The Dhammapada

By Buddhism Now on 14 January 2014 • ( 1 )

‘All conditioned things are impermanent’ — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.

v.277 The Dhammapada

‘All conditioned things are unsatisfactory’ — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.

v.278 The Dhammapada

‘All things are not-self’ — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.

v.279 The Dhammapada

The Dhammapada is the best known and most widely esteemed text in the Pali Tipitaka, the sacred scriptures of Theravada Buddhism. The work is included in the Khuddaka Nikaya (“Minor Collection”) of the Sutta Pitaka, but its popularity has raised it far above the single niche it occupies in the scriptures to the ranks of a world religious classic. Composed in the ancient Pali language, this slim anthology of verses constitutes a perfect compendium of the Buddha’s teaching, comprising between its covers all the essential principles elaborated at length in the forty-odd volumes of the Pali canon.