This book brings together several of Professor Toshiichi Endo’s previously published articles on the Buddha-concept in the Pāli Commentaries. Overall, it deals with two spiritual powers of the Buddha: the knowledge power (ñāṇabala) and the physical power (kāya-bala).
Papañcasūdanī Commentary to the Majjhimanikāya. Trans. N.A. Jayawickrama and Ed. Toshiichi Endo. Hong Kong: Centre of Buddhist Studies. 2022.
Ven. Sāriputta’s Paṭisambhidāmagga and some parts of Pāḷi literature as a whole contain a list and analyses of five types of morality that throw into relief aspects of the moral life that range from an ethical practice that needs to be improved upon and is limited via those forms that catalyze progress on the Buddhist path toward liberation to a form that constitutes full moral blossoming.
An earnest student with serious interest needs a very basic, thorough understanding and careful study about the structural patterns of words and their morphological process. This can be achieved only through studying its original grammatical text along with detailed explanations on the rules known as Suttas and the accompanying word examples shown alongside in the Suttas. In other words, there is no replacement for an original ancient text with a ready-made, short-cut guide though it may fill some language-learning need but not in such a way as an original text can certainly do.
This text of Kaccāyana's Pāli grammar is intended to be used as a companion to its English translation book. In fact, the study of English translation alone will be incomplete without its original grammar text in Pāli as both of them can only enhance each other in the form of a handy reference and a practical learning aid for all students.
Bibliography:
Kaccayana Pali Grammar. Ed. Vol. 1. A. Thitzana. Washington: Pariyatti Publishing, 2016. Print.
Mahathera Ledi Sayadaw. The Manuals of Dhamma. India, Igatpuri: Vipassana Research Institute. Reprint 2011.
Keawkungwal, Sriruen. Therapeutic Approaches in Theravada Buddhism and Existentialism: A Comparison. Canada, Edmonton: University of Alberta. 1971.
U Dhammaratana. Guide Through the Visuddhimagga. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society. Print 2nd Ed. 2011
This book presents a comprehensive study of the Abhayagiri Fraternity of ancient Sri Lanka, with a special reference to its new Buddhist practices and trends, which made a great contribution to the development of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. It involves a consideration of both primary and secondary literary sources, and also takes into account archaeological findings, epigraphic material and liturgical artifacts. It contains a detailed examination of how the Abhayagiri School adopted heterodoxy Buddhism of other Buddhist traditions apart from the orthodox Theravada teachings and practices.
This book is written on the notes Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote for at retreat in France with focus on Anatta. The book draws on passages from the Pali Canon and on the writings and talks of the ajaans, or teachers, of the Thai forest tradition, in which Thanissaro Bhikkhu was trained.
Unravelling the Mysteries of Mind and Body Through Abhidhamma by Sayalay Susil. Abhidhamma is a Pali word , the language in which the Theravadin records of the teachings of the Buddha have been recorded. The word is composed of the two parts, ‘abhi’ meaning ‘higher’ or ‘greater’ and ‘dhamma’ which means ‘reality’ or ‘truth’ (it can be loosely translated as to mean ‘everything which is real’). The teachings of Abhidhamma may appear dull or complicated in daily life and meditation practices. Therefore it is largely ignored.
Chapter One
1. The Buddha in the Pali Canon
Renunciation, Self-Mortification & Enlightenment
The Buddha’s Mission
Salient Features of the Theravada Concept of the Buddha
Chapter Two
2. Impermanence as a Basic Fact of Existence
Arguments Adduced in the Anattalakkhaõa-sutta
Empirical Observation of Facts
Etymological & Doctrinal Meaning of the Term ‘anicca’
Impermanence: the Nature of all Component Things
Is Consciousness Soul?
Chapter Three
3. The Concept of Dukkha in Early Buddhist Teaching
The Etymological Definition & the Exegesis
The Doctrine Of Paticcasamuppada By U Than Daing with the subtitle “The Law of Dependent Origination” is a guide for the yogi who seeks the path to end all suffering and for the English speaking reader an explanation of the various mental and physical phenomena we call personality. This work has a great insight to the Buddhist doctrines of Anatta, Non-Ego og Not-self (something only found in Buddhism and a very few temporary schools).
