Free Buddha Dharma ebook

Mahasatipatthana Sutta
By Venerable Sumedho Thera and Maurice Walshe

This book offers the translation of Mahasatipatthana Sutta of the Digha Nikaya, the long discourses of the Buddha, one of the major collections of texts in the Pali Canon, the authorized noscriptures 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.

Venerable Sumedho Thera writes in his "[These suttas] are not meant to be 'sacred noscriptures' 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."

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Dhammapada Verse 142
Santati Mahamatta Vatthu

Alankato cepi samam careyya
santo danto niyato brahmacari
sabbesu bhutesu nidhaya dandam
so bramano so samano sa bhikkhu.1

Verse 142: Though he is gaily decked, if he is calm, free from moral defilements, and has his senses controlled, if he is established in Magga Insight, if he is pure and has laid aside enmity (lit., weapons) towards all beings, he indeed is a brahmana, a samana, and a bhikkhu.

1. According to the Commentary, in this context, brahmana, samana, and bhikkhu are all arahats.

The Story of Santati the Minister

While residing at the Jetavana monastery, the Buddha uttered Verse (142) of this book, with reference to Santati, the minister of King Pasenadi of Kosala.

On one occasion, Santati the minister returned after suppressing a rebellion on the border. King Pasenadi was so pleased with him that he honoured the minister with the gift of the riches and glory of a ruler together with a dancing girl to entertain him for seven days. For seven days, the king's minister enjoyed himself to his heart's content, getting intoxicated with drink and infatuated with the young dancer. On the seventh day, riding the ornamented royal elephant, he went down to the riverside for a bath. On the way, he met the Buddha going on an alms-round, and being drunk, he just bowed casually, as a sign of respect to the Buddha. The Buddha smiled, and Ananda asked the Buddha why he smiled. So, the Buddha said to Ananda, "Ananda, this minister will come to see me this very day and after I have given him a short discourse will become an arahat. Soon after becoming an arahat he will realize parinibbana."

Santati and his party spent the whole day at the riverside, bathing, eating, drinking and thus thoroughly enjoying themselves. In the evening the minister and his party went to the garden to have more drinks and to be entertained by the dancer. The dancer, on her part, tried her best to entertain the minister. For the whole week she was living on reduced diet to keep herself trim. While dancing, she suffered a severe stroke and collapsed, and at that instant she died with her eyes and mouth wide open. The minister was shocked and deeply distressed. In agony, he tried to think of a refuge and remembered the Buddha. He went to the Buddha, accompanied by his followers, and related to him about the grief and anguish he suffered on account of the sudden death of the dancer. He then said to the Buddha, "Venerable Sir! Please help me get over my sorrow; be my refuge, and let me have the peace of mind." To him the Buddha replied, "Rest assured my son, you have come to one, who could help you, One who could be a constant solace to you and who will be your refuge. The tears you have shed due to the death of this dancer throughout the round of rebirths is more than the waters of all the oceans." The Buddha then instructed the minister in verse. The meaning of the verse is as follows.

"In the past there has been in you clinging (upadana) due to craving; get rid of it. In future, do not let such clinging occur in you. Do not also harbour any clinging in the present; by not having any clinging, craving and passion will be calmed in you and you will realize Nibbana."

After hearing the verse, the minister attained arahatship. Then, realizing that his life span was at an end, he said to the Buddha, "Venerable Sir! Let me now realize parinibbana, for my time has come." The Buddha consenting, Santati rose to a height of seven toddy-palms into the sky and there, while meditating on the element of fire (tejo kasina), he passed away realizing parinibbana. His body went up in flames, his blood and flesh burnt up and the bone relics (dhatu) fell through the sky and dropped on the clean piece of cloth which was spread by the bhikkhus as instructed by the Buddha.

At the congregation, the bhikkhus asked the Buddha, "Venerable Sir! The minister had realized parinibbana dressed in full regalia; is he a samana on a brahmana?" To them, the Buddha replied "Bhikkhus! My son can be called both a samana and a brahmana."

