Is Bodhi's "Buddha's Words" A Good Overview?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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Jhana4
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Is Bodhi's "Buddha's Words" A Good Overview?

Post by Jhana4 »

I'm interested in opinions form people who have read both the anthology by Bhikkhu Bodhi "In The Buddha's Words and the entire Tripitaka.

If you have, would say Bodhi's anthology is a good overview of the Tripitaka. By that, I mean,

- does Bodhi give you all of the essential messages of Buddhism?
- does Bodhi give you a fair representation of what you will find in the full body of work; the good, the bad and the ugly?
- do you think there are pivotal suttas Bodhi left out, the messages of which are not covered in the suttas he included?


Thanks in advance.
In reading the scriptures, there are two kinds of mistakes:
One mistake is to cling to the literal text and miss the inner principles.
The second mistake is to recognize the principles but not apply them to your own mind, so that you waste time and just make them into causes of entanglement.
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mikenz66
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Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: Is Bodhi's "Buddha's Words" A Good Overview?

Post by mikenz66 »

Hi Jhana4,
Jhana4 wrote: If you have, would say Bodhi's anthology is a good overview of the Tripitaka.
I'm a little confused by this question. Since it's a collection of Suttas, by definition it doesn't cover the Vinaya and the Abdhidhamma.

And I'm not sure if you are asking whether to buy it, in which case you can read the front matter and Chapter 1 from Wisdom's site, and judge the table of contents yourself: http://www.wisdompubs.org/Pages/display ... ch&image=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Or how balanced it is?

I've studied most of the MN, and read quite a lot of the DN and SN (from Wisdom), as well as several of the KN books, and various other suttas from other source such as Access to Insight. To me the coverage seems quite well balanced. In my opinion, if you've studied that suttas in that book, and Bhikkhu Bodhi's notes, then there really aren't any "surprises" in the rest of Sutta Pitaka. You will, of course, find suttas that go into more detail on certain aspects.

It's an inexpensive book, so I would certainly recommend it!

:anjali:
Mike
santa100
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Re: Is Bodhi's "Buddha's Words" A Good Overview?

Post by santa100 »

Totally agree. I'd definitely recommend it too..
Nyana
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Re: Is Bodhi's "Buddha's Words" A Good Overview?

Post by Nyana »

I agree with Mike and Santa. It's a good, well translated anthology.
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