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Buddhism is practiced by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, from Tibetan caves to Tokyo temples to redwood retreats. To an outside viewer, it might be hard to see what they all have in common. In Buddhism, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and American Buddhist nun Thubten Chodron map out with clarity the convergences and the divergences between the two major strains of Buddhism—the Sanskrit traditions of Tibet and East Asia and the Pali traditions of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Especially deep consideration is given to the foundational Indian traditions and their respective treatment of such central tenets as

• the four noble truths
• the practice of meditation
• the meaning of nirvana
• enlightenment.

The authors seek harmony and greater understanding among Buddhist traditions worldwide, illuminating the rich benefits of respectful dialogue and the many ways that Buddhists of all stripes share a common heritage and common goals.

This engaging and accessible little book is filled with both humor and profound teaching. It presents 108 metaphors for mindfulness, meditation practice, the nature of the self, change, deep acceptance, and other related concepts that Dr. Kozak has cultivated over twenty-five years of meditating, practicing yoga, and working as a clinical psychologist.

Metaphors are indispensable to understanding mindfulness, and to help deeply internalize it and make it a part of everyday life. These mentally catchy images can motivate us to practice, show us how and where to bring mindfulness to life in our personal experience, and help us employ powerful methods for transformation.

This book was previously published under the title Wild Chicken and Petty Tyrants.

The 108 pieces in the international bestseller Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung? offer thoughtful commentary on everything from love and commitment to fear and pain. Drawing from his own life experience, as well as traditional Buddhist folk tales, author Ajahn Brahm uses over thirty years of spiritual growth as a monk to spin delightful tales that can be enjoyed in silence or read aloud to friends and family.

Featuring titles such as “The Two-Finger Smile” and “The Worm and His Lovely Pile of Dung,” these wry and witty stories provide playful, pithy takes on the basic building blocks of everyday life. Suitable for children, adults, and anyone in between, this eloquent volume wraps insight and inspiration inside of a good old yarn.

This book offers a complete translation of the Dīgha Nikāya, the long discourses of the Buddha, one of the major collections of texts in the Pali Canon, the authorized scriptures of Theravada Buddhism. This collection—among the oldest records of the historical Buddha’s original teachings, given in India two and a half thousand years ago—consists of thirty-four longer-length suttas, or discourses, distinguished as such from the middle-length and shorter suttas of the other collections.

These suttas reveal the gentleness, compassion, power, and penetrating wisdom of the Buddha. Included are teachings on mindfulness (Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta); on morality, concentration, and wisdom (Subha Sutta); on dependent origination (Mahānidrāna Sutta); on the roots and causes of wrong views (Brahmajāla Sutta); and a long description of the Buddha’s last days and passing away (Mahāparinibbāna Sutta); along with a wealth of practical advice and insight for all those travelling along the spiritual path.

Venerable Sumedho Thera writes in his foreword: “[These suttas] are not meant to be ‘sacred scriptures’ that tell us what to believe. One should read them, listen to them, think about them, contemplate them, and investigate the present reality, the present experience, with them. Then, and only then, can one insightfully know the truth beyond words.”

Introduced with a vivid account of the Buddha’s life and times and a short survey of his teachings, The Long Discourses of the Buddha brings us closer in every way to the wise and compassionate presence of Gotama Buddha and his path of truth.

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The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy received the Spirituality & Practice Book Award for 50 Best Spiritual Books in 2017 by Spirituality and Practice Website.

The poems expertly gathered here offer all that one might hope for in spiritual companionship: wisdom, compassion, peacefulness, good humor, and the ability to both absorb and express the deepest human emotions of grief and joy. The book includes a short essay on “Mindful Reading” and a meditation on sound from editor John Brehm—helping readers approach the poems from an experiential, non-analytical perspective and enter into the mindful reading of poetry as a kind of meditation.

The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy offers a wide-ranging collection of 129 ancient and modern poems unlike any other anthology on bookshelves today. It uniquely places Buddhist poets like Han Shan, Tu Fu, Saigyo, Ryokan, Basho, Issa, and others alongside modern Western poets one would not expect to find in such a collection—poets like Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, William Stafford, Denise Levertov, Jack Gilbert, Ellen Bass, Billy Collins, and more. What these poems have in common, no matter whether they are explicitly Buddhist, is that all reflect the essential truths the Buddha articulated 2,500 years ago.

