Glenn Wallis

BASIC TEACHINGS OF THE BUDDHA

About this Book

In Basic Teachings of the Buddha, Glenn Wallis selects sixteen essential dialogues drawn from more than five thousand Pali-dialect suttas of the Buddhist canon. The result is a vibrant introductory guide to studying Buddhist thought, applying its principles to everyday life, and gaining a deeper understanding of Buddhist themes in modern literature. Focusing on the most crucial topics for today’s readers, Wallis presents writings that address modern psychological, religious, ethical, and philosophical concerns. This practical, inspiring, and engaging volume provides an overview of the history of Buddhism and an illuminating analysis of the core writings that personalizes the suttas for each reader.

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THE DHAMMAPADA: VERSES ON THE WAY

About this Book

Trembling and quivering is the mind,
Difficult to guard and hard to restrain.
The person of wisdom sets it straight,
As a fletcher does an arrow.

The Dhammapada introduced the actual utterances of the Buddha nearly twenty-five hundred years ago, when the master teacher emerged from his long silence to illuminate for his followers the substance of humankind’s deepest and most abiding concerns. The nature of the self, the value of relationships, the importance of moment-to-moment awareness, the destructiveness of anger, the suffering that attends attachment, the ambiguity of the earth’s beauty, the inevitability of aging, the certainty of death–these dilemmas preoccupy us today as they did centuries ago. No other spiritual texts speak about them more clearly and profoundly than does the Dhammapada.

In this elegant new translation, Sanskrit scholar Glenn Wallis has exclusively referred to and quoted from the canonical suttas–the presumed earliest discourses of the Buddha–to bring us the heartwood of Buddhism, words as compelling today as when the Buddha first spoke them. On violence: All tremble before violence./ All fear death./ Having done the same yourself,/ you should neither harm nor kill. On ignorance: An uninstructed person/ ages like an ox,/ his bulk increases,/ his insight does not. On skillfulness: A person is not skilled/ just because he talks a lot./ Peaceful, friendly, secure–/ that one is called “skilled.”

In 423 verses gathered by subject into chapters, the editor offers us a distillation of core Buddhist teachings that constitutes a prescription for enlightened living, even in the twenty-first century. He also includes a brilliantly informative guide to the verses–a chapter-by-chapter explication that greatly enhances our understanding of them. The text, at every turn, points to practical applications that lead to freedom from fear and suffering, toward the human state of spiritual virtuosity known as awakening.

Glenn Wallis’s translation is an inspired successor to earlier versions of the suttas. Even those readers who are well acquainted with the Dhammapada will be enriched by this fresh encounter with a classic text.

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MEDIATING THE POWER OF BUDDHAS: RITUAL IN THE MANJUSRIMULAKALPA

 About this Book

Mediating the Power of Buddhas offers a fascinating analysis of the seventh-century ritual manual, the Mañjusrimulakalpa. This medieval text is intended to reveal the path into a ritual universe where the power of a buddha abides. Author Glenn Wallis traces the strategies of the Mañjusrimulakalpa to enable its committed reader to perfect the promised ritual, uncovering what conditions must be met for ritual practice to succeed and what personal characteristics practitioners must possess in order to realize the ritual intentions of the Buddhist community. The manual itself was written at a key point in Buddhist history, one when Hindu forms of practice were still imitated and on the cusp of the shift from Mahayana to Vajrayana (or Tantric) Buddhism. In addition, the Mañjusrimulakalpa presents a rich compendium of Buddhist life in an earlier era, containing information on a variety of its readers' concerns: astrology, astronomy, medicine and healing, ritual practice, iconography, devotion, and meditation.

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MEDITATION HANDBOOK

This succinct, accessible handbook is based on the Buddha's very own recommendations for gaining clear insight into our lives. It thus takes the reader and practitioner directly into the heart of Buddhist meditation. To order, go to PayPal page or send a check for $12 to:

Glenn Wallis, Center for Applied Meditation, 137 S. Easton Rd, Glenside, PA 19038.

The supreme good is reality; the supreme beauty is reality; and all virtue and all felicity depend on this science of the real: for courage is nothing else than knowledge.

                                                                — Emerson

Basic Teachings: 

“In this masterful new commentary on the earliest Buddhist writings, Professor Wallis challenges us with sixteen propositions about human existence itself. Only in this way, he asserts, can modern readers appreciate the Buddha's analysis of the two trajectories facing human beings -- toward pain or toward peace.  Wallis offers fresh translations and a reader's guide to sixteen discourses that eloquently illustrate these choices and their implications for our time.  All this is introduced by the author's learned reflection on the idiom, meaning, and historical evolution of the Dhamma, Buddha's deepest insights.  Glenn Wallis brings wisdom and compassion to this work of scholarship.  Everyone should read this book.”    –Christopher Queen, Harvard University

“A valuable sourcebook with a good selection of the fundamental suttas enhanced by an eloquent introduction and comprehensive notes–altogether a very useful text.”

–Peter Matthiessen (Roshi), author of The Snow Leopard and Nine-Headed Dragon River

"The Modern West made the Buddha one of its own teachers when the first translations of Pali texts became available in the nineteenth century.  This inclusion in The Modern Library of Glenn Wallis’ new and accessible translations of a few of the Buddha’s lectures to his original students, along with Wallis’ elegant guides to how to read these texts, continues this important strand of our cultural history and gives twentieth-first century readers a fresh chance to learn from this teacher to the Modern West."  

–Charles Hallisey, Harvard University

The Dhammapada:

[This translation] is faithful to the pali text while retaining a lovely flow... What is so refreshing is that, unlike other editions of the Dhammapada... Dr. Wallis draws all his explanatory material right from the canonical layer of the suttas, the earliest discourses of the Buddha." –Rick Crutcher, pariyatti.com

"Highly recommended ... a clear, readily accessible translation that preserves the Buddhist connotation." Library Journal (starred review)

Mediating the Power of Buddhas:

“Wallis sheds much new light on the transition between 'sutra' and 'tantra' literature of Buddhist India.” —John J. Makransky, Boston College; author of Buddhahood Embodied: Sources of Controversy in India and Tibet

“Wallis brings alive the world of the Mañjusrimulakalpa and its ritual practitioner, and he draws on a variety of medieval and modern sources to illuminate the text. The Mañjusrimulakalpa is a crucial text for understanding medieval Indian Buddhism, yet, because of its immensity, it has been studied rather sparingly and incompletely—and never before with the particular ritual studies-cum-comparative-Indological perspective that Wallis brings to bear.” —Roger Jackson, Carlton College; coeditor of Buddhist Theology: Critical Reflections by Contemporary Buddhist Scholars