Words of the Buddha
Read early Buddhist discourses in parallel Pāli and English — from memorable verses to the full Nikāyas.
Reflection of the Day
“I do not see any other form that so completely obsesses a man’s mind as the form of a woman.”
— AN 1.1·
Fire: Investigating Recurrent Experience
The Buddha cast his entire framework of liberation in the language of fire and its cessation. This essay traces that structure using what we now understand about how fire actually works.
Experience is examined starting with the texture of a single moment, to the cascade of experience, across the terrain where consciousness takes root, and to the extinguishing that is Nibbāna.
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Latest Discourses
See more →Warning against the pitfalls of familiarity, the Buddha frequently admonished young Rāhula to shun sensual craving, abide in secluded lodgings, maintain bodily mindfulness, and develop signless meditation so as to eradicate all lingering conceit and attain lasting peace.
Hearing the rare word “Buddha,” the learned brahmin Sela pays a visits the Teacher. Declaring himself the supreme King of the Dhamma rather than an earthly emperor, the Buddha inspires the brahmin Sela and three hundred followers to renounce the world and win liberation.
On the full moon night of the Pavāraṇā ceremony, the Buddha invites the assembly of five hundred arahant bhikkhus to reproach him for any bodily or verbal fault. Sāriputta declares that the Buddha is blameless, the Buddha extols Sāriputta’s great wisdom, and Venerable Vaṅgīsa utters verses in praise of the pure assembly and the Buddha.
Near his final days at Kusinārā, the Buddha relates to Ānanda the legend of King Mahāsudassana and his capital Kusāvati, endowed with the seven treasures and the four powers. Yet all these magnificent conditioned formations faded away and ceased, illustrating the truth of impermanence.
By what is the world led astray? By what is it carried away? What is the one thing that has everything under its sway?
A daily learning feed of the Buddha's teachings — learn, reflect, and apply in practice.