Adam S. Miller
Bhikku Bodhi, In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon
(Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2005).
Bhikku Bodhi is the foremost living authority in the English speaking world on primary source materials in the Pali Canon of Buddhist scriptures. This anthology offers an excellent sampling of sermons attributed to the Buddha himself on a wide range of topics from meditation techniques to rules of monastic life to ways of life appropriate for householders.
Mathieu Boisvert, The Five Aggregates: Understanding Thervada Psychology and
Soteriology, (Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1995).
Boisvert’s book is an academic treatment that survey’s the meaning and usage throughout the Pali canon of each of the “five aggregates” – matter, feeling, cognition, mental formations, and consciousness – that constitute human experience. He argues that the
Buddha’s treatment of the five aggregates should be understood in the context of his twelve point treatment of interdependent arising. If so, then the soteriological importance of the five aggregates becomes clear.
Buddhadasa Bhikku, Mindfulness with Breathing: A Manual for Serious Beginners, trans.
Santikaro Bhikku (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1997).
Buddhadasa (1906-1993) is perhaps the most influential Buddhist teacher in the history of
Thailand. This book offers a practical commentary on the Buddha’s Anapanasati Sutta. It addresses in detail each of the four tetrads that mark the different aspects of experience to be meditatively explored through an awareness of the breath. This path culminates in a keen awareness of the three universal characteristics of experience: impermanence, suffering, and selflessness.
S. N. Goenka, The Discourse Summaries (Onalaska: Pariyatti Publishing, 2000).
Goenka is a contemporary, Burmese lay teacher of vipassana meditation techniques in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin. This book collects a series of discourses meant to introduce beginning students to the basics of vipassana, beginning with exercises that focus one’s concentration and concluding with exercises for systematically examining the contents of one’s embodied experience of the world.

Daniel Ingram, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: A Seriously Hardcore Dharma
Book (London: Aeon Books, 2008).
Ingram is a contemporary Western teacher and practicing physician. He argues that
“enlightenment” – i.e., awakening to the world in a profoundly liberating and reoriented way – is possible for ordinary people in the present day. He offers extensive, phenomenologically detailed descriptions of the various identifiable stages along the path to awakening and ties these descriptions back to canonical Buddhist texts.
Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life
(New York: Bantam, 1993).
Kornfield is a contemporary Western teacher in the Insight Meditation tradition. His book offers an encyclopedic treatment of the various elements of the spiritual path outlined by Theravadan Buddhism. His commentary is especially valuable in its ability to connect classical Buddhist ideas with the everyday content of contemporary life.
Barry Magid, Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide (Boston: Wisdom Publications,
2008).
Magid is a practicing psychoanalyst and a contemporary Western Zen teacher in the
“Ordinary Mind School” of Zen. This book explores how our constant dissatisfaction with reality and our never-ending pursuit of happiness blind us to the reality of ordinary lived experience of the world and, thus, perpetuate suffering. Meditation practices like zazen,
“just sitting,” are meant to cultivate the patient and penetrating insight needed in order to stop chasing our own tails in pursuit something “better.”
Barry Magid, Ordinary Mind: Exploring the Common Ground of Zen and Psychoanalysis
(Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2005).
In this book, Magid examines the practical overlap between Zen and psychoanalytic approaches to the problem of human suffering. He looks at how these practices dovetail in their cultivation of a persistently interrogative frame of mind. He also notes that the differing strengths and weaknesses of these two approaches can effectively complement one another when jointly pursued.
Bhikku Nanamoli, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the
Majjhima Nikaya (Somerville: Wisdom Publications, 1995).
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This is a complete translation of the most important of the collections of primary texts in the Pali canon. At over a thousand pages, it offers a wealth of material on a wide range of topics addressed by the Buddha. In particular, it collects foundational discourses on the four noble truths, the eight-fold path, and interdependent arising.
Sayadaw U. Pandita, In This Very Life: The Liberation Teachings of the Buddha (Boston:
Wisdom Publications, 1995).
Sayadaw U. Pandita is a 20 th century, Buddhist teacher from Burma. The book covers basic vipassana meditation practices, identifies key stages on the path to awakening, and offers especially useful descriptions of a meditation practice known as “noting” in which, against a background of focused awareness, one simply and systematically “notes” every phenomenon that comes to one’s attention.
Larry Rosenberg, Breath by Breath: The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation (Boston:
Shambhala, 2004).
Rosenberg is a contemporary, Western author and resident teacher at the Cambridge
Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This books lays out a detailed reading of the Anapansati Sutta, a crucial discourse that explains the Buddha’s step by step approach to achieving deep insight into all aspects of experience through a deep awareness of breathing.
Nyanaponika Thera, The Heart of Buddhist Meditation: A Handbook of Mental Training
Based on the Buddha’s Way of Mindfulness (San Francisco: Weiser Books, 1996).
Nyanaponika Thera’s book is a classic Western exposition of basic Theravadan meditation practices. The book describes a meditative path that is framed by the Buddha’s own
Satipatthana Sutta. This sutta describes the work of meditative insight as unfolding in four areas: body, feeling, state of mind, and mental contents.
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