In the Buddhas Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon by Bhikkhu Bodhi

In the Buddhas Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon Reviews

• 
  Steve

  Researchers believe that "The Buddha" ( a term meaning "The Awakened One" ) was an actual man named Siddhartha Gautama that lived in India over 2,600 years ago.
  
  His teachings were passed down for several centuries after his death via an oral tradition until they were written down on collections of palm leaves. These are stored in the Sutta Pitaka of the Pali Canon, the texts of the oldest surviving form of Buddhism known as Theravada. The Sutta Pitaka consists of 5 "Nikayas" or books/collections.
  
  These collection are thousands of pages long, contain much repetitive content and have only been translated into English as of the 19th century. Translations into English are still being perfected as ancient Pali and modern English are extremely different languages.
  
  In other words, the reader who wants to read the Buddhist message for him/herself has the daunting task of combing through several large, expensive, repetitious volumes of translations that may not be clear to a modern reader.
  
  "In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon" is an anthology of the Buddha's teachings compiled by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Bhikkhu Bodhi was born in New York City in 1944 as Jeffrey Block. He is an American Theravada Buddhist monk. Bhikkhu Bodhi has translated large portions of the Pali Canon himself and is a native English speaker.
  
  His goal in compiling his anthology is to make the Buddha's message more accessible to the ordinary person and to encourage the ordinary person to read the Pali Canon themselves.
  
  To this end, he has chosen what he thinks are the most essential of the Buddha's discourses. Bhikkhu Bodhi has also put these suttas ( discourses from the Buddha ) into a logical order by subject in his anthology -- something which doesn't exist in the Pali Canon, which is a scattered, repetitious collection of separate talks.
  
  Bhikkhu Bodhi further aids the reader by reducing the repetition of phrases in the translations ( left over from the oral tradition ) and Bhikkhu Bodhi introduces each section with some extremely helpful essays on the suttas that follow.
  
  The result is an easy to understand, scholarly anthology that gives the reader a sense of what can be found in the Sutta Pitaka in regards to the essentials of the Buddha's message - without having to make the larger investment of going through the significantly more voluminous, repetitious and expensive English translations of these collections.
  
  This book will likely not be enjoyable to people whose exposure to Buddhism has been a mixture of inspirational poetry, psychological analysis and elements borrowed from other spiritual traditions.
  
  People who are uncomfortable reading text that is more "religious" will find those elements in this collection.
  
  Bhikkhu Bodhi has striven to given an honest snap shot of what someone can expect to find in translations of the Pali Canon. That snap shot includes the presence of preternatural beings, mythical realms and what is commonly known in the West as "reincarnation". If you have limited tolerance for reading such things, this book isn't for you.
  
  This book can also be dry in many sections. It isn't a book that can be read, or understood by reading through it in many large chunks while laying on a couch after a taxing day. My recommendation would be to read it a tiny bit at a time, sitting up and during your best hours to get the most out of it.
  
  I was surprised to see that a copies of the "The Peg" (Ani Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya XX.7), "The Unconjecturable" (Acintita Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya IV.77) and "To Sivaka" (Moliyasivaka Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya XXXVI.21) suttas (discourses from the Buddha ) were not included in this anthology.
  
  These suttas state that the Buddha knew his teachings would get distorted over time, that the
  Buddha believed that ordinary people could not explain the details of their current situation by tracing their karma ( kamma ) and that not all situations a person encounters in their lives are the result of karma. These are extremely important ideas and it is a bit strange that they are not included in an anthology of essential teachings attributed to the Buddha himself.
  
  As stated previously, a big problem for those seeking to understand Buddhism directly from the original texts is that these texts haven't been translated very well into English. English and Pali are just very different languages. The modern world is also very different from the ancient world from where the texts came.
  
  Given that Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American and a native English speaker I had different expectations for these translations than what I read.
  
  As an example, throughout the anthology the root causes of "suffering" are listed as being "greed, hatred and delusion". The terms in quotes are not the only possible English translations. The English translations are technically correct, but I believe the terms used hold extreme connotations to the contemporary English speaker which rob the Buddhist message of its meaning and relevance to contemporary life.
  
  Many people interpret "suffering" as agony, "greed" as extreme desire, "hatred" as an extremely strong emotion and "delusion" as close to being insane. Other translators have stated that the Pali word "dukha", commonly translated as "suffering" really refers to any dissatisfactory feeling from a vague sense of things not being the best as they could be on one end, to flat out agony on the other end.
  