The book provides an important poetic complement to the many prose books on mindfulness practice—the poems here both reflect and embody the dharma in ways that can’t be matched by other modes of writing. Its unique features include an introduction that discusses the themes of impermanence, mindfulness, and joy and explores the relationship between them. Biographical notes place the poets in historical context and offer quotes and anecdotes to help readers learn about the poets’ lives.

Listen to a Wisdom Dharma Chat with John and host Daniel Aitken recorded in October 2023.

In Don’t Worry, Be Grumpy, popular author and monk Ajahn Brahm tells humorous and insightful stories that will make you smile and give you another perspective from which to look at life. 

These 108 brief stories, with titles like “The Bad Elephant,” “Girlfriend Power,” and “The Happiness License,” offer up timeless wisdom that will speak to people from all walks of life. Drawing from his own experiences, stories shared by his students, and old chestnuts that he delivers with a fresh twist, Ajahn Brahm shows he knows his way around the humorous parable, delighting even as he surprises us with unexpected depth and inspiration.

Laugh aloud even as you look at life anew with these stories from the bestselling author of Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?

Ajahn Brahm reads a story from Don’t Worry, Be Grumpy:

Like the River Ganges flowing down from the Himalayas, the entire Buddhist tradition flows down to us from the teachings and deeds of the historical Buddha, who lived and taught in India during the fifth century B.C.E. To ensure that his legacy would survive the ravages of time, his direct disciples compiled records of the Buddha’s teachings soon after his passing. In the Theravāda Buddhist tradition, which prevails in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, these records are regarded as the definitive “word of the Buddha.” Preserved in Pāli, an ancient Indian language closely related to the language that the Buddha spoke, this full compilation of texts is known as the Pāli Canon.

At the heart of the Buddha’s teaching were the suttas (Sanskrit sūtras), his discourses and dialogues. If we want to find out what the Buddha himself actually said, these are the most ancient sources available to us. The suttas were compiled into collections called “Nikāyas,” of which there are four, each organized according to a different principle. The Dīgha Nikāya consists of longer discourses; the Majjhima Nikāya of middle-length discourses; the Saṃyutta Nikāya of thematically connected discourses; and the Aṅguttara Nikāya of numerically patterned discourses.

The present volume, which continues Wisdom’s famous Teachings of the Buddha series, contains a full translation of the Aṅguttara Nikāya. The Aṅguttara arranges the Buddha’s discourses in accordance with a numerical scheme intended to promote retention and easy comprehension. In an age when writing was still in its infancy, this proved to be the most effective way to ensure that the disciples could grasp and replicate the structure of a teaching.

In 2013, Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi was awarded the 2013 Khyentse Foundation Prize for Outstanding Translation.

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This volume offers a complete translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, the third of the four great collections in the Sutta Piṭaka of the Pāli Canon. The Saṃyutta Nikāya consists of fifty-six chapters, each governed by a unifying theme that binds together the Buddha’s suttas or discourses. The chapters are organized into five major parts.

The first, The Book with Verses, is a compilation of suttas composed largely in verse. This book ranks as one of the most inspiring compilations in the Buddhist canon, showing the Buddha in his full grandeur as the peerless “teacher of gods and humans.” The other four books deal in depth with the philosophical principles and meditative structures of early Buddhism. They combine into orderly chapters all the important short discourses of the Buddha on such major topics as dependent origination, the five aggregates, the six sense bases, the seven factors of enlightenment, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the Four Noble Truths.

Among the four large Nikāyas belonging to the Pali Canon, the Saṃyutta Nikāya serves as the repository for the many shorter suttas of the Buddha where he discloses his radical insights into the nature of reality and his unique path to spiritual emancipation. This collection, it seems, was directed mainly at those disciples who were capable of grasping the deepest dimensions of wisdom and of clarifying them for others, and also provided guidance to meditators intent on consummating their efforts with the direct realization of the ultimate truth. 

The present work begins with an insightful general introduction to the Saṃyutta Nikāya as a whole. Each of the five parts is also provided with its own introduction, intended to guide the reader through this vast, ocean-like collection of suttas. 

To further assist the reader, the translator has provided an extensive body of notes clarifying various problems concerning both the language and the meaning of the texts. 

Distinguished by its lucidity and technical precision, this new translation makes this ancient collection of the Buddha’s discourses accessible and comprehensible to the thoughtful reader of today. Like its two predecessors in this series, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha is sure to merit a place of honour in the library of every serious student of Buddhism.

