The Bodhidharma Anthology – Earliest Records of Zen Buddhism

The Bodhidharma Anthology – Earliest Records of Zen Buddhism by Broughton, Jeffrey L. There exists only two book-length English language translations of Bodhidharma’s teachings: The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma translated by Red Pine and Broughton’s The Bodhidharma Anthology.Both volumes are valuable for understanding Zen (C’han) as taught by Bodhidarma, the first Zen Patriarch in China. The [...]

Developing Balanced Sensitivity – Practical Buddhist Exercises for Daily Life by Alexander Berzin

Developing Balanced Sensitivity - Practical Buddhist Exercises for Daily Life by Alexander Berzin. Achieving emotional balance, for example, or maintaining healthy relationships is never easy. We make these challenges even more difficult than is necessary, however, for a variety of reasons. Among them are lacking sensitivity in certain situations and overreacting in others. Although Buddha taught many [...]

Zen Master Ejo Absorption in the Treasury of Light

Zen Master Ejo’s Absorption in the Treasury of Light is a much appraised comment on the classic Zen work Shobogenzo. Master Ejo, who lived between 1198 and 1282, wrote this piece to clarify what he understood to be the true meaning of some passages of the Shobogenzo. His comments centers around his understanding that the essential substance of [...]

Krishnamurti: Krishnamurti’s Journal

In September 1973 Krishnamurti started keeping a journal. For nearly six weeks he made daily entries in a notebook. For the first month of that period he was staying at Brockwood Park, Hampshire, and for the rest of the time in Rome. He resumed the journal  eighteen months later while in California. Nearly every entry starts with a description [...]

The Book of Gates and the Am-Tuat by E. A. Wallis Budge

The Book of Gates and Hell Am-Tuat are the Ancient Egyptian cosmological treatises describing the architecture and inhabitants of the Tuat, the underworld which the boat of the Sun God, Ra, traverses during the night hours. The Book of Gates describes the passage of a newly deceased soul into the next world, corresponding to the journey of the sun [...]

Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond – A Meditators Handbook

Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond – A Meditators Handbook by Ajahn Bram.  Ajahn Brahm is among a new generation of Westerners who have studied, practiced, and mastered an important range of Buddhist teachings and now offer them to sincere practitioners across the modern world. In Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond you will find a thorough set of [...]

Sri Aurobindo VOL 21-22 – The Life Divine

The Life Divine consists of volume 21 and 22 of the complete works of Sri Aurobindo. The Life Divine first appeared serially in the monthly review Arya between August 1914 and January 1919. Each instalment was written immediately before its publication. In 1939 and1940 Sri Aurobindo revised The Life Divine for book publication. The first volume [...]

The Seven Stages of Purification and The Insight Knowledges

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 [...]

The Perfections Leading to Enlightenment by Sujin Boriharnwanaket

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: “During the lifespan that we can do so, we should develop each [...]

The Peaceful Stillness of the Silent Mind – Buddhism, Mind and Meditation

The Peaceful Stillness of the Silent Mind – Buddhism, Mind and Meditation.The six Buddhist teachings contained herein come from Tibetan Lama Yeshe’s 1975 visit to Australia. The first three are a series of consecutive evening lectures Lama gave at Melbourne University. By the third night he thought people had heard enough talk and instead offered [...]

The Queen of Sheeba – Kebra Nagast or The Glory of Kings

This volume contains an English translation of the famous Ethiopian work, Kebra Nagast, The Glory Of Kings. This book has been held in the highest honour in Ethiopia for several centuries and has been, and still is, venerated by the people as containing the final proof of their descent from the Hebrew Patriarchs, and of [...]

Ego, Attachment and Liberation by Lama Yeshe

Ego, Attachment and Liberation with the subtitle Overcoming your Mental Bureaucracy – a five-day Meditation Course by Lama Yeshe is a detailed guide to handling the obstacles during retreats and more advanced meditation techniques. At the same time Lama Yeshe presents and explains his own thoughts on concepts such as karma: Every time your ego [...]

The Buddha-Carita or The Life of Buddha by Aevaghosa

The Buddha-Carita, or The Life of Buddha by Aevaghosa edited and translated by Edward B. Cowell is the original biography of the Buddha. The text is translated directly from sanskrift scriptures written in the fifth century. From the translators foreword: The Buddha-carita was translated into Chinese by Dharmarakùa in the fifth century, and a translation of this was [...]

Yoga Vasishta Maha Ramayana

The Brihat (the great) Yoga Vasishta or Yoga Vasishta Maha Ramayana as it is also called, is a work of about 32,000 Sanskrit couplets, traditionally attributed to Valmiki, the author of Srimad Ramayana. It is a dialogue between Sage Vasishta and Sri Rama, during which Advaita (the doctrine of non-duality) in its pure form of [...]

I am Unborn by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

I am Unborn consists of notes taken during the meetings with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, by Mr. Damodar Lund, between Nov 1979 and Feb 1980, composed by Vijayendra Deshpande, edited by Pradeep Apte. The books is arranged as a question and answer in 54 chapters. Download it here (130 pages): I Am Unborn – Talks with [...]