on causality” is a short formalized text entitled the Upanisa Sutta, the “Discourse on Supporting Conditions.” Though at first glance hardly conspicuous among the many interesting suttas in this collection, this little discourse turns out upon repeated examination to be of tremendous doctrinal importance.

Bhikkhus, develop concentration. A bhikkhu who is concentrated understands things as they really are.

Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu understands form, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation; he understands the gratification, the danger, and the escape in the case of form.

To be fully accomplished, a mendicant should investigate these Dhammas.

Their intentions, aims, wishes, and choices all lead to what is likable, desirable, agreeable, beneficial, and pleasant. Why is that? Because their view is good.

When a person has wrong view, all their path development is wrong. But when they have right view, everything good follows.

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.

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

We have to practice step by step to attain succeeding levels of happiness, starting with the happiness that arises from giving, to the happiness from keeping the precepts, not hurting others, to the happiness from samadhi or mental discipline.

A simple and straightforward but powerful summary of the path to wisdom encouraging us all to strive for real, lasting happiness.