Important New Dhamma Course

Some of my readers will have heard of Venerable Analayo, a German monk who embodies a rare balance of impeccable scholarship and solid meditation practice. Although Analayo is most well-known for his book Satipatthana; The Direct Path to Realization he has over the last few years, also produced a steady stream of extremely interesting articles on various aspects on the Dhamma. Unfortunately many of these articles are published in academic journals where they are not easily available to the average Buddhist reader. The good news is that now Ven. Analayo will be conducting an E-course on Buddhism. The main purpose of the course will be to introduce central themes of Buddhist thought from an historical-critical perspective through the medium of a comparative study of the early discourses. Extracts from the Madhyama Agama preserved in Chinese will be made available in English translation to participants, so that these can be compared with their Pāli counterparts, which mostly, but not exclusively, are found in the Majjhima Nikāya. The course will follow the order of the discourses in the Madhyama Agama so as to give the participants an opportunity for a first-hand impression of this collection, so far not available in translation in any European language. The coverage of the first chapters of this collection during the course held in 2011 will alternate between brief surveys of some discourses and in-depth studies of other discourses (see below for the discourses selected for this term). Anyone taking an intelligent interest in the Dhamma is bound to benefit from this course. Online registration starts on the 15 February 2011. For more information go to http://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/index.php?id=121&L=0