  So, an alternate translation like this one is possible:
  
  "The root cause of feelings of unhappiness, distress or suffering come from desire, aversion or being ignorant to the nature of life."
  
  To me, that speaks to me much more as a modern person and seems relevant to many more of my experiences than:
  
  "The roots of suffering are greed, hatred and delusion".
  
  The alternative translation doesn't come off as a recycled puritanism of which I want no part of as a secular person.
  
  There are a number of other examples of alternative translations like this one.
  
  I'm not a scholar of any kind and Bhikkhu Bodhi is. As an expert who has devoted his life to Buddhism I wouldn't be surprised to learn Bhikkhu Bodhi is correct in his translation choices.
  
  I'm just saying my preference would have been for the other choices and I think that will be true for many people interested in this book.
  
  I believe this book to be a first of its kind in what does and how well it does it. I heartily encourage anyone with an interest in Buddhism to endure the shortcomings of the book. Read it in little bits every day, read the whole thing and talk to people about it. Such an investment will keep coming back to you for the rest of your life.
• 
  Rossdavidh

  So, reviewing and assigning stars to the words of the Buddha, is kind of like pronouncing judgement on the prophecies of Christ, Moses, or Muhammad. It's a bit presumptuous. However, I'm not really evaluating the Buddha's thoughts, per se (that would take a lot longer to do than I have available here), but rather this book, including the translation and selection of these words by Bhikkhu Bodhi (an American Buddhist monk). In fact, in front of each section, there is a bit of commentary and explanation by Bodhi himself, partly to explain some of the content, and partly also to explain his choices in translation.
  
  There are a lot of tricky choices, here, for a translator. First, these were handed down in an oral tradition for centuries before they were ever written down, so (like much else that was preserved orally) there is a LOT of repetition. How much of this to preserve, and how much to elide?
  
  Second, there are terms like "karma", which has entered the English language but with not exactly the same meaning as the Buddha intended when he used that word. There are also words, like "dukkha", whose traditional translation of "suffering" is, to say the least, debatable. Bodhi chooses a fairly traditional route in the choices he makes, but he does a cogent and coherent job of explaining what those choices were.
  
  Third, there are a lot of metaphors here which were clearly aimed at people living in a different technological era. An analogy that helps someone living in the 5th century B.C. to understand, may obscure more than it explains to a 21st century reader. One could, in theory, have justified a "translation" that substituted analogies with smartphones and automobiles and social networks, but (thankfully?) Bodhi does not do this. He does, however, do a decent job of explaining to us what the metaphors and analogies were intended to explain.
  
  This is, perhaps obviously but I'll point it out anyway, not necessarily a read-it-in-one-go kind of book. I put it by the bed, reading it a few pages most nights, which makes me a literal "bedside table buddhist". It could probably have done as well as a first-thing-when-you-wake-up book. Each piece was interesting to read, and think about, and try to decipher and decrypt. It seems to be part of the nature of the Buddha's thought that it is not instantly approachable; it requires you to think for a while on each bit before you get anywhere, because it is not intended to be just intellectual understanding.
  
  Also, one has to wonder how similar any of this was to what the historical figure now known as the Buddha, actually said. The language used in conversations between himself and his followers and questioners, cannot be a remotely accurate reflection of how the original conversations went. It is rather like hearing a folk tale, and trying to imagine what the original story was. The monks who passed it down, generation after generation, may have been extraordinarily diligent and faithful, and still the sheer quantity of time (something like 120 generations) would make it implausible that it has not changed at least a little. But perhaps, like DNA which mutates much more in the non-coding sections than the ones which encode fundamental metabolic reactions, the essence of his thought might be there. It is fun to think about.
  
  You could spend lifetimes doing it.
• 
  Johanna

  So far, I'm having a really really hard time with this book. Each chapter is set up with the author/editor telling you HIS interpretation of the sutras and then finally giving you the sutras at the end of the chapter. Which seems a totally bass-aackward way of doing it, because you don't have a clue what the hell he's talking about most of the time (unless you want to flip back and forth in the book).
  
