Surely destined to become the classic commentary on the Satipatthana --Christopher Titmuss Now in its second printing!

An incisive look into the early Buddhist teachings on emptiness, and a manual for bringing those teachings into our everyday lives.

Before the growth of the Mahayana and the Perfection of Wisdom, the Buddha gave his own teachings, to his attendant Ananda, on the importance of emptiness (Pali sunnata, Sanskrit sunyata) in formal meditation and everyday practice. In this volume, renowned scholar-monk Bhikkhu Analayo explores these teachings and shows us how to integrate them into our lives.

Bhikkhu Analayo draws from instructions found in the Greater and the Smaller Discourses on Emptiness (the Mahasunnatasutta and the Culasunnatasutta). In each chapter, he provides a translation of a pertinent excerpt from the discourses, follows this with clear and precise explanations of the text, and concludes by offering instructions for practice.

Step by step, beginning with daily life and concluding with Nirvana, Bhikkhu Analayo unpacks the Buddha's teachings on the foundational teaching of emptiness.

This book is the result of rigorous textual scholarship that can be valued not only by the academic community, but also by Buddhist practitioners. This book serves as an important bridge between those who wish to learn about Buddhist thought and practice and those who wish to learn from it. . . . As a monk engaging himself in Buddhist meditation as well as a professor applying a historical-critical methodology, Bhikkhu Analayo' is well positioned to bridge these two communities. . . . Exploring the meditative practices of compassion and emptiness, Analayo' casts fresh light on their earliest sources in the Buddhist tradition.--17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje

Arising from the author's long-term, dedicated practice and study, this book provides a window into the depth and beauty of the Buddha's liberating teachings. Serious meditation students will benefit tremendously from the clarity of understanding that Venerable Analayo's efforts have achieved.--Sharon Salzberg

In this study, Venerable Analayo' brings a meticulous textual analysis of Pali texts, the Chinese Agamas and related material from Sanskrit and Tibetan to the foundational topics of compassion and emptiness. While his analysis is grounded in a scholarly approach, he has written this study as a helpful guide for meditation practice.--Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

Bhikkhu Analayo' completed a PhD on the Satipatthanasutta at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, in 2000, published in 2003 by Windhorse Publications under the title Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization. At present Analayo' is a professor of Buddhist studies at the Sri Lanka International Academy in Pallekele.

As mindfulness is increasingly embraced in the contemporary world as a practice that brings peace and self-awareness, Bhikkhu Anālayo casts fresh light on the earliest sources of mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition.

An insightful examination of the end of suffering that draws much-needed attention to two overlooked factors of Nirvana: signlessness and deathlessness.

Nirvana is a critical part of the Buddhist path, though it remains a difficult concept to fully understand for Buddhist practitioners. In The Signless and the Deathless: On the Realization of Nirvana, scholar-monk Bhikkhu Analayo breaks new ground, or rediscovers old ground, by showing the reader that realizing Nirvana entails a complete stepping out of the way the mind usually constructs experience.

With his extraordinary mastery of canonical Buddhist languages, Venerable Analayo first takes the reader through discussions in early Buddhist suttas on signs (Pali nimitta), the characteristic marks of things that signal to us what they are, and on cultivating concentration on signlessness as a meditative practice. Through practicing bare awareness, we can stop defilements that come from grasping at signs--and stop signs from arising in the first place.

He then turns to deathlessness. Deftly avoiding the extremes of nihilism and eternalism that often cloud our understanding of Nirvana, Venerable Analayo shows us that deathless as an epithet of Nirvana stands for the complete transcendence of mental affliction by mortality--ours or others'--and that it is achievable while still alive.

Advanced practitioners and scholars alike will value the work for its meticulous academic expertise and its novel way of explaining the highest of all Buddhist goals--the final end of suffering.

The chief aim of this book is to provide a collection of passages taken from the Buddha's early discourses that provide guidance for facing disease and death. The present anthology focuses on the theme of compassion, and is concerned with anukampa: compassion as the underlying motivation in altruistic action. The author draws on his own translations from the Chinese Agama collection, presented here for the first time, alongside their counterparts from the Pali texts, enabling readers to compare the parallel versions in English translation. Taken together with Analayo's practical commentary we gain a first-hand impression of what early Buddhism had to say about disease and death.

In Mindfully Facing Climate Change, Bhikkhu Analayo offers a response to the challenges of climate change that is grounded in the teachings of early Buddhism and mindfulness meditation. Based on employing the teaching of the four noble truths as its main framework, it places facing climate change within the context of the eightfold path and provides detailed meditation instructions on how to build up mental resilience and balance.

Buddhist meditator and scholar Bhikkhu Anālayo introduces the Buddhist background to mindfulness practice, from mindful eating to its formal cultivation as satipaṭṭhāna (the foundations of mindfulness). As well as providing an accessible guide, Anālayo gives a succinct historical survey of the development of mindfulness in Buddhism, and practical exercises on how to develop it. The orally transmitted early teachings he examines provide a range of perspectives on mindfulness. Anālayo draws out a clear focus on the role of mindfulness in the path to 'awakening; an understanding of reality as it is. He shows how mindfulness is a central tool for recognizing the influence of greed, anger and delusion, and how to emerge from these to progress on the path to liberation. Mindfulness fosters a gradual freeing of the mind from these influences and brings about a clear vision of reality, enabling us to be more fully in touch with what is taking place and remain in the present.

