Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi: Reading the Buddha’s Discourses in Pali (#161)

This Wisdom Podcast filmed as a live Wisdom Dharma Chat features special guest Venerable Bhikku Bodhi. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Buddhist monk from New York City, born in 1944. He obtained a BA in philosophy from Brooklyn College and a PhD in philosophy from Claremont Graduate School. After completing his university studies he traveled to Sri Lanka, where he received novice ordination in 1972 and full ordination in 1973, both under the leading Sri Lankan scholar-monk, Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya (1896-1998). 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 Thera (1901-1994), at the Forest Hermitage. He returned to the U.S. in 2002. He currently lives and teaches at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, New York. Ven. Bodhi has many important publications to his credit, either as an author, translator, or editor. These include The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (Majjhima Nikaya, 1995), The Connected Discourses of the Buddha (Samyutta Nikaya, 2000), and The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha (Anguttara Nikaya, 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.  

Venerable and host Daniel Aitken discuss:

• Venerable’s book, Reading the Buddha’s Discourses in Pāli;
• The challenges of translating certain technical terms from Pāli such as words for knowledge and wisdom;
• The relationship between the Pāli suttas and the actual languages that the Buddha may have spoken;
• The benefits of learning Pāli;
• Which words are hardest to translate from Pāli;
• How to memorize Pāli verses;
• And much more.

Links mentioned in the conversations can be found below:

• https://www.buddhistglobalrelief.org/buddhist-action-2020/

• https://www.buddhistglobalrelief.org/donate/

• https://wisdomexperience.org/product/buddhas-words/

• https://wisdomexperience.org/wisdom-article/rebirth-in-early-buddhism-dhammaruwans-story/

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