Pali audio

Expanding on the Buddha’s first sermon, Venerable Sāriputta gives a detailed explanation of the four noble truths.

While staying overnight in a potter’s workshop, the Buddha has a chance encounter with a monk who does not recognize him. They have a long and profound discussion based on the four elements. This is one of the most insightful and moving discourses in the canon.

Achieving peace is no simple matter. The Buddha explains how to avoid conflict through contentment, right speech, understanding pleasure, and not insisting on local conventions.

The Buddha gives a brief and enigmatic statement on the ways consciousness may become attached. Venerable Mahākaccāna is invited by the mendicants to draw out the implications.

A detailed analysis of the six senses and the relation to emotional and cognitive processes.

Confronted with an overly simplistic version of his own teachings, the Buddha emphasizes the often overlooked nuances and qualifications in how karma plays out.

The Buddha explains to a brahmin how your deeds in past lives affect you in this life.

A monk who does not know the verses from MN 131 is encouraged by a deity to learn them.

The verses from MN 131 are explained in a different way by Venerable Mahakaccāna.

The same discourse as MN 131, but spoken by Venerable Ananda.

This discourse opens with a short but powerful set of verses extolling the benefits of insight into the here and now, followed by an explanation.

Expanding on the previous sutta, this discourse contains the most detailed descriptions of the horrors of hell.

A fool suffers both in this life and the next, while the astute benefits in both respects.

A second discourse set at the quarrel of Kosambi, this depicts the Buddha, having failed to achieve reconciliation between the disputing mendicants, leaving the monastery. He spends time in the wilderness before encountering an inspiring community of practicing monks. There he discusses in detail obstacles to meditation that he encountered before awakening.

A lay person becomes confused when encouraged to develop the “limitless” and “expansive” liberations, and asks Venerable Anuruddha to explain whether they are the same or different.

A young monk is unable to persuade a prince of the blessings of peace of mind. The Buddha offers similes based on training an elephant that would have been successful, as this was a field the prince was familiar with.

Venerable Bakkula, regarded as the healthiest of the mendicants, explains to an old friend his strict and austere practice. The unusual form of this discourse suggests it was added to the canon some time after the Buddha’s death.

Venerable Ānanda is invited by the Buddha to speak on the Buddha’s amazing qualities, and proceeds to list a series of apparently miraculous events accompanying his birth. The Buddha caps it off by explaining what he thinks is really amazing about himself.

A group of mendicants have taken to socializing too much, so the Buddha teaches on the importance of seclusion in order to enter fully into emptiness.

The Buddha describes his own practice of the meditation on emptiness.

The Buddha explains how one can make a wish to be reborn in different realms.

This focuses on the first aspect of mindfulness meditation, the observation of the body. This set of practices, simple as they seem, have far-reaching benefits.

Surrounded by many well-practiced mendicants, the Buddha teaches mindfulness of breathing in detail, showing how they relate to the four kinds of mindfulness meditation.

A discourse on the prerequisites of right samādhi that emphasizes the interrelationship and mutual support of all the factors of the eightfold path.