This book helps to fill what has long been a glaring gap in the scholarship on Early Buddhism, offering us a detailed textual study of the Satipatthana Sutta, the foundational Buddhist discourse on meditation practice.
With painstaking thoroughness, Bhikkhu Analayo marshals the suttas of the Pali canon, works of modern scholarship, and the teachings of present-day meditation masters to make the rich implications of this text, so concise in the original, clear to contemporary students of the Dharma.
Unlike more popular books on the subject, he is not out to establish the exclusive validity of one particular system of meditation as against others; his aim, rather, is to explore the sutta as a wide-ranging and multi-faceted source of guidance which allows for alternative interpretations and approaches to practice. His analysis combines the detached objectivity of the academic scholar with the engaged concern of the practitioner for whom meditation is a way of life rather than just a subject of study.
The book should prove to be of value both to scholars of Early Buddhism and to serious meditators alike. Ideally, it will encourage in both types of reader the same wholesome synthesis of scholarship and practice that underlies the author’s own treatment of his subject.
– by Bhikkhu Bodhi
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You yourselves must strive, the Buddhas only point the way
Buddha, Dhp 276
Abhidhamma Studies
Nyanaponika TheraThe Abhidhamma, the third great division of early Buddhist teaching, expounds a revolutionary system of philosophical psychology rooted in the twin Buddhist…
Satipatthana Vipassana: Insight through Mindfulness
Mahasi SayadawOn the personal request of the Honourable U Nu, Prime Minister, and Thado Thiri Thudhamma Sir U Thwin, President of the Buddha Sāsanānuggaha Association…
Handful of Leaves: An Anthology from the Sutta Pitaka
Thānissaro BhikkhuThis all-in-one book bundles all of the sutta collections: the Dīgha, Majjhima, Saṁyutta, and Aṅguttara Nikāyas, as well as six books from the Khuddaka Nikāya…
The Practice Which Leads to Nibbana
Pa-Auk SayadawThe method of practicing meditation that is taught at Pa Auk Tawya Monastery is based on the explanation of meditation found in the Visuddhimagga commentary.
Dhamma Reflections
Bhikkhu BodhiThis volume brings together fifty-three essays of Bhikkhu Bodhi that were earlier published by the BPS in newsletters and other publications.
The Power of Mindfulness
Nyanaponika TheraThis is a commentary on the Satipatthana mindfulness meditation, an inquiry into the scope of their attention and the principal sources of its strength.