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The renowned translator Bhikkhu Bodhi has crafted this anthology of suttas from the Samyutta Nikaya to enable students of Early Buddhism to penetrate into the heart of the Buddha’s teachings on the four noble truths and the eightfold path as directly and clearly as possible. The aim is to attain direct insight into foundational Buddhist teachings on liberation.Brilliantly translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi, this anthology of suttas from the Samyutta Nikaya takes us straight to the heart of the Buddha’s teaching on liberation through the four noble truths and the noble eightfold path—the two mainstays of Buddhist doctrine that illuminate the nature of things by generating direct insight into the teachings. These suttas all pertain to the ultimate good, the attainment of nibbana, or liberation. They illuminate the Buddha’s radical diagnosis of the human condition—and more broadly, the condition of all sentient existence—in light of the four noble truths. They underscore the pervasive flaws inherent in the round of rebirths, trace our existential predicament to its deepest roots, and lay out the path to unraveling our bondage and winning irreversible release. Ven. Bodhi arranged the chapters, each with its own introduction, to provide an overview of the Dhamma that mirrors the four noble truths, thus enabling students of Early Buddhism to see into the heart of the Buddha’s teachings as directly and clearly as possible.
About the author
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Buddhist monk from New York City. After completing his PhD in philosophy he traveled to Sri Lanka, where he received full ordination in 1973, both under the leading Sri Lankan scholar-monk Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya Mahanayaka Thera. From 1984 to 2002 he was the editor for the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy, where he lived for ten years with the senior German monk Ven. Nyanaponika Mahathera at the Forest Hermitage. He currently lives and teaches at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, New York. Ven. Bodhi has many important publications to his credit, either as author, translator, or editor. These include
The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha 1995,
The Connected Discourses of the Buddha 2000, and
The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha 2012. In 2008, together with several of his students, Ven. Bodhi founded Buddhist Global Relief, a nonprofit supporting hunger relief, sustainable agriculture, and education in countries suffering from chronic poverty and malnutrition.