  The other thing that really bothers me about the book is the dogmatic view on cosmology. I know, it's because I'm a westerner who has some pretty serious hangups when it comes to cosmological dogmas. I haven't decided what I believe about past lives and what happens after death, because that is SO unknowable. And unprovable theories about life after death is one of the things I think is utter bullshit about western religions, so I'm not particularly open to more theories on the subject.
  
  And yes, I realize this is one of many reasons why Buddhism is taught so entirely differently in the west than it is in the east.
  
  The way I feel myself reacting to this book is the same feeing of retreat and shutting down that I get when faced with Judeo-Christian viewpoints.
  
  I guess the only way to put it is that this isn't 'my Buddhism.' And this is highly likely to be one of those books that I never finish.
• 
  Craig Shoemake

  This is the most recent of several Pali-only anthologies of Buddhist texts I've read, the other two being Word of the Buddha and Path To Deliverance, both by the famous German monk Nyanatiloka. (The latter is especially good.) This one is easily the most comprehensive.
  
  For those of you who find the suttas tough going on account of their lack of thematic organization, this book will be a godsend. As Bhikkhu Bodhi explains in the introduction, the idea for it had its genesis in a series of lectures he gave on the Majjhima Nikaya. His goal therein was to arrange materials from simplest to most profound, giving a progressive, graded course of theoretical and practical instruction. He then decided to turn that approach to the Sutta Pitaka as a whole. The result is the present work.
  
  The specifics of this structure are as follows, where each number refers to a part of the book:
  
  1.The Buddha's description of the human condition
  2.The nature of the Buddha and his attainment
  3.How to approach the Dhamma
  4.How the Dhamma contributes to happiness in this life
  5.How it can contribute to happiness in future rebirths
  6.The Dhamma on why renunciation is the safest course to take (the perils of samsara)
  7.The nature of the path to liberation
  8.How to master the mind
  9.The nature of transcendent wisdom
  10.Stages of realization
  
  Each of these sections is prefaced with a substantial introduction by Bhikkhu Bodhi, and some of these are surprisingly good. (I have often felt a little sour toward BB's writing because he is such a slave to the Commentaries and tends to express himself with a slightly stilted, pompous air.) I was especially impressed by his introduction to part 3 ("Approaching the Dhamma"), which is, in effect, an essay on the place and nature of faith (saddha) in the Buddha's teaching. I think anyone, no matter how knowledgeable, can benefit from these pages (81ff). It is especially useful as a contrast to Christian notions of faith.
  
  So who would benefit most from this book? I think beginning students would especially be served by it, or at least those who have until now subsisted mainly on a diet of secondary texts and haven't yet plunged into the jungle of the suttas. This book is excellent for providing an orientation, and if read two or three times so that one really becomes familiar with the passages contained therein, when the passages are finally encountered in their full form it should prove very rewarding. But then, anyone who wants a refresher, or a different manner of presentation from, say, the four noble truths and the three-fold training (sila, samadhi, pañña), will also benefit.
  
  
• 
  Marla

  I pick this book up again and again. It's just the end all book on Buddhism for me (if there could be an end all book). There's so much in here, you could spend a lifetime studying this one book. I heard Bhikkhu Bodhi speak last year, and he seemed so quiet and easygoing, such an unassuming man. But what a scholar. That an American monk has written such a definitive book on Buddhism is fantastic (Although I suppose a lot is translation, not commentary). I will never tire of this book.
  
  I've read several reviews that said this book is excellent for beginners. I would disagree. I would not consider myself a beginner (no more than we ALL are beginners, just to go a little Zen on you) and this book is difficult. Easy to read, but heavy stuff and challenging concepts. There are many better books for the beginner.
• 
  Stephen Rennolds

  As a Tantric practitioner for years it was wonderful to discover so many of my personal realizations in this book. If you aren't Buddhist and/or have no interest in Buddhism, obviously this book won't mean much to you.
  
  If you are Buddhist, this is a very enlightening read. (Sorry, I couldn't resist. :)
• 
  Chetan

  This is such an inspirational book. Bikkhu Bodhi has woven together this excellent book on the Buddhist path. Using snippets of different sizes, like threads, from the many discourses of the Buddha. Explaining why the Dhamma is needed, how it benefits the world, and the fruits of its practice.
  
  Making the dhamma understandable, bringing clarity, and underlining that which is important. Concluding with dependent origination which is the backbone of the teachings of the Buddhas. Explaining in the Blessed One's own words that understanding the whole of dependent origination through one's own experience. Is what brings one to Nibbana (Nirvana).
  
