About this book

This book review is for one of the best-known seminal Buddhist verses, The Dhammapada – Teachings of the Buddha. The translation was written by Gil Fonsdal. I bought the hardcover version from ThriftBooks, where I paid $11.99 for the book (used). The hardcover version is 146 pages long. The book has a nice binding, cover, and has a medium-sized font, making it easy to read. The overall quality of the book is excellent. The book is 7″ high x 4 1/2″ wide, making it a book that you can hold comfortably. In addition to the 26 chapters in the book, there is a Foreword, Preface, Acknowledgments, Introduction, Bibliography, and an Appendix.

Summary

The Dhammapada is the most popular text for learning the path to liberation. It is the most widely read Buddhist scripture in existence. The Dhammapada is a collection of verses from the Pali Canon. This book is the translation of Pali into English. As the author of this translation points out, the Dhammapada has two goals:

1. To attain happiness in this life and future lives.
2. The second goal is liberation, meaning the perfection of the mind and the destruction of defilements, attachments, and hindrances.

The 26 chapters of the book explore various themes, including Vigilance, The Mind, The Sage, The Fool, Evil, Violence, The Buddha, and Happiness, among others. Each of these chapters is rather short, often two to four pages, and is comprised of verses. Note that each verse in the Dhammapada is numbered.

Let me share a couple select quotes from the Dhammapada:

Even while doing evil, fools are ignorant of it. Like someone burned by the fire, those lacking wisdom are scorched by their own deeds. (136)

Not disparaging others, not causing injury, practicing restraint by the monastic rules, knowing moderation in food, dwelling in solitude, and pursuing the higher states of mind, this is the teaching of the buddhas. (185)

Recommendation

As the Dhammapada is in a verse form and organized by themes, I liken it to the “Tao Te Ching” by Lao Tzu, which I have read many times. Wisdom permeates every page of the Dhammapada. You will find yourself pondering many of the verses as they permeate your mind and your understanding grows. This is not a book you read once, and in fact, reading a chapter each day in the morning can be a great way to start your practice off on the right foot. As you read it again and again, you will have new insights and reinforce the words of the Buddha, training your mind. Well, as you can see, I highly recommend picking up a copy; you won’t be disappointed.

About the Author / Translator

An excerpt from Wikipedia on Gill Fronsdal

Gil Fronsdal (born 1954) is a Norwegian-born, American Buddhist teacher, writer and scholar based in Redwood City, California. He has been practicing Buddhism of the Sōtō Zen and Vipassanā sects since 1975, and is currently teaching the practice of Buddhism in the San Francisco Bay Area. Having been taught by the Vipassanā practitioner Jack Kornfield, Fronsdal is part of the Vipassanā teachers’ collective at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He was ordained as a Sōtō Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1982, and was a Theravāda monk in Burma in 1985. In 1995, he received Dharma transmission from Mel Weitsman, the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center.

He is the guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Center (IMC) of Redwood City. He has a PhD in Buddhist Studies from Stanford University. His many dharma talks available online contain basic information on meditation and Buddhism, as well as subtle concepts of Buddhism explained at the level of the lay person.

Additional Information

Wikipedia Reference for the Dhammapada

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