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The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha
- A Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya
- Narrated by: Taradasa
- Length: 47 hrs and 22 mins
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The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha
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Summary
This book offers a complete translation of the Majjhima Nikāya, or Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, one of the major collections of texts in the Pāli Canon, the authorised scriptures of Theravada Buddhism. This collection - among the oldest records of the historical Buddha's original teachings - consists of 152 suttas or discourses of middle length, distinguished as such from the longer and shorter suttas of the other collections.
The Majjhima Nikaya might be concisely described as the Buddhist scripture that combines the richest variety of contextual settings with the deepest and most comprehensive assortment of teachings. These teachings, which range from basic ethics to instructions in meditation and liberating insight, unfold in a fascinating procession of scenarios that show the Buddha in living dialogue with people from many different strata of ancient Indian society: with kings and princes, priests and ascetics, simple villagers and erudite philosophers. Replete with drama, reasoned argument, and illuminating parable and simile, these discourses exhibit the Buddha in the full glory of his resplendent wisdom, majestic sublimity and compassionate humanity.
The translation is based on an original draft translation left by the English scholar-monk Bhikkhu Ñānamoli, which has been edited and revised by the American monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, who provides a long introduction and helpful explanatory notes. Combining lucidity of expression with accuracy, this translation enables the Buddha to speak across 25 centuries in language that addresses the most pressing concerns of the contemporary listener seeking clarification of the timeless issues of truth, value and the proper conduct of life. Winner of the 1995 Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Book Award and the Tricycle Prize for Excellence in Buddhist Publishing for Dharma Discourse.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Jim Tarran
- 28-06-23
A treat for the soul
How wonderful and marvellous to hear that Good teaching as they were traditionally - heard, recited out loud by the barnikas
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- Sami rishi
- 06-04-20
Sadhu! sadhu! sadhu
Thank you so much for recording Buddha's teachings especially the Majjhima nikaya. pls record the other nikayas :)
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2 people found this helpful
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- Udo Marquardt
- 15-03-21
wonderful work
really great work, so glad that we can now listen to these books without any editing
would be good if the chapters were named and not just numbered, so one gets an overview and can skip to chapter . I see this has now been done for the connected discourses .
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- Anonymous User
- 29-09-19
A great achievement!
Goodness knows how much basic fidelity, generosity of spirit and, one suspects, love must go into producing a mammoth spiritual title like this, one of several from the generally excellent Dharma Audiobooks. I've no idea if and when it breaks even, is a loss-leader, or has any chance of being a surprise hit on Audible as the world goes audiobook mad. What I do know as a long-time Buddhist practitioner is that this is a superbly recorded and (whatever our vocal preferences) beautifully and carefully narrated rendering of the Majhima Nikaya. Taradasa's richly considered, finely weighted, English-voiced delivery is, for sure, different in some respects from American-accented recordings; but his pronunciations cleave firmly to Bikkhu Bodhi's own detailed recommendations and are, in my experience, spot-on when it comes to what many practising Buddhists are likely used to. His reading of English prose is pretty lovely too! 🙂
The Buddha's profound message comes alive here, and the gravity of his discourse (not heavy at all, but teaching that takes us, the listener, seriously) comes across in a way that builds as we engage. It's a chance to absorb Dharma that, let's face it, most of us will only ever dip in and out of in printed form. Now we have this - a glorious opportunity to engage in slightly bigger doses: regularly, daily even as a reflection, whenever we need perspectives that are necessarily bigger than our own.
One other splendid feature is the re-location of individual introductions to the suttas so each precedes the sutta it pertains to. This is a welcome change from some texts and audio versions where all the intros come one after the other, followed by all the texts. This is just one of numerous small pieces of thoughtful production that make this recording a genuine treasury for anyone who wants to take in the word of the Buddha (or as close as we're likely to get to it).
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9 people found this helpful
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- Tout en chantant
- 30-09-19
Absolutely wonderful
Absolutely wonderful recording of a beautiful text. This is such a treat and we are so very lucky to have it. Thank you and please make the other sutta collections also available as audible audiobooks!!
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7 people found this helpful
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- Maureen Armstrong
- 25-01-21
Exhausting
This absolutely bored me to tears. I cosider this a waste of time and money
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- David Kinsella
- 06-08-20
Strange book. Mixed feelings about it.
What attracts me to Eastern philosophy is the supposed move away from mental delusion to full acceptance of reality, but I find weird contradictions here, which I feel are due to the Buddha's insights becoming a religion. I am not convinced the Buddha gave many of these teachings and commands. I have a strong suspicion that just like all other religions from East and West, they have been added to by less enlightened individuals who are far more concerned with coercing people into their religion and keeping them there with threats of hell, proving various "heretics" are wrong etc. All this talk of various states of the afterlife and of reincarnation are just as faith based any talk of resurrections or trinities and so on.
We see the same thing in Taoism. What started out as clear insight became muddled over centuries with superstition, factions, dogma. I don't believe there was anything supernatural about the Buddha and my suspicion is that he was an agnostic at best. I'm sure he gave his followers some sage wisdom and maybe even a code of conduct based off of this, but this work is just full of additional stuff, the same way the Bible is.
I'll stick with the Tao Te Ching, the Zhuangzi, some Zen/Chen writings and the Dhammapada. Rumi is also very good, even if I have to allegorize some of what he perhaps meant literally about Allah and so forth. And I'll leave this text to the "orthodox" Buddhist religious folk out there (though from my Christian days I am convinced no two Buddhists will agree on everything they read in here either.
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8 people found this helpful