  "THE HOLY LIFE, friend Visakha, is grounded upon Nibbana, culminates in Nibbana, ends in Nibbana." - MN 44
  
  This book is a scholarly piece, reading this will give the reader clarity into the whole Buddhist path. It won't teach the practice required to reach its end. Nibbana can be experienced. For that, I would recommend reading David C. Johnson's The Path to Nibbana or Delson Armstrong's A Mind Without Craving. Both two excellent Dhamma books, teaching the practice of Brahmaviharas, the fastest route to Nibbana.
• 
  Anmol

  This is a fantastic introduction to Early Buddhist Sutras, but not to Buddhism itself. I also really like how the 10 chapters are almost like 10 levels of Buddhism, from basic lay practice to galaxy-brain metaphysics (which is still built on the 4 Noble Truths). Some things that I appreciate are how agnostic the Buddha was: maybe agnostic isn't the right term, but what I mean is that he didn't talk about a lot of the things people expect from systems of belief. He limited his teaching, in his own words, to the origin and cessation of suffering and other empirical concerns:
  
  So too, monks, the things I have directly known but have not taught you are numerous, while the things I have taught you are few. And why, monks, have I not taught those many things? Because they are without benefit, irrelevant to the fundamentals of the spiritual life, and do not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbāna. Therefore I have not taught them
  
  Another aspect that I really appreciated was this idea of Buddhist logic which is built on dependent origination: "if X, then Y; if no X, then no Y". This is used by the Buddha to argue that truths are only established based on the assumptions on which they rest:
  
  If a person has faith, Bhāradvāja, he preserves truth when he says: ‘My faith is thus’; but he does not yet come to the definite conclusion: ‘Only this is true, anything else is wrong.’ In this way, Bhāradvāja, there is the preservation of truth; in this way he preserves truth; in this way we describe the preservation of truth. But as yet there is no discovery of truth
  
  From this book, I also finally got a glimpse into the Buddha's refutation of Vedantic eternalism (the belief in an eternal soul as opposed to contingent maya). But not just that, the Buddha, again in a determinedly agnostic fashion, negates both materialism and eternalism as obstructing the empirical practice of Buddhism, ie. the observance of the inherent suffering in existence:
  
  Māluṅkyāputta, if there is the view ‘the world is eternal,’ the spiritual life cannot be lived; and if there is the view ‘the world is not eternal, ’ the spiritual life cannot be lived. Whether there is the view ‘the world is eternal’ or the view ‘the world is not eternal,’ there is birth, there is aging, there is death, there are sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and despair, the destruction of which I prescribe here and now.
  
  This is continued by the Buddhist doctrine of sunyata(nothingness), which I found very interesting, though I'm not completely convinced by it as of now:
  
  “The four great elements, monk, are the cause and condition for the manifestation of the form aggregate. Contact is the cause and condition for the manifestation of the feeling aggregate, the perception aggregate, and the volitional formations aggregate. Name-and-form is the cause and condition for the manifestation of the consciousness aggregate
  
  To me, the last sentence ^ seems to turn the logic of consciousness (which I hitherto believed) upside down. While Advaita (and most other nondualism I’m familiar with), says that consciousness is pure without names and forms (it is being-consciousness-bliss when consciousness is not adulterated by names and forms), the Buddha maintains that consciousness without names and forms ceases to exist. But if this is so, what does the meditator experience when his mind is stilled? It appears to me that that is consciousness without names and forms. But then who experiences it? There is no “I” in that state. Perhaps the Buddha is right. None the less, this debate on the nature of consciousness between Buddhism and Vedanta is central to contemporary questions on the philosophy of mind.
  
  
  
• 
  Jer Clarke

  Important book, but not a modern perspective
  
  This is stating the obvious when it comes to the suttas themselves, but even the lengthy introductions to the suttas at the start of each chapter are seeped in a traditional attitude that made this book hard to read.
  
  Bikkhu Bodhi’s immense work translating the Pali Cannon is of course to be commended, and his translations have a clarity and simplicity that is missing from a LOT of English versions of the suttas.
  
  If your goal is to read a book with a nice, broad overview of example suttas, and clarity of the suttas themselves is important to you (it should be) this is a really valuable book! You’ll find the actual words passed down by his followers, carefully edited and condensed to avoid the droning repetition that is inherent to the oral format.
  
