Thānissaro Bhikkhu

Itivuttaka: This was Said by the Buddha

a close up of a river

The Itivuttaka is a newly updated translation of a collection of 112 short suttas, each one a prose passage followed by a verse.

This collection is shaped less by literary considerations than the Dhammapada or Udāna and is more straightforwardly didactic. The itivuttakas cover the full range of Buddhist practice.

On the basic levels, they focus on skillful and unskillful behavior, and on the advanced, they cover some topics found nowhere else in the Canon.

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About Thānissaro Bhikkhu

Thānissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey DeGraff) is an American Buddhist monk in the kammaṭṭhāna (Thai forest) tradition. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1971 with a degree in European intellectual history, he traveled to Thailand where he studied meditation with Ajahn Fuang Jotiko, who was himself a disciple of the late Ajahn Lee.

He joined the order of monks in Wat Dhammasathit in 1976, where he remained after the death of his teacher in 1986. In 1991, he traveled to the San Diego County hills of the US, where he helped Ajahn Suwat Suvaco establish Metta Forest Monastery (Wat Mettavanaram). He has been abbot of that monastery since 1993.

Thānissaro Bhikkhu is perhaps best known for his translations of the Dhammapada and of many suttas from the Sutta Piṭaka, which make up the main share of the sutta translations on the website Accesstoinsight, and for his translations of “Dhamma talks” from the Thai forest Ajahns. He has also written several of his own works on the Dhamma and study guides for his Pāli translations.

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You yourselves must strive, the Buddhas only point the way

Buddha, Dhp 276