Then the Buddha spoke in verse as follows:
Verse 142: Though he is gaily decked, if he is calm, free from moral defilements, and has his senses controlled, if he is established in Magga Insight, if he is pure and has laid aside enmity (lit., weapons) towards all beings, he indeed is a brahmana, a samana, and a bhikkhu.

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A smaller replica of Borobudur temple at Arama Brahmavihara Buddhist monastery, north Bali, Indonesia.

Dhammapada Verses 143 and 144
Pilotikatissatthera Vatthu

Hirinisedho puriso
koci lokasmi vijjati
yo niddam apabodheti
asso bhadro kasamiva.

Asso yatha bhadro kasanivittho
atapino samvegino bhavatha
saddhaya silena ca viriyena ca
samadhina dhammavinicchayena1 ca
sampannavijjacarana patissata
jahissatha dukkhamidam anappakam.

Verse 143: Rare in this world is the kind of person who out of a sense of shame restrains from doing evil and keeps himself awake like a good horse that gives no cause to be whipped.

Verse 144: Like a good horse stirred at a touch of the whip, be diligent and get alarmed by endless round of rebirths (i.e., samsara). By faith, morality, effort, concentration, discernment of the Dhamma, be endowed with knowledge and practice of morality, and with mindfulness, leave this immeasurable dukkha (of samsara) behind.

1. dhammavinicchayena (dhamma + vinicchaya): discernment of the Dharnma or Law. It is explained by the Commentary as karanakarana jananam, knowing right and wrong causes of things.

The Story of Thera Pilotikatissa

While residing at the Jetavana monastery, the Buddha uttered Verses (143) and (144) of this book, with reference to Thera Pilotikatissa.

Once, Thera Ananda saw a shabbily dressed youth going round begging for food; he felt pity for the youth and made him a samanera. The young samanera left his old clothes and his begging plate on the fork of a tree. When he became a bhikkhu he was known as Pilotikatissa. As a bhikkhu, he did not have to worry about food and clothing as he was in affluent circumstances. Yet, sometimes he did not feel happy in his life as a bhikkhu and thought of going back to the life of a lay man. Whenever he had this feeling, he would go back to that tree where he had left his old clothes and his plate. There, at the foot of the tree, he would put this question to himself, "Oh shameless one! Do you want to leave the place where you are fed well and dressed well? Do you still want to put on these shabby clothes and go begging again with this old plate in your hand?" Thus, he would rebuke himself, and after calming down, he would go back to the monastery.

After two or three days, again, he felt like leaving the monastic life of a bhikkhu, and again, he went to the tree where he kept his old clothes and his plate. After asking himself the same old question and having been reminded of the wretchedness of his old life, he returned to the monastery. This was repeated many times. When other bhikkhus asked him why he often went to the tree where he kept his old clothes and his plate, he told them that he went to see his teacher.* Thus keeping his mind on his old clothes as the subject of meditation, he came to realize the true nature of the aggregates of the khandhas (i.e., anicca, dukkha, anatta), and eventually he became an arahat. Then, he stopped going to the tree. Other bhikkhus noticing that Pilotikatissa had stopped going to the tree where he kept his old clothes and his plate asked him, "Why don't you go to your teacher any more?" To them, he answered, "When I had the need, I had to go to him; but there is no need for me to go to him now." When the bhikkhus heard his reply, they took him to see the Buddha. When they came to his presence they said, "Venerable Sir! This bhikkhu claims that he has attained arahatship; he must be telling lies." But the Buddha refuted them, and said, "Bhikkhus! Pilotikatissa is not telling lies, he speaks the truth. Though he had relationship with his teacher previously, now he has no relationship whatsoever with his teacher. Thera Pilotikatissa has instructed himself to differentiate right and wrong causes and to discern the true nature of things. He has now become an arahat, and so there is no further connection between him and his teacher."

Then the Buddha spoke in Verse as follows:

Verse 143: Rare in this world is the kind of person who out of a sense of shame restrains from doing evil and keeps himself awake like a good horse that gives no cause to be whipped.


Verse 144: Like a good horse stirred at a touch of the whip, be diligent and get alarmed by endless round of rebirths (i.e., samsara). By faith, morality, effort, concentration, discernment of the Dhamma, be endowed with knowledge and practice of morality, and with mindfulness, leave this immeasurable dukkha (of samsara) behind.

*teacher: here refers to Pilotika's old clothes and his begging plate; they are like a teacher to him because they imbued him with a deep sense of shame and put him on the right track.

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What Love Is

On the spiritual path, there’s nothing to get, and everything to get rid of. The first thing to let go of is trying to “get” love, and instead to give it wholeheartedly.
By Ayya Khema


Born in Berlin of Jewish parents in 1923, Ayya Khema [1923-1997] escaped Nazi Germany in 1938 with a transport of 200 children to Glasgow. She joined her parents two years later in Shanghai, where, with the outbreak of war, the family was put into a Japanese POW camp, in which her father died.

Four years after her camp was liberated, Ayya Khema emigrated to the United States, where she married and had two children. While traveling in Asia from 1960 to 1964, she learned meditation and in 1975, began to teach. Three years later she established Wat Buddha Dhamma, a forest monastery in the Theravada tradition near Sydney, Australia. In 1979 she was ordained as a Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka. She served as the spiritual director of BuddhaHaus in Oy-Mittleberg, Germany, which she established. She has written numerous books in English and German, including Being Nobody, Going Nowhere (Wisdom Publications) and When the Iron Eagle Flies (Penguin Books).

Most people are under the impression that they can think out their lives. But that’s a misconception. We are subject to our emotions and think in ways based on our emotions. So it’s extremely important to do something about our emotions. In the same way as the Buddha gave us the Four Supreme Efforts for the mind, he also outlined the Four Emotions for the heart. The Four Supreme Efforts for the mind are (1) not to let an unwholesome thought arise which has not yet arisen, (2) not to let an unwholesome thought continue which has already arisen, (3) to make a wholesome thought arise which has not yet arisen, (4) to make a wholesome thought continue which has already arisen. The Four Emotions—lovingkindness (metta), compassion (karuna), joy with others (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha)—are called the “divine abodes.” When we have perfected these four, we have heaven on earth, paradise in our own heart. I think everybody knows that above us is the sky and not heaven. We have heaven and hell within us and can experience this quite easily. So even without having complete concentration in meditation and profound insights, the Four Divine Abidings, or Supreme Emotions, enable us to live on a level of truth and lovingness, security, and certainty, which gives life a totally different quality. When we are able to arouse love in our hearts without any cause, just because love is the heart’s quality, we feel secure. It is impossible to buy security, even though many people would like to do so. Insurance companies have the largest buildings because people try to buy security. But when we create certainty within, through a loving heart, we feel assured that our reactions and feelings are not going to be detrimental to our own or other people’s happiness. Many fears will vanish.

Metta—the first of the Supreme Emotions—is usually translated as “loving kindness.” But loving-kindness doesn’t have the same impact in English that the word love has, which carries a lot of meaning for us. We have many ideas about love. The most profound thought we have about love, which is propagated in novels, movies, and billboards, is the idea that love exists between two people who are utterly compatible, usually young and pretty, and who for some odd reason have a chemical attraction toward each other—none of which can last. Most people find out during the course of their lifetime that this is a myth, that it doesn’t work that way. Most people then think it’s their own fault or the other person’s fault or the fault of both, and they try a new relationship. After the third, fourth, or fifth try, they might know better; but a lot of people are still trying. That’s usually what’s called love in our society.