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This book offers a complete translation of the Majjhima Nikāya, or Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, one of the major collections of texts in the Pali Canon, the authorized scriptures of Theravāda Buddhism. This collection—among the oldest records of the historical Buddha’s original teachings—consists of 152 suttas or discourses of middle length, distinguished as such from the longer and shorter suttas of the other collections. The Majjhima Nikāya might be concisely described as the Buddhist scripture that combines the richest variety of contextual settings with the deepest and most comprehensive assortment of teachings. These teachings, which range from basic ethics to instructions in meditation and liberating insight, unfold in a fascinating procession of scenarios that show the Buddha in living dialogue with people from many different strata of ancient Indian society: with kings and princes, priests and ascetics, simple villagers and erudite philosophers. Replete with drama, reasoned argument, and illuminating parable and simile, these discourses exhibit the Buddha in the full glory of his resplendent wisdom, majestic sublimity, and compassionate humanity.

The translation is based on an original draft translation left by the English scholar-monk Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli, which has been edited and revised by the American monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, who provides a long introduction and helpful explanatory notes. Combining lucidity of expression with accuracy, this translation enables the Buddha to speak across twenty-five centuries in language that addresses the most pressing concerns of the contemporary reader seeking clarification of the timeless issues of truth, value, and the proper conduct of life.

Winner of the 1995 Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Book Award, and the Tricycle Prize for Excellence in Buddhist Publishing for Dharma Discourse.

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This landmark collection is the definitive introduction to the Buddha’s teachings—in his own words. The American scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, whose voluminous translations have won widespread acclaim, here presents selected discourses of the Buddha from the Pali Canon, the earliest record of what the Buddha taught. Divided into ten thematic chapters, In the Buddha’s Words reveals the full scope of the Buddha’s discourses, from family life and marriage to renunciation and the path of insight. A concise, informative introduction precedes each chapter, guiding the reader toward a deeper understanding of the texts that follow.

In the Buddha’s Words allows even readers unacquainted with Buddhism to grasp the significance of the Buddha’s contributions to our world heritage. Taken as a whole, these texts bear eloquent testimony to the breadth and intelligence of the Buddha’s teachings, and point the way to an ancient yet ever-vital path. Students and seekers alike will find this systematic presentation indispensable.

Learn more about the Teachings of the Buddha series.

In this volume acclaimed scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi has collected and translated the Buddha’s teachings on conflict resolution, interpersonal and social problem-solving, and the forging of harmonious relationships. The selections, all drawn from the Pāli Canon, the earliest record of the Buddha’s discourses, are organized into ten thematic chapters. The chapters deal with such topics as the quelling of anger, good friendship, intentional communities, the settlement of disputes, and the establishing of an equitable society. Each chapter begins with a concise and informative introduction by the translator that guides us toward a deeper understanding of the texts that follow.

In times of social conflict, intolerance, and war, the Buddha’s approach to creating and sustaining peace takes on a new and urgent significance. Even readers unacquainted with Buddhism will appreciate these ancient teachings, always clear, practical, undogmatic, and so contemporary in flavor. The Buddha’s Teachings on Social and Communal Harmony will prove to be essential reading for anyone seeking to bring peace into their communities and into the wider world.

Includes a prologue and epilogue by Hozan Alan Senauke.

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“People ask me how to practice mindfulness in daily life—this journal answers that question.”
—Bhante Gunaratana

Discover the transformative power of mindfulness—in your own words. Based on the classic bestseller Mindfulness in Plain English, Bhante Gunaratana offers compassionate guidance and the space to explore meditation in your own life.

Explore your insights and keep track of your emotional life without judgment, and begin to change the stories you tell about yourself. Includes a brief introduction to meditation so anyone can get started right away, as well as mindfulness tips and inspiring quotes.

“A masterpiece.”
—Jon Kabat-Zinn

Since Mindfulness in Plain English was first published in 1994, it has become one of the bestselling — and most influential — books in the field of mindfulness. It’s easy to see why.

Author Bhante Gunaratana, a renowned meditation master, takes us step by step through the myths, realities, and benefits of meditation and the practice of mindfulness. The book showcases Bhante G’s trademark clarity and wit, as he explores the tool of meditation, what it does, and how to make it work.

This expanded edition includes the complete text of its predecessor along with a new chapter on cultivating loving kindness, an especially important topic in today’s world. For anyone who is new to meditation, this is a great resource for learning how to live a more productive and peaceful life.

A perennial favorite, Great Disciples of the Buddha is now relaunched in our best-selling Teachings of the Buddha series.