  Reading these source texts can be difficult for modern Buddhists, because in so many cases (especially in Western convert Buddhist contexts such as the Insight movement in the US) what we are taught on retreat is a carefully curated subset of the actual teachings. Aspects of the cosmology which the Buddha took literally and mentioned often (gods, demons, heavens, hells) are either treated as metaphors or ignored completely. Not so in these sutta translations. You’ll find all these things and worse discussed frankly and as part of everyday life.
  
  This was a challenge I welcomed, and something I was hoping for from the experience of reading the suttas themselves.
  
  The issue I have is with the way the subjects are organized and explained by Bodhi, who comes off as a very conservative follower of Buddhist religion with a bit of an axe to grind with those who want to merge these teachings with modern perspectives. He regularly takes time to specifically denounce “secular” forms of Buddhism and point out how they are flawed, all the while taking seriously the wild cosmological claims of the suttas without any sense of awkwardness.
  
  It’s his right to be a true believer of traditional Buddhism of course, and to defend it against the encroachment of modernity, but in this particular book it was a distraction. A more neutral presentation of the suttas, written to expose their contents to everyone without proselytizing, would in my opinion be a better use of the source translations themselves (which as I said above, are priceless).
  
  Specifically, I wish the order of subjects was different. Bodhi subjects us to a series of offensively traditionalist suttas about social organization, including a lengthy section of misogynistic ideas about the appropriate role of women, before ever treating us to suttas about meditation, mindfulness or even psychological concepts like the aggregates. It almost felt like the more popular and uplifting aspects of the Dhamma were being held hostage behind a paywall of lecturing about traditional values. Was he afraid that if the “good stuff” was at the start, we’d stop reading when it got to the boring social lecturing? Maybe so, but I feel like the organization of this book probably turns a lot of people off, and results in them missing out on the suttas that would mean the most to them.
  
  That said, having the introductions was invaluable. Without context and explanation, pulling out these sutta quotes leaves them pretty incoherent. I was happy to have him contextualize each sutta and their relationships to each other and the broader Dhamma.
  
  If anything, I wish the explanations of each sutta and the suttas were more mixed. Reading a long introduction to 10 suttas, then all 10 suttas, left me often lost and confused.
  
  I recommend reading the chapter introductions and suttas at the same time. Reading the introduction until it finishes explaining a particular sutta, then jumping to that sutta and reading before continuing. I switched to this method at the end of the book and while it’s a bit more effort, it helped my comprehension a lot.
  
  I wish the Kindle version of this book would take this into account technologically, and insert links back and forth from the introductions mentioning a sutta and the sutta itself.
  
  Finally I’ll say the footnotes are great, and I learned a lot about the nuances of translating Pali from them.
  
  This is a really interesting book and I’m glad I read it. If you’re just starting out with Buddhism, it may be too much of a jump for you.
  
  I’ll point out that all of these original sutta texts are available in English translation, for free, on suttacentral.net. If you want to compare translations, find other suttas etc. I recommend that site like crazy. It also has both English and Pali versions that you can read in parallel, so if you want the Pali version of texts from this book, SuttaCentral is the place to find them.
• 
  Peter Crofts

  The title says it all. This is as close as you will get to what the Buddha actually said. That may seem like an odd comment, but there is a lot of material out there that offers little to no reference to the initial building blocks of Buddhism.
  
  The suttas are somewhat like Socratic dialogues, though the ultimate conclusion of each is predetermined.
  
  If you are looking for an introductory text to early Buddhism you might want to start with the Dhammapada, or a primer like Glenn Wallis' "The Sayings of Buddha" (which is superb), as this is a much more demanding, austere tome.
  
  When you encounter some of the initial sources of the Dharma you will understand why some describe it as a psychological discipline, rather than a religion. You will also realize how rigorous and demanding it really is, something that seems to get lost in a lot of present day Western Buddhist self help manuals, which try to peddle it as some sort of exotic version of the power of positive thinking.
• 
  Phillip Moffitt

  This anthology is an excellent guide to the Buddha’s teachings. If you think you may be interested in studying the suttas, this is a good book to start with. The book is organized around various topics, from the human condition and how to approach the dharma to mastering the mind and planes of realization.
• 
  Mohammad Ali Abedi

  I did not want to read a Buddhist book as envisioned by a self-help guru written primary for housewives, so I decided to read the original material. The book, "In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon", has organized material from the Pali Canon, which is material supposed to be directly from Buddha himself. The Pali Canon is one of the earliest material and if I understand correctly, it’s something like 40+ volumes, so the book I am reading is a small introduction to it.
  