Mindfulness in Early Buddhism is a timely and thoroughgoing examination of the significance, meaning and development of mindfulness in early Buddhism. Buddhist meditator and scholar Bhikkhu Anālayo here provides answers to questions such as: To what extent is mindfulness an originally Buddhist concept? Is there a place for bare awareness and what are its results? What is the significance of mindfulness of the body and what are its benefits? How does mindfulness relate to memory and to the practice of recollection? What are the different benefits associated with mindfulness in the early discourses? and How does mindfulness relate to other aspects of the early Buddhist path of practice? In Part I Anālayo examines topics including mindful eating, ethics and compassion, central aspects of mindfulness practice, and a history of mindfulness, showing how from early Buddhism mindfulness evolved into the modern vipassana and dzogchen traditions' understandings. At the end of each chapter in Part I there are instructions for meditation practice. In part II Anālayo provides annotated translations from the Chinese Agamas and a comparative study of their Pali parallels.

A testimony to the invaluable contributions made by the women who were direct disciples of the Buddha--and a source of inspiration to Buddhist women today.

It's a common perception that the earliest textual records don't contain many, if any, teachings by the Buddha's female disciples; yet, this is not the case. In fact, the earliest discourses record a range of teachings from Buddhist women, lay and monastic. Unfortunately their important contributions have so far not received the attention they deserve.

In Daughters of the Buddha, esteemed scholar-monk Bhikkhu Analayo examines the accounts of the first female disciples in the canonical scripture, taking the reader back to the earliest period in the history of Buddhism that can still be accessed today. He dedicates each of the twenty-one chapters in the volume to an individual and remarkable woman, sharing her particular insights and teachings with the reader. Both nuns and laywomen are featured in these pages, and their diversity of voices and richness of thought will serve as instruction and encouragement for modern scholars and practitioners alike.

A fascinating investigation into the formation and transmission of the early Buddhist oral tradition.

For hundreds of years after his death, the Buddha's teachings were transmitted orally, from person to person. In this volume, acclaimed scholar-monk Bhikkhu Analayo examines the impact of such oral transmission on early Buddhist texts, be these monastic rules, verses, or prose portions of the early discourses. He scrutinizes various oral aspects of these texts, surveying evidence for memory errors, the impact of attempts at systematization, and instances of additions and innovations. Finally, he explores the implications of the nature of these texts as the final product of centuries of oral transmission and evaluates the type of conclusions that can--and cannot--be drawn based on them.

In-depth but still accessible, Early Buddhist Oral Tradition is an engrossing and enlightening inquiry into the early Buddhist oral tradition.

Renowned scholar-monk writes accessibly on some of the most contentious topics in Buddhism--guaranteed to ruffle some feathers.

Armed with his rigorous examination of the canonical records, respected scholar-monk Bhikkhu Analayo explores--and sharply criticizes--four examples of what he terms superiority conceit in Buddhism:

the androcentric tendency to prevent women from occupying leadership roles, be these as fully ordained monastics or as advanced bodhisattvas the Mahayana notion that those who don't aspire to become bodhisattvas are inferior practitioners the Theravada belief that theirs is the most original expression of the Buddha's teaching the Secular Buddhist claim to understand the teachings of the Buddha more accurately than traditionally practicing Buddhists

Ven. Analayo challenges the scriptural basis for these conceits and points out that adhering to such notions of superiority is not, after all, conducive to practice. It is by diminishing ego, letting go of arrogance, and abandoning conceit that one becomes a better Buddhist, he reminds us, no matter what tradition one may follow.

Thoroughly researched, Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions provides an accessible approach to these conceits as academic subjects. Readers will find it not only challenges their own intellectual understandings but also improves their personal practice.

Join a rigorous scholar and Buddhist monk on a brisk tour of rebirth from ancient doctrine to contemporary debates in this paperback reissue of a reader favorite.

In this fascinating book, professor and monk Bhikkhu Analayo illuminates a spectrum of views on rebirth, from ancient scriptures to contemporary research. In four brisk chapters, the book leads readers through the following points:

The presentation of rebirth in the earliest Buddhist sources and the way it relates to core doctrine; The debates about rebirth throughout Buddhist history and up to modern times, including the role of confirmation bias in the evaluation of evidence; The current research on rebirth, including near-death experiences, past-life regression, and childhood recollection of previous lives; An examination of a particular case of xenoglossy, the ability to speak languages one has not been taught. As a very young boy, the Sri Lankan Dhammaruwan would chant Pali-language scriptures that he had not apparently learned in his present life.

Rebirth in Early Buddhism and Current Research brings together the many strands of the debate on rebirth in one place, making it both comprehensive and compact. It is not a polemic but an interrogation of the evidence, inviting readers to draw their own conclusions.

See the formative years of Mahayana Buddhist literature through the lens of the Perfection of Wisdom, expertly analyzed by the venerable scholar-monk Bhikkhu Analayo.

In this work we have a rare perspective on the early history of Mahayana Buddhism and the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita), as far as this is still accessible in surviving texts. With his characteristic clarity and precision, Bhikkhu Analayo critically analyzes early Perfection of Wisdom literature based on the earliest extant versions of the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita, or the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, one in Chinese and the other in Gandhari--one of the oldest surviving Mahayana manuscripts discovered to date. In reading this text from the viewpoint of early Buddhist literature, the author shows that what has generally been considered a sharp rupture in the formation of the Mahayana turns out to be more of a gradual evolution.

With his command of the languages of the ancient Buddhist world, scholar-monk Bhikkhu Analayo sifts through the layers of history and unveils new perspectives on the ideas and figures in early Perfection of Wisdom and Mahayana literature, covering such topics as the rhetoric of emptiness and the emerging bodhisattva ideal, as well as the status of women and the practice of self-immolation. In doing so, Bhikkhu Analayo reveals fresh insights into the gradual development that informs the emergence of early Perfection of Wisdom literature. This is a rare opportunity to peer through a window at the beginnings of Mahayana thought--before the traditions had coalesced into the familiar forms we see today.