Many anthologies of the Buddha’s teachings have appeared in English, but this ebook is the first to be organized around the set of teachings that the Buddha himself said formed the heart of his message: The Wings to Awakening (bodhi-pakkhiya-dhamma). The material is arranged in three parts, preceded by a long Introduction. The Introduction tries to define the concept of Enlightenment so as to give a clear sense of where the Wings to Awakening are headed.
Early Buddhism borrowed two of its central terms from the workings of fire. Upadana, or clinging, originally referred to the fuel that kept fire burning; nibbana, the name of the goal, to a fire's going out. This is the first book to examine these terms from the perspective of how the early Buddhists themselves viewed fire--what they saw happening as a fire burned, and what happened to the fire when it went out--to show what light this perspective throws on Buddhist doctrine in general, and the practice of meditation in particular.
Guide Through the Abhidhamma Pitaka – A synopsis of the Philosophical. Collection oft he Buddhist Pali Canon Followed by an essay on Dependent Origination (Pratītyasamutpāda) by Nyanatiloka Mahathera was publised first in 1938. This is a reprint of the second revised edition from 1957.
The Seventy Three Kinds of Knowledge describes at a glance the knowledges Buddhas and their disciples gain in the attainment of mundane and supramundane states. Since these knowledges are, as a Summary, very briefly stated, the present translation has explanatory notes in order to facilitate the reader understand them, at least intellectually, more easily. These explanations are based on the Pañisambhidà-magga, the Visuddhi-magga and their corresponding commentaries, and their references are clearly distinguished.
The Manuals of Ledi Dipani is written by the Burmese Buddhist monk Maha-Thera Ledi Sayadaw and is actually three books: The Vipassana Dapani – or the Manual of Insight, Niyama Dipani or the Manual of Cosmic Order, and Patthanuddasa Dipani – or the Buddhist Philosophy of Relations. These instructions are meant as initial studies before commencing the Practice of Exercise of Insight also know as vipassana-kammattathana in the Theravada tradition.
The body is thought to be most obviously “me,” what I regard as the most tangible part of myself. Around it therefore are constructed many views, all of them distorted to some extent, which prevent insight arising into the body as it really is. This book is a small anthology relating to the body in various ways, and presents material which, if contemplated by the earnest and sincere student of Dhamma, will eventually provide fruitful insight and, thereby, freedom from the many desires and fears centered on the body.
Amata Dhamma – Six Talks on Dhamma. From the intro: “The Dhamma of Buddha was expounded correctly and properly. It was not hidden or obscure but was presented according to the truths existing on every level of Dhamma. It proclaims, for example, that virtue and vice, hell, heaven and Nibbãna really do exist, that kilesas are true, that they are real and that they prevail just like the other more apparent things. There are no contradictions, so why are these things a problem for us? The Dhamma was openly presented. There was nothing esoteric and mystical about it.
As Buddhist meditation becomes more popular, it is vital that clear and accurate guidance is available. For many years, there has been an unfortunate lack of thorough instruction in simple English on the deeper states of meditation called Jhanas. Even though the Jhanas are, perhaps, the theme most repeated by the Buddha in the Suttas, and in spite of the fact that the old teachers of the Thai forest tradition encouraged, preached and taught Jhanas, a description of their development is hard to come by. This ebook, then, serves to remedy this lack of practical information.
Forest Dhamma – A Selection of Talks on Buddhist Practice by Ãcariya Mahã Boowa Ñãõasampanno consists of transcriptions of Dhamma talks held at Wat Pa Baan Taad, a forest monastery situated in northern Thailand. It goes, among other things, into details on the topics on Sila, Samadhi and Wisdom and the development of meditation.
Clearing the Path is a work book. Its purpose is to help the user to acquire a point of view that is different from his customary frame of reference. Necessarily, an early step in accomplishing this change is the abandonment of specific mistaken notions about the Buddha’s Teaching and about the nature of experience.
Unexpected Freedom by Ajahn Munindo. From the intro: “So often we are trying to follow the Buddha’s teaching with the idea of becoming free from something – free from our desires, our personality, our anger, our suffering.
The Seven Stages of Purification and The Insight Knowledges is a guide to the progressive states of Buddhist meditation by Matara Sri Nanarama. The seven stages of purification provide the framework for the practising disciple’s gradual progress from the cultivation of virtue up to the attainment of the final goal. Integral to the higher stages of purification are the nine types of insight-knowledge, by which the disciple breaks through the delusions covering his mental vision and penetrates through the the real nature of phenomena.