  Aside from being an introduction, the book has also few important changes. First, it organizes the material in categories (the original Pali Canon has no specific framework) making it easier to read and it shortens the text sometimes, because the way it is originally written (well, originally recited), there is a lot of repetition. I know that sounds confusing, and that sounds confusing, but I will try to make it less to sound confusing by using this sentence which is going to make it less to sound confusing and by organizing the material in categories (the original Pali Canon has no specific framework) making it easier to read and it shortens the text sometimes which makes it sound less confusing which initially it was more confusing.
  
  Something like that but for 80 lines, so the author just does a … on repetitions make it easier to read. Each section is introduced with commentary on the following material, but I would first read the sutras (the scriptures, like Quranic suras) and then once I finished the section, I would go back and read the commentary. I wanted to see my first reaction to the original text with as little outside influence as possible. Not that there isn’t any outside influence, given that first there is translation to English, but also translation to Sri Lankan before that, and that the written form was hundreds of years after Buddha, but at least I’m trying.
  
  Now my opinion. I don’t know how much of the material is actually Buddha’s words and how much is post-Buddha dogma and certainly reading one book on Buddha does not make me Nirvana PHD maestro but I have a feeling that a lot of material is not Buddha’s. Because sometimes he sounds like a nice old chap, not sounding dogmatic, superstitious, or specific, but other times he sounds majestic, lavishing praise on his own brilliant Enlightened knowledge. I feel the latter was added by his followers and my gut (which is always wrong, but might be right here) tells me that Buddha was the sort of sage that used many of contemporary beliefs of his time and wrapped them around simple ways to improve one’s life. I almost feel like he himself did not believe many of it, but no prophet can come and teach the people from his area from a blank canvas. They all have to use material the people are familiar and comfortable with and try to slowly mold it into something else.
  
  There is some wonderful material in Buddha’s statements, such as the allegory of the elephant to show that all diverging opinions on religion are not necessarily wrong but incomplete so no one should claim full authority on the subject. Or the one where he talks about being good and if we get rewarded for it by going to heaven (as some say) or rebirth (as others say) then great, but if neither exist, then we still haven’t lost anything, because at least we led a good life here on earth.
  
  All these material is good, but I’m not so won over by the emphasis on life being a sort of suffering on earth and our goal is to escape from it. Than in itself is no problem, but it is the outcome of such an ideology that does not sit well with me. First of all, I don’t like the idea of the monks. Buddha places them on a higher level than the rest of the people, but monks don’t earn their own food, which irritates me a bit. The teachings show that people should ward off materialism, but the people who have given up materialism have to beg food from people who haven’t. This in turn means that the religion has made it beneficial to the hard-working materialistic layman to give his food and resources to these monks in exchange of gaining good points for his next life.
  
  Which brings me to my next issue with the whole dogma. The concept of doing good and being reborn into a better life has meant that the rich and successful in the present life are born into that life due to the good deeds they did in the previous life and the sick, poor, and diseased are being punished. This creates a fatalistic, caste system, of which countries that were heavily influenced by reincarnation religions have the most of.
  
  All in all, I’d hang out with Buddha himself, but probably not his followers.
• 
  retroj

  A very approachable, very readable survey of early Buddhism through a selection of suttas from the Pāli Canon and accompanying commentary and explication by Bhikkhu Bodhi. The writing style was clear and easy to follow, definitions concise, and concepts well contextualized. Topics were often treated from several different angles, which not only helped elucidate subtle ideas, but also gave the impression that this anthology is a truly broad, representative slice of the teachings; and though the writing style of the original suttas was extreme in the use of repetition, Bhikkhu Bodhi wielded ellipsis systematically but judiciously to the effect that they were comfortably readable, and their finer points not lost in a swamp of redundancy.
  
