In the Buddha’s Words
“In The Buddha’s Words” (Wisdom Publications) is a selection of teachings of the Buddha contained in the Pali Canon. Translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi, with his extensive and very helpful commentaries, it is, in Vaddhaka’s view, the best introduction to the Pali Canon.
This set of notes presents Vaddhaka’s own thoughts and reflections prompted by some of the topics covered by Bhikkhu Bodhi. He has drawn liberally from Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translations and commentary, combined with additional comments from others including Bhikkhu Analayo, Professor Rupert Gethin, Sangharakshita, and Andrew Olendzki.
Transcripts only.
01 The Buddha and the Dance of Death
The Dance of Death is a mediaeval painting, a fragment of which is displayed in the Niguliste Church in Tallinn’s Old Town in Estonia. Vaddhaka relates the message of the painting to extracts from three different suttas chosen by Bhikkhu Bodhi to illustrate the relentless directness of the Buddha’s teaching on death.
02 How to experience freedom in the midst of suffering?
In a selection of teachings Bhikkhu Bodhi gives us three different examples of how insight makes all the difference to the experience of difficult circumstances, and how we as present-day practitioners might gain more freedom in our lives.
03 How to Reduce Violence in the World?
Bhikkhu Bodhi examines the causes of violence and disputation, through four teachings found in the Pali Canon. Vaddhaka builds on this to discuss how we might limit violence in the world.
04 The Buddha’s Decision to Teach
Immediately after his enlightenment the Buddha was initially reluctant to teach, though he was eventually persuaded to do so, leaving to give his first teaching at the Deer Park at Sarnath. It’s a dramatic story that combines mythical elements with a glimpse of the human side of the Buddha.
05 How much faith should you place in the Buddha’s teachings?
In the absence of a direct personal experience of enlightenment, do we have to blindly trust that the attainment of enlightenment is possible and that it is possible to end suffering? In the Kalama and Canki Suttas the Buddha shows how to develop a path of faith and trust.
06 The Buddha’s advice on living the household life
Sometimes it might be thought that the Buddha’s original teachings were only meant for monks and nuns, those who had left home in search of enlightenment. But a closer examination of the Buddha’s teachings in the Pali Canon of Early Buddhism reveals a significant minority of teachings directed straightforwardly at lay people, the most well-known of which is the Sigalovada or Sigalaka Sutta sometimes known as the ’layperson’s code of discipline’.
07 Can loving kindness (metta) be a path to enlightenment?
Using materials from Bhikkhu Bodhi and Richard Gombrich, Vaddhaka discusses whether loving kindness (metta) can be a path to enlightenment.
08 Seeing beyond a world of desires and attachments
Enlightenment can only be gained by the stilling of the mind’s compulsive drives, desires and attachments. As Bhikkhu Bodhi explains, to help us see through them, the Buddha offers three standpoints from which we can appraise experience in our lives; gratification (assada), danger (adinava), and escape (nissarana).
09 The Noble Eight-fold Path
The Buddha eschewed theoretical debates as instanced in his exchange with the monk Malunkyaputta when he refused to answer ten questions. Instead, the Buddha emphasises his practical teaching of a path to end suffering and gain enlightenment, the Noble Eight-fold Path.
10 The progressive path of regular steps
In his book ‘The Foundations of Buddhism’ Rupert Gethin reminds us that, alongside the Noble Eight-fold Path, the early Buddhist texts present the path that culminates in the end of suffering as a gradual and cumulative path that involves a hierarchical progression of practice. Vaddhaka adds to Bhikkhu Bodhi’s discussion of the gradual path of the renunciant, with Sangharakshita’s path of regular and irregular steps.
11 The path of meditation and the dhyanas
In this set of notes Vaddhaka takes a more detailed look at meditation, at the dhyanas, and at the five hindrances of sensual desire, ill-will, dullness or drowsiness or sloth and torpor, restlessness and anxiety, and sceptical doubt.