Read in a sensible order
Study Paths
Each path is a short sequence of discourses on one theme, with a note on why each text is there. Tick a text when you have read it; your progress is kept on this device only.
The Heart of the Teaching
Six short discourses that carry the whole teaching in seed form: the middle way, the four noble truths, not-self, and how to test a teaching for yourself.
PracticeMindfulness Meditation (Satipaṭṭhāna)
The four kinds of mindfulness meditation, from the core discourse to breathing, the body, and the similes that show what steady mindfulness feels like.
StudyDependent Origination
How suffering arises through conditions and how it ceases when the conditions cease. Read the definitions first, then the great expositions.
PracticeThe Gradual Training
The step-by-step path the suttas teach again and again: faith, ethics, sense restraint, mindfulness, contentment, the jhānas and the knowledges.
StudyKamma