  The book is arranged in a logical structure that makes for an easy to follow progression of concepts from start to finish. As a reference work, this structure, along with the several indices and tables, also make it easy to find any given topic. Each chapter is comprised of an essay by Bhikkhu Bodhi, followed by translations of the suttas discussed in the essay. The essays introduce the topic of the chapter and discuss the suttas that follow in simple linear sequence, so the book is best read with two bookmarks, the two halves of each chapter in parallel.
  
  This book answered a basketful of questions that I had about the Buddha's teachings, sparked my curiosity for some further lines of research, and introduced me to the truly strange subject of Buddhist cosmology, which figured more prominently than I expected. Very glad that I took the time to read this — it was, among other qualities, eye-opening — and I know that I will count it as a valuable reference in future.
  
• 
  Jason Gregory

  This is the foundational text for Buddhist studies and for those who practice Buddhism. It is the most important Buddhist text to read for any school of Buddhism because it is the original Pali Canon, the actual discourses of the historical Buddha. This book gives you an insight to early Buddhism and the Theravada school of Buddhism. Most people will likely not start with this book when they begin their Buddhist studies, but in an ideal world this book would be the first book you should read on Buddhism and the Buddha. This book will give you a taste of what it is like to read the ancient suttas (sutras) with their unique repetitive style. And Bhikkhu Bodhi has done a tremendous job with the translation and commentary which makes for an enjoyable and enlightening read. All of his translations sparkle with clarity and wisdom, but none so more than this amazing book. So if you are interested in the wisdom of the Buddha then begin here to build a solid foundation for your future studies.
• 
  van Bilderass

  The dedication to clarity and careful inquiry into the Pali terms are distinct qualities of every work of Bhikkhu Bodhi.
  
  Reading the book in two courses with a big pause in between showed me how far from the path I have strayed. Nonetheless I had a very eloquent and kind companion in the face of the compiler.
• 
  Steve Woods

  This is not a straight sit down and read. It is more a reference book for someone who is interested in Buddhist teachings and needs a reference to the canon. This is the nearesy yhing to the Buddhist Bible written in accessible language
• 
  Jon Stout

  This “Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon” contains the earliest versions of the teachings of the Buddha, the Buddhist scriptures so to speak. It is somewhat repetitive and formulaic, as one would expect from what was originally an oral tradition. It does not contain the complexity or sophistication of later Buddhist thinking (nor of contemporary Buddhist commentators), but the basic concepts of Buddhism are clearly presented, often with a striking allegory or figure of speech. I will not summarize, but rather present my own impressions.
  
  The basic fact of life which the Buddha’s teachings address is suffering. The Four Noble Truths are suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation. While not everyone is suffering at any particular moment, anyone aware of the world knows that people are suffering. And human nature is such that when we reflect upon ourselves and have regrets we suffer as well.
  
  Early on the Buddha presents eight worldly conditions, “gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain,” from which he urges his followers to detach, recognizing that they are “impermanent, bound up with suffering, and subject to change.” One can stand apart from suffering. “What is suffering is non-self. What is non-self should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom thus: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.’” As conscious beings, we can set ourselves apart from the objects of our consciousness and thus not be caught up in the attachments, the strivings and the suffering of the world.
  
  The self, on this view, is simply awareness. It may be a kind of nothingness, in a Humean or Sartrean sense, or it may be the universe conscious of itself. In any event, the individual personality is ephemeral and transient, and the discourses are pretty clear that the individual does not survive after death. But if one has understood oneself as pure awareness of the world, at-oneness with the universe, attaining Nirvana, then one has escaped the cycle of birth and death.
  
  I am not sure that I have presented the Buddha’s views accurately, but this is my understanding. I admire this view of the world, and I think there is much to be gained by detaching oneself emotionally from (but not ignoring) the trials and tribulations of the world. At the same time a part of me feels that one cannot be fully human (including being compassionate) without feeling some of the joy and suffering of others. So I am not sure I want to detach myself completely from the world.
  
  I see many similarities and points of comparison to Christianity. To mention one striking example, the Buddha says, “Monks, even if bandits were to sever you savagely limb by limb with a two-handled saw, he who gave rise to a mind of hate toward them would not be carrying out my teaching.” If this is not a recipe for being Christ-like, I don’t know what is.
  