'Walking with Awareness - A Guide to Walking Meditation' written by Luang Por Liem Áhitadhammo – a Buddhist monk in the Thai Forest Tradition who was born in 1941. After higher ordination at twenty years of age, he first practised in several village monasteries until he joined Wat Nong PahPong, Ajahn Chah’s famous forest monastery in UbonProvince, in 1969. This short book lays out the basics of walking meditations as he practiced and taught it.
Samadhi for Liberation consists of short, advanced and personal instructions for medition by Ajahn Anan Akincano: “With the heart being at ease, there may be the feeling that our body expand. Our body becomes imbued with blissful feelings called piti, waves of joy and rapture rolling on to the shore. When piti is strong, we might experience the body becoming light, as if it was floating up in the air. The body is light, the mind is light, still and peaceful. If these experiences in meditation come up for just for a few moments, they are called khanika-samadhi, momentary concentration.
Buddha’s awakening gave him a new perspective on the limitations of words. He had discovered a reality—the Deathless—that no words could describe. At the same time, he discoveredthat the path to Awakening could be described, although it involved a new wayof seeing and conceptualizing the problem of suffering and stress. Because ordinary concepts were often poor tools for teaching the path, he had to invent new concepts and to stretch pre-existing words to encompass those concepts so that others could taste Awakening themselves.
The Perfections Leading to Enlightenment by Sujin Boriharnwanaket is a 200 page guide to The Ten Perfections, paramís, are most important as conditions for the complete eradication of defilements. Sujin Boriharnwanaket writes that all should study the paramís, understand their significance and further develop them:
Theravada Buddhism is widely recognised as the classic introduction to the branch of Buddhism found in Sri Lanka and parts of South East Asia. The Buddha preached in north-east India in the fifth-century bce.
In this booklet five practising Buddhists, all with modern backgrounds, offer their reflections on the significance of karma and its relation to ethics, spiritual practice, and philosophical understanding. The contributers include: Nyanaponika Thera, Bhikkhu Nanajivako, Francis Story, Nina Van Gorkom, and Leonard Bullen.
The theme of this study, Buddhist ceremonies and rituals, may not appeal to the self-styled Buddhist purist who wishes to restrict the designation "Buddhism" exclusively to the teachings of the Buddhist scriptures, which he usually interprets in a narrowly intellectualist manner. The fact remains, however, that the practices and observances to be described here justly claim an integral place within the stream of living Buddhism as practiced by its adherents.
The idea of nirvaṇa (Pāli: nibbāna) is alluring but elusive for nonspecialists and specialists alike. Offering his own interpretation of key texts, Steven Collins explains the idea in a new, accessible way – as a concept, as an image (metaphor) and as an element in the process of narrating both linear and cyclical time. Exploring nirvana from literary and philosophical perspectives, he argues that it has a specific role: to provide ‘the sense of an ending’ in both the systematic and the narrative thought of the Pāli imaginaire.
This encyclopaedic work on Theravada Buddhism, "The Path of Purification", was written by Buddhaghosa.
Buddhaghosa. The Path of Purification: Visuddhimagga. tr. By Nyanamoli. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 2010. PDF, <http://www.bps.lk>
There is another scanned image edition, you can get it here: http://elibrary.ibc.ac.th/node/218
Cousins, L.S. “Origins of the Canonical Abhidha(r)mma Literature.” JOCBTS (Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies), Vol.8, 2015.
This volume examines the Abhidhamma perspective on the nature of phenomenal existence. It begins with a discussion of the dhamma-theory (the theory of real existents) which provides the ontological foundation for the Abhidhamma philosophy. It then explains the category of the nominal and the conceptual as the Abhidhamma’s answer to the objects of common-sense realism. Among the other topics discussed are the theory of double truth, analysis of mind, theory of cognition, analysis of matter, the nature of time and space, the theory of momentary being, and conditional relations.
The idea of nirvana (Pali: nibbana) is alluring but elusive for non-specialists and specialists alike. Offering his own interpretation of key texts, Steven Collins explains the idea in a new, accessible way - as a concept, as an image (metaphor) and as an element in the process of narrating both linear and cyclical time. Exploring nirvana from literary and philosophical perspectives, he argues that it has a specific role: to provide `the sense of an ending' in both the systematic and the narrative thought of the Pali imaginaire.
