This month we are celebrating Anālayo’s Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization in the run-up to the release of its companion volume, Perspectives on Satipaṭṭhāna, in January. In his introduction to Perspectives on Satipaṭṭhāna, Anālayo suggests that ideally the two books are read together: “A basic familiarity with what I covered in my earlier study is needed to contextualize what I discuss in the present monograph.” So if you haven’t got round to reading the first book yet, this would be a good time!
Here’s what Bhikkhu Bodhi had to say about Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization:
“With painstaking thoroughness, Ven. Anālayo marshals the suttas of the Pali canon, works of modem scholarship, and the teachings of present-day meditation masters to make the rich implications of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, so concise in the original, clear to contemporary students of the Dharma.
Unlike other popular books on the subject, he is not out to establish the exclusive validity of one particular system of meditation as against others. Rather, his aim is to explore the sutta as a wide-ranging and multi-faceted source of guidance which allows for alternative interpretations and approaches to practice. His analysis combines the detached objectivity of the academic scholar with the engaged concern of the practitioner for whom meditation is a way of life rather than just a subject of study.
The book should prove to be of value both to scholars of Early Buddhism and to serious meditators alike. Ideally, it will encourage in both types of readers the same wholesome synthesis of scholarship and practice that underlies the author’s own treatment of his subject.”
Find out more about Anālayo’s Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization
Here’s what Bhikkhu Bodhi had to say about Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization:
“With painstaking thoroughness, Ven. Anālayo marshals the suttas of the Pali canon, works of modem scholarship, and the teachings of present-day meditation masters to make the rich implications of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, so concise in the original, clear to contemporary students of the Dharma.
Unlike other popular books on the subject, he is not out to establish the exclusive validity of one particular system of meditation as against others. Rather, his aim is to explore the sutta as a wide-ranging and multi-faceted source of guidance which allows for alternative interpretations and approaches to practice. His analysis combines the detached objectivity of the academic scholar with the engaged concern of the practitioner for whom meditation is a way of life rather than just a subject of study.
The book should prove to be of value both to scholars of Early Buddhism and to serious meditators alike. Ideally, it will encourage in both types of readers the same wholesome synthesis of scholarship and practice that underlies the author’s own treatment of his subject.”
Find out more about Anālayo’s Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization
