Tips on Reading the Pali Discourses
The Pali canon contains many thousands of suttas (discourses), of which more than one thousand are now available in English translation here at Access to Insight. When faced with such a vast store of riches, three questions naturally spring to mind: Why should I read the suttas? Which ones should I read? How should I read them?
There are no simple cookie-cutter answers to these questions; the best answers will be the ones you discover on your own. Nevertheless, I offer here a few ideas, suggestions, and tips that I've found to be helpful over the years in my own exploration of the suttas. Perhaps you'll find some of them helpful, too.
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http://www.accesstoinsight.org/befriending.html
Mike