"Early Buddhist Metaphysics" provides a philosophical account of the major doctrinal shift in the history of early Theravada tradition in India: the transition from the earliest stratum of Buddhist thought to the systematic and allegedly scholastic philosophy of the Pali Abhidhamma movement. Entwining comparative philosophy and Buddhology, the author probes the Abhidhamma's metaphysical transition in terms of the Aristotelian tradition and vis-a-vis modern philosophy, and exploits Western philosophical literature from Plato to contemporary texts in the fields of philosophy of mind and cultural criticism.
Weber's claim that Buddhism is an otherworldly religion is only partially true. Early sources indicate that the Buddha was sometimes diverted from supramundane interests to dwell on a variety of politically-related matters. The significance of Asoka Maurya as a paradigm for later traditions of Buddhist kingship is also well-attested. However, there has been little scholarly effort to integrate findings on the extent to which Buddhism interacted with the political order in the classical and modern states of Theravada Asia into a wider, comparative study.
This book is in 2 volumes and has become a classic in Pali studies. It provides a vast amount of information about early Buddhism and about early Indian ancient history. It is a valuable reference book for the scholar as well as the general reader interested in Buddhism.
Dr. Endo's primary task, as he states, is to present the data and information embodied in the Pali Atthakatha concerning the Buddha-concept as much and as systematically as possible. He begins with a brief examination of the Buddha-concept found in the pre-commentarial literature as a prelude to his main themes both of the Buddha-concept and the Bodhisatta concept from Chapter I onwards. Findings presented in his work clearly indicate that the Buddha-concept in the Atthakatha literature forms in itself an important and dynamic force to reckon with for the establishment of what we later regard as Theravada Buddhism reflected in the commentarial and subsequent literature.
From the preface: "This small booklet was compiled and edited from talks given by Venerable Ajahn Sumedho on the central teaching of the Buddha: that the unhappiness of humanity can be overcome through spiritual means. The teaching is conveyed through the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, first expounded in 528 BC in the Deer Park at Sarnath near Varanasi and kept alive in the Buddhist world ever since."
The Abhidhamma is the Buddhist analysis of mind and mental processes, a wide-ranging systemization of the Buddha's teaching that combnes philosophy, psychology, and ethics into a unique and remarkable synthesis. The Buddhist monks and scholars of southern Asia hold the Abhidhamma in the highest regard, pursuing its study with great diligence.
This book helps to fill what has long been a gap in the scholarship on Early Buddhism, offering us detailed textual study of the Sattipatthana Sutta the foundational Buddhist discourse on meditation practice.
Within the context of contemporary Western Buddhism, Secrets of the Lotus provides a unique collection of materials on Buddhist meditation. It it includes translations of and commentaries on foundational meditation texts in the Theravada and Japanese Zen traditions:
• The Satipatthana Sutta, the Vimuttimagga, the Zazen-gi with Mumon Yamada Roshi's teisho, and Hakuin's commentary on the Heart Sutra
• A discussion of zazen within the Rinzai tradition by a contemporary Zen Priest (the Rev. Eshin Nishimura);
The Jinakalamali is intended to be a study of the epochs of Buddhism as representing its origin in India and the spread to Ceylon and thence to the establishment of the Singhalese form of Buddhism in South-East Asia. It falls in the same category of literature as the Pali Chronicles of Ceylon and Thailand.
The works of the Buddha can feel vast, and it is sometimes difficult for even longtime students to know where to look, especially since the Buddha never explicitly defined the framework behind his teachings. Designed to provide just such a framework, 'In the Buddha's Words' is an anthology of the Buddha's works that has been specifically compiled by a celebrated scholar and translator.
"Paticcasamuppada is a profound teaching," - said the Buddha - "so profound, in fact, that most people are not able to penetrate the Law of Dependent Origination." The Buddha's words to Ananda are as true today as they were 2,500 years ago. Paticcasamuppada, which is the heart of Buddhism, is difficult to see clearly and, thus, has become the center of grave misunderstandings and distortions.
Buddhadasa's "system" of thought, if we may call it that, is not conceived as a scheme to explain all that is worth explaining. Rather, it reflects his continuous effort to interpret the dhamma and make it relevant to particular times, places, persons and events. It begins with such basic questions as "Who am I?", "How can I live a meaningful life?" and "What is true freedom?".