Twenty-four of the Buddha’s most distinguished disciples are brought to life in ten chapters of rich narration. Drawn from a wide range of authentic Pāli sources, the material in these stories has never before been assembled in a single volume. Through these engaging tales, we meet all manner of human beings—rich, poor, male, female, young, old—whose unique stories are told with an eye to the details of ordinary human concerns. When read with careful attention, these stories can sharpen our understanding of the Buddhist path by allowing us to contemplate the living portraits of the people who fulfilled the early Buddhist ideals of human perfection. The characters detailed include:

• Sāriputta
• Nandā
• Mahāmoggallāna
• Mahākassapa
• Ānanda
• Isidāsī
• Anuruddha
• Mahākaccāna
• Aṅgulimāla
• Visākhā
• and many more.

Conveniently annotated with the same system of sutta references used in each of the other series volumes, Great Disciples of the Buddha allows the reader to easily place each student in the larger picture of Buddha’s life. It is a volume that no serious student of Buddhism should miss.

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Wisdom Wide and Deep is a comprehensive guide to an in-depth training that emphasizes the application of concentrated attention (jhana) to profound and liberating insight (vipassana). With calm, tranquility, and composure established through a practical experience of jhana meditators are able to halt the seemingly endless battle against hindrances, eliminate distraction, and facilitate a penetrative insight into the subtle nature of matter and mind. It was for this reason the Buddha frequently exhorted his students,

Wisdom Wide and Deep follows and amplifies the teachings in Shaila Catherine’s acclaimed first book, Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity. Readers will learn to develop this profound stability, sustain an in-depth examination of the nuances of mind and matter, and ultimately unravel deeply conditioned patterns that perpetuate suffering. This fully detailed manual for the mind sure to become a trusted companion to many inner explorers.

Arinna Weisman and Jean Smith combine clear explanations of the Buddha’s teachings on freedom and happiness with their personal stories highlighting some of the challenges and insights of practice. The Beginner’s Guide to Insight Meditation offers advice about going on retreat and help in choosing a teacher and a community to practice with. This is an enormously practical book that covers every aspect of the teachings a beginner needs to get started.

Landscapes of Wonder deftly transports the spirit of Buddhist contemplation off the cushion and into the natural world. With a lyricism and spiritual immediacy reminiscent of Thoreau and Emerson, in eighteen meditational essays Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano considers Buddhist themes through the prism of nature. The reflections captured in these satisfying literary explorations will appeal to all who appreciate contemplation of the natural world and our place in it.

It may seem odd for emptiness to serve as the central philosophy of a major religion. In fact, emptiness points to something quite different than “nothingness” or “vacancy.” And by developing a richer understanding of this complex topic, we can experience freedom as we live consciously in the world.

Guy Armstrong has been a leading figure and beloved teacher of insight meditation for decades. In this book, he makes difficult Buddhist topics easy to understand, weaving together Theravada and Mahayana teachings on emptiness to show how we can liberate our minds and manifest compassion in our lives.

Runner-up for 2017 Shantarakshita Award for Excellence in Translation from the Tsadra Foundation

The “stages of the teachings” or tenrim genre of Tibetan spiritual writing expounds the Mahayana Buddhist teachings as a systematic progression, from the practices required at the start of the bodhisattva’s career to the final perfect awakening of buddhahood. The texts in the present volume each exerted seminal influence in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The first text, The Blue Compendium, presents the instructions of the Kadam teacher Potowa (1027/31–1105) as recorded by his student Dölpa (1059–1131). This verse work is followed by Gampopa’s (1079–1153) revered Ornament of Precious Liberation, which remains the most authoritative text on the path to enlightenment within the Kagyü school with its extensive quotations from the Indian scriptures. The final selection is Clarifying the Sage’s Intent, a masterwork by the preeminent sage of the Sakya tradition, Sakya Paṇḍita (1182–1251).

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This book is a history of the genesis and development of the mandala from the fifth and sixth centuries, when the mandala first appeared in India, to the eleventh century, when the Kalacakratantra appeared just before the disappearance of Buddhism in India. The 600 years of Indian esoteric Buddhism that concluded the 1,700-year history of Indian Buddhism could be said to have been the history of the development of the mandala. (The Kalacakratantra integrated earlier mandala theories into a single system and established a monumental system unprecedented in the history of esoteric Buddhism. It was thus the culmination of the development of Indian Buddhism over a period of 1,700 years.) The analysis is at the micro level and includes numerous illustrations and charts. Particular attention is paid to proper names, mudras, and mantras that have been overlooked by scholars in philosophy and doctrine, and the author tackles issues that cannot be explained solely from a historical viewpoint, such as geometric patterns, the arrangement of deities, the colors, and their meaning in Buddhist doctrine.