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(A Late) March-April 2024 Update
This post is to catch up on the Saṃyukta Āgama releases and updates from February and March of 2024. I was rather ill at the end of February and beginning of March and missed the planned update, but I continued working once I had recovered. Since the last update, work continued on the Aggregates and… Continue reading
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Heat Waves, Data Entry, and Meta-Editing
This summer has been quite an experience for much of the world. Floods, droughts, and a creeping suspicion turned sudden realization: The World is changing, and humans are but bits of flotsam when the raging currents of that change arrive. Yes, it’s true: We aren’t as collectively invulnerable and omnipotent as we imagined a couple… Continue reading
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The Noble Fivefold Samadhi – A Parallel Sutra Quote to AN 5.28
An important sutta in modern discourse about the four jhānas in Theravāda Buddhism is AN 5.28, which contains material that appears to have been subsumed into the larger Mindfulness of the Body Sutta (MN 119). To date, no parallel has been found in the four Chinese Āgama collections; however, a full quote of a parallel to this… Continue reading
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August Update: Four More Dīrgha Āgama Sutras released
It’s been a little more than a month since the last update, and I’ve released four more initial translations from the Dīrgha Āgama, which tally up to about 23,500 words in English. I recently decided to total up how many words in English that Dharma Pearls has published so far, and I was a bit… Continue reading
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Book Review: The Dharma of Dragons and Demons (David Loy & Linda Goodhew)
Fantasy is true, of course. It isn’t factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced… Continue reading
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Progress Report: Annotations and Mañjuśrī’s Sūtra for February
Now that I have a good translation of Kumārajīva’s Diamond Sūtra finished, I’ll begin working on an annotation that attempts to interpret it with both my personal reading and notes gleamed from the Vasubandhu/Asaṅga commentary that exists in Chinese. Perfection of Wisdom Sūtras are perplexing by design, but the Diamond Sūtra can seem like an… Continue reading
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The Journey Begins
Thanks for joining me! Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton Continue reading