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Recently Published
Within the last couple years.
when thereʼs fuel, fire will keep burning until thereʼs nothing left
One of the toughest interviews I’ve ever had.
some see in viññāṇa anidassana a kind of consciousness essentially equal to nibbāna. But there are many problems with this
I shall keep reciting the Way to the Beyond
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.
How did the Geluk school come to dominate Tibetan Buddhism?
The canonical account of the Buddha’s first days and the story of how the religion was founded.
“It would not be appropriate for me to give the Buddha a powerful laxative.”
the majority of its residents have to extract groundwater to survive. And it’s causing the city to sink.
slender citrine lip onto which I place, gently, this first handful of hair
Featured Selections
Content highlighted in the newsletter, arranged by year of first publication.
2020
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As a result of seeing the truth of how craving leads to suffering, we have a moment where our minds cease all craving and release us from the incessant arising of experience
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this paper aims for a philosophically more nuanced discussion of the case for and against eating locally. I assess, in turn, locavore arguments based on environmental preservation, human health, community support, agrarian values and political concerns
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We’re already geo-engineering the planet, we’re just doing it accidentally and badly
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“A monastery is a place where equality is preached but not practiced; a gar is a place where equality is practiced but not preached.”
2019
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the most important sources of suffering are not something that activism can fix
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How mindfulness took over the board room, and how the board room took over mindfulness.
2018
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You might wish to drink the nectar of calm abiding…
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A Creative Commons licensed selection of suttas from Wisdom’s celebrated translation, representing about a third of the full book.
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The text jumps inside me and helps. me. out.
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So, when you’re studying Buddhism, what are you studying?
I know the answer. I’m studying me.
I’m studying me. -
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someone is a sequence of choices, and the question is: Will my next choice be conscious, and will my ability to make it be unfettered?
2016
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Handicapped and at-risk Vietnamese youths share their appreciation of and enthusiasm for a mindfulness meditation course.
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Five classic lectures by Faraday on the physics of a candle, restaged by the “Engineering Guy” YouTube Channel.
2015
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I swear, you will wake–
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the common interpretation of the jhānas as absorption-concentration attainments [is] incompatible with the teachings of the Pāli Nikāyas. […] one attains the jhānas, not by one-pointed concentration and absorption into a meditation object, but by releasing and letting go of the foothold of the unwholesome mind […] the entrance into the first jhāna is the actualization and embodiment of insight practice.
2014
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While many assume Treasure to be innovative, those developed Treasure tradition texts we inspected can, at least in their final published versions, better be described as conservative, and often extremely so.
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We wouldn’t say “this is proof of reincarnation,” but I would say it’s strong evidence of something like it.
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The canonical explication of the monastic rules.
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To understand Buddhism, one must understand the tension between the knowledge of impermanence and the love of the Dharma. This sense of loss has defined Buddhism from the Buddha’s Parinirvana through to the present day.
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…recognize that this view is not scientific discovery: it is ideology.
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A fascinating series of open letters between Ajahn Geoff and Bhikkhu Bodhi on the subject of “just war.”
2013
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both works typify a style of writing in Buddhist Studies that seems to blur the line between religious writing and academic analysis
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A lonely temple, nestled in the mountains of central Taiwan, says goodnight.
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the time for discovering Buddha directly, you must remain alone
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A heartfelt and spellbinding talk on meditation practice and expectations.
2012
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A very brief summary of the Śrāvakabhūmi: an ancient meditation manual preserved by the Yogācāra school.
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A talk delivered at the Bodhi Tree in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka on the importance of symbols in Buddhism.
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Ajahn Brahm discusses the Buddha’s qualities and tells some stories from his time as a monk in Thailand.
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An engaging lecture at Spirit Rock on using text critical methods and personal practice to narrow in on an understanding of early Buddhist meditation practices.
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2011
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A thorough examination of each discourse in the Majjhima-nikāya in the light of its parallels.
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The full Pāli Canon online in Pāli alongside its traditional commentaries and modern translations. An essential tool for anyone working on translating the Pāli Canon.
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One thing we can be certain of is that capitalism will end.
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based on what can be culled from the Madhyama-āgama discourse in comparison with the other versions, it seems possible to arrive at a coherent narrative of [the founding] of the order of nuns.
2010
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I would say that the Nikāyas and Āgamas give us a “historical-realistic perspective” on the Buddha, while the Mahāyāna sūtras give us a “cosmic-metaphysical perspective.”
