Abiding in Emptiness

An incisive look into the early Buddhist teachings on emptiness, and a manual for bringing those teachings into our everyday lives.

Before the growth of the Mahayana and the Perfection of Wisdom, the Buddha gave his own teachings, to his attendant Ananda, on the importance of emptiness (Pali sunnata, Sanskrit sunyata) in formal meditation and everyday practice. In this volume, renowned scholar-monk Bhikkhu Analayo explores these teachings and shows us how to integrate them into our lives.

Bhikkhu Analayo draws from instructions found in the Greater and the Smaller Discourses on Emptiness (the Mahasunnatasutta and the Culasunnatasutta). In each chapter, he provides a translation of a pertinent excerpt from the discourses, follows this with clear and precise explanations of the text, and concludes by offering instructions for practice.

Step by step, beginning with daily life and concluding with Nirvana, Bhikkhu Analayo unpacks the Buddha’s teachings on the foundational teaching of emptiness.

Bhikkhu Analayo is a scholar of early Buddhism and a meditation teacher. He completed his PhD research on the Satipatthanasutta at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, in 2000 and his habilitation research with a comparative study of the Majjhima Nikaya in the light of its Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan parallels at the University of Marburg, Germany in 2007. His over five hundred publications are for the most part based on comparative studies, with a special interest in topics related to meditation and the role of women in Buddhism.