  The Buddha’s Discourses give me a perspective on the world which I value and which is an important part of the world cultural heritage. The editing and commentary by Bhikkhu Bodhi is helpful, and offers a way of pursuing further study. It is not hard to imagine incorporating many of the Buddhist practices and perspectives into my life.
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  Samuel Saul Richardson

  I've had this book on my shelf forever but I don't even remember how I got it. I know that I quoted this book a few times but overall I am not a fan. Each chapter started out with a great introduction of the ideas and gave citations to where it was grabbing these ideas from but from there the rest of the chapter was long, drawn out, got away from the point, and repeated itself so many times. As an additional negative point I was looking for an introduction to Buddhism whereas this was more of a heavy doctrinal book that also didn't help with the translation to English of certain keywords.
  
  I do not recommend.
  
  #SelfTaughtReligion #Buddhism
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  Aleksander Mustonen

  Pikk ja põhjalik raamat, mis käsitleb mitmeid tahke buda õpetusest, selle põhilisest kirjanduslikust pärimusest (paali kaanonist) võetuna. Enamus tekste esineb siin suutrate kujul, koos kommentaaridega sellel alal pädevalt haritlaselt Bhikkhu Bodhilt. Need suutrad, mis enamjaolt esinevad siin raamatus õpetlike dialoogidena või õpetussõnadena, käsitlevad seega mitmeid teemasid perest ja abielust munkluse ja nirvaana saavutamiseni.
  
  Raamat ise oli hää ja pääle selle, et tutvustab kogu seda tarkust, mida leidub Theravāda budismis, annab see ka natuke laiema konteksti budismile laiemas inimpärimuses. See ei näita budismi kuiva ja elutu filosoofiana vaid elava ja inimliku vaatena elule.
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  Ben Smitthimedhin

  Such a valuable anthology of the Buddha's teachings, extending beyond the Buddhism-lite found in the West. Here, there are lectures from the Buddha encouraging life in community, moral fortitude, right thinking, and almsgiving, among other things. It is, however, not stylistically palatable: very boring and repetitive, good for when you're trying to fall asleep. Took me a year (of deliberate effort) to finish.
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  Byron Crenshaw

  an intense look into the foundations of Buddhism.
  
  i loved how acute the descriptions and elaborations of the text were, though they often pushed towards redundancy. (the book tells you a teaching 3 times, paraphrasing it feels unneeded).
  
  Bodhi’s selections of what stories to skip over were somewhat disappointing given the depth of describing more conceptual / vocabulary aspects of the Pali canon…
  it felt like the one thing that would have made this more human would be more of the storytelling aspect, which was often omitted.
  
  despite the criticism, i’d still recommend this book for people who have had experience with Theravada-influenced meditation (Vipassana for me) to give context to what they might have already experienced, or to clarify questions about the conceptual aspect of the teachings paired with meditations.
  
  be ready though, this book often made me feel like work rather than play.
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  Moh

  Really good translation. Amazing analyses that are quite insightful albeit biased towards the esoteric Buddhist beliefs. All round great introduction to literal interpretations of the Buddha's core teachings.
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  Dany

  "All consciousness should be seen as it really is, with correct wisdom thus: this is not mine, this I am not, this is not myself."
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  Ross

  Honestly one of the best books I read
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  Sandy

  This book helped me as I was trying to wade through so many Buddhist books. Now, I feel that with this brief introduction to the major works of Buddha I’m ready to dig deeper. Terrific resource!
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  Lucio Constantine has spent all hours on homework.

  This book is both good and bad, there are some elements I agree with some I don’t and others I am still trying to work out with.
  The Pali Canon is the standard book of Theravada Buddhism.
  There are some comments of about the subject of truth. What is true? I hold that what is true is subjective to the individual. There are other comments about craving which I don’t agree with and at one point it says that desire is the root of all suffering. Now there are some desires to help people, to meditate, practice music would these be bad as well? I have heard of the saying attachment is the root of all suffering and I am unsure about the statement.
  If you are interested in Eastern Philosophy this is a must read, otherwise the amount of repetition might annoy you to death.
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  Paul S

  A great collection of suttas arranged by topic, with introductions by Bhikkhu Bodhi for each section. Suitable for complete beginners and still useful as a quick-lookup resource for experienced practitioners.
  
  If you are Buddhist, especially Theravadin, or even just curious to learn about the Pali Canon, this book is indispensible, one of the best ever put together.
  
  See also Ven. Gunaratana's Mindfulness In Plain English and Ven Walpola Rahula's What the Buddha Taught.