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2009
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Bhikkhus, before my enlightenment, while I was still only an unenlightened Bodhisatta, I too, being myself subject to birth, sought what was also subject to birth
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2008
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while the Theravādins have preserved the clearest and best-understood early texts referring to the in-between state, their philosophical posture prevented them from investigating and describing this in any detail. For that we shall have to listen to the other schools, starting with the Puggalavādins and Sarvāstivādins, as passed down through the Chinese and Tibetan traditions.
2007
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We, moderns but especially Americans, have a fundamental misunderstanding of cognitive development: we assume that higher-level functioning is always desired and so disparage and neglect fundamental cognitive skills.
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When examined closely, the doctrines of the schools cannot be explained away as simplistic errors or alien infiltrations or deliberate corruptions. It would then follow that more sympathetic and gentle perspectives on the schools are likely to be more objective
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SuttaCentral hosts sources and free translations of Early Buddhist Texts, meticulously organized by parallels, books, languages and searchable with several large indexes.
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it appears contradictory that Chinese who follow the teachings of Mahāyāna Buddhism have worshipped arhats. […] who was the arhat for Chinese Buddhists?
2006
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An encyclopedic overview of the various kinds of samādhi and their place on the path.
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Venerable Shariputra explains five ways to quell anger through wise attention, giving five memorable similes on being determined to find the good in everyone.
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During my first weeks with my teacher, Ajaan Fuang, I began to realize that he had psychic powers.
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Who was the Buddha in his own words? In this story, he calls himself the “Tathagata” or “Truth-Arriver”, and he responds to a question on what will become of him after his death. The Buddha explains that he doesn’t talk in such terms, as he has overcome all such notions as “I am the body” or “I am the mind” so how could such a question ever be answered? He ends the discourse by famously saying that all he teaches is suffering and the end of suffering, thus redirecting our attention from empty philosophical musings to the things that matter most.
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indeed there is no thing there
2005
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Only a man could dream of Heaven as a place where he can lie about all day, surrounded by beautiful women
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2004
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It’s interesting to walk through the graveyards of towns, and see that for the first few years after a person dies there may be a head stone, maybe someone remembers, but after twenty, thirty, or forty years, they could bulldoze the graves because the land is so valuable and plant somebody else in there. So even your head stone just crumbles to dust. All record of you living here is gone, because no one remembers who you were or what you did. Isn’t that beautiful? So why not do that right now? Bulldoze this idea of who you are
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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.
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2001
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what was the religious environment that encouraged the spread of the new technology of printing in late seventh century China?
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1999
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This paper introduces a new distinction between the ‘formal’ and the ‘practical’ canon[…] in medieval Sri Lanka. I show that few monks encountered the [Vinaya] in anything close to its full form.
[Rather,] Monastic leaders considered the Anumāna, Dasadhamma and (Karaniya)metta Suttas to be [the important sources] for monastic education.
1997
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To approach what, for the want of a better term, we call the mythic portions of the Nikayas 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.
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Ajahn Geoff explains how the monastic institution works by creating an economy of gifts.
1996
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In which the hacker tourist ventures forth across the wide and wondrous meatspace of three continents, acquainting himself with the customs and dialects of previously unknown and unchronicled folk … and other material pertaining to the business and technology of Undersea Fiber-Optic Cables, as well as an account of the laying of the longest wire on Earth
1995
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Subha Bhikkhuni finds a creative solution to sexual harassment.
1993
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Reverend Sirs, I would like the reverend bhikkhus and bhikkhunis—as well as the laymen and laywomen—to listen to these passages frequently and to ponder on them.
1992
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1991
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On separating out early from later Buddhism and why it matters.
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Forget you. This is about waiting
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I give you back 1948.
1989
1985
1984
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The four toraṇas, or gateways, [put] the stūpa, symbolically, at the place where four roads meet, as is specified in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta.
1982
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In this essay, Judith Shklar (not a Buddhist) ponders the implications of placing cruelty first (as the Buddha did). She shows how this position stands at odds with both Christian piety and neoliberal apathy and carves out a more realistic humanism than either extreme.
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Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that the MNS has provided the historical starting-point as well as the chief scriptural basis for enquiry into the problem of the Buddha-nature in China, and it would be difficult if not impossible to grasp the significance of the concept and its subsequent evolution in Chinese Buddhism without a proper understanding of the teaching of the MNS on the subject.
1980
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Kammaṭṭhāna meditation should be practised so as to reach Nibbāna, thereby escaping from all kinds of misery
1977
1975
1972
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there will be resistance to giving the thing rights until it can be seen and valued for itself; yet, it is hard to see it and value it for itself until we can bring ourselves to give it rights — which is almost inevitably going to sound inconceivable
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