In reality, love is a quality of our heart. The heart has no other function. If we were aware that we all contain love within us, and that we can foster and develop it, we would certainly give that far more attention than we do. In all developed societies there are institutions to foster the expansion of the mind, from the age of three until death. But we don’t have any institutions to develop the heart, so we have to do it ourselves.

Most people are either waiting for or relating to the one person who makes it possible for them to feel love at last. But that kind of love is beset with fear, and fear is part of hate. What we hate is the idea that this special person may die, walk away, have other feelings and thoughts—in other words, the fear that love may end, because we believe that love is situated strictly in that one person. Since there are six billion people on this planet, this is rather absurd. Yet most people think that our love-ability is dependent upon one person and having that one person near us. That creates the fear of loss, and love beset by fear cannot be pure. We create a dependency upon that person, and on his or her ideas and emotions. There is no freedom in that, no freedom to love. If we see quite clearly that love is a quality that we all have, then we can start developing that ability. Any skill that we have, we have developed through practice. If we’ve learned to type, we’ve had to practice. We can practice love and eventually we’ll have that skill.

Love has nothing to do with finding somebody who is worth loving, or checking out people to see whether they are truly lovable. If we investigate ourselves honestly enough, we find that we’re not all that lovable either, so why do we expect somebody else to be totally lovable? It has nothing to do with the qualities of the other person, or whether he or she wants to be loved, is going to love us back, or needs love. Everyone needs love. Because we know our own faults, when somebody loves us we think, Oh, that’s great, this person loves me and doesn’t even know I have all these problems. We’re looking for somebody to love us to support a certain image of ourselves. If we can’t find anybody, we feel bereft. People even get depressed or search for escape routes. These are wrong ways of going at it.

On the spiritual path, there’s nothing to get, and everything to get rid of. Obviously, the first thing to let go of is trying to “get” love, and instead to give it. That’s the secret of the spiritual path. One has to give oneself wholeheartedly. Whatever we do half heartedly, brings halfhearted results. How can we give ourselves? By not holding back. By not wanting for ourselves. If we want to be loved, we are looking for a support system. If we want to love, we are looking for spiritual growth.

Disliking others is far too easy. Anybody can do it and justify it because, of course, people are often not very bright and don’t act the way we’d like them to act. Disliking makes grooves in the heart, and it becomes easier and easier to fall into these grooves. We not only dislike others, but also ourselves. If one likes or loves oneself, it’s easier to love others, which is why we always start loving-kindness meditations with the focus on ourselves. That’s not egocentricity. If we don’t like ourselves because we have faults, or have made mistakes, we will transfer that dislike to others and judge them accordingly. We are not here to be judge and jury. First of all, we don’t even have the qualifications. It’s also a very unsatisfactory job, doesn’t pay, and just makes people unhappy.


People often feel that it’s necessary to be that way to protect themselves. But what do we need to protect ourselves from? We have to protect our bodies from injury. Do we have to protect ourselves from love? We are all in this together, living on this planet at the same time, breathing the same air. We all have the same limbs, thoughts, and emotions. The idea that we are separate beings is an illusion.

If we practice meditation diligently with perseverance, then one day we’ll get over this illusion of separation. Meditation makes it possible to see the totality of all manifestation. There is one creation and we are all part of it. What can we be afraid of? We are afraid to love ourselves, afraid to love creation, afraid to love others because we know negative things about ourselves. Knowing that we do things wrong, that we have unhappy or unwholesome thoughts, is no reason not to love. A mother who loves her children doesn’t stop loving them when they act silly or unpleasant. Small children have hundreds of unwholesome thoughts a day and give voice to them quite loudly. We have them too, but we do not express them all. So, if a mother can love a child who is making difficulties for her, why can’t we love ourselves?

Loving oneself and knowing oneself are not the same thing. Love is the warmth of the heart, the connectedness, the protection, the caring, the concern, the embrace that comes from acceptance and understanding for oneself. Having practiced that, we are in a much better position to practice love toward others. They are just as unlovable as we are, and they have just as many unwholesome thoughts. But that doesn’t matter. We are not judge and jury. When we realize that we can actually love ourselves, there is a feeling of being at ease. We don’t constantly have to become or pretend, or strive to be somebody. We can just be. It’s nice to just be, and not be “somebody.” Love makes that possible. By the same token, when we relate to other people, we can let them just be and love them. We all have daily opportunities to practice this. It’s a skill, like any other.


Ayya Khema (1923–1997) was an international Buddhist teacher, and the first Western woman to become a Theravada Buddhist nun. An advocate of Buddhist women's rights, in 1987 she helped coordinate the first conference for the Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women in Bodh Gaya, India.

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Free Buddha Dharma ebook

The Anattalakkhana Sutta
By Mahasi Sayadaw Gyi

The Anattalakkhana Sutta was the Second* Sermon of Lord Buddha delivered after His Enlightenment at Sarnath, Benares, India, to five Bikkhus (monks) who had already become Sottapan (Stream- Winner) after listening to Dhammacakka Sutta preached by Lord Buddha on full moon day of Waso, 589 BC. The five Bikkhus finally attained Arahatship, having heard this Second Sermon delivered on 5th waning Day of Waso. This Sutta in Pali just covered only one page in the original book published by the Sixth Buddhist Synod.


However when Mahasi Sayadawgyi delivered this Sermon with detailed explanations on methods of Vipassana meditation, at the Mahasi Meditation Centre, Yangon, it took 12 Sabbath days starting from 30th , May 1963 and ending on 10th September 1963 to complete. (* Third sermon if Hemavata Sutta is counted) This Sermon by Mahasi Sayadawgyi was taperecorded, transcribed and finally edited and summarised, by himself, and put into book form and published in August 1977. Since then, there had been five Editions up to now.


For the benefit of foreign yogis, this discourse had been translated into English by U Ko Lay (Zeya Maung), and the Foreword of Wetlet-Masoyein Sayadaw U Teiktha was translated by U Min Swe (Min Kyaw Thu) and the translated text was published in 1983.


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Dhammapada Verse 145
Sukhasamanera Vatthu

Udakam hi nayanti nettika
usukara namayanti tejanam
darum namayanti tacchaka
attanam damayanti subbata.

Verse 145: Farmers1 channel the water; fletchers straighten the arrows; carpenters work the timber; the wise tame themselves.

1. Farmers: lit., makers of irrigation canals.

The Story of Samanera* Sukha

While residing at the Jetavana monastery, the Buddha uttered Verse (145) of this book, with reference to a samanera named Sukha.

Sukha was made a samanera at the age of seven years by Thera Sariputta. On the eighth day after being made a samanera he followed Thera Sariputta on his alms-round. While doing the round they came across some farmers irrigating their fields, some fletchers straightening their arrows and some carpenters making things like cart-wheels, etc. Seeing these, he asked Thera Sariputta whether these inanimate things could be guided to where one wished or be made into things one wished to make, and the thera answered him in the affirmative. The young samanera then pondered that if that were so, there could be no reason why a person could not tame his mind and practise Tranquillity and Insight Meditation.

So, he asked permission from the thera to return to the monastery. There, he shut himself up in his room and practised meditation in solitude, Sakka and the devas also helped him in his practice by keeping the monastery very quiet. That same day, the eighth day after his becoming a samanera, Sukha attained arahatship. In connection with this, the Buddha said to the congregation of bhikkhus, "When a person earnestly practises the Dhamma, even Sakka and the devas give protection and help. I myself have kept Sariputta at the entrance so that Sukha should not be disturbed. The samanera, having seen the farmers irrigating their fields, the fletchers straightening their arrows and the carpenters making cart-wheels and other things, trains his mind and practises the Dhamma. Thus, he has now become an arahat."

Then the Buddha spoke in verse as follows:
Verse 145: Farmers** channel the water; fletchers straighten the arrows; carpenters work the timber; the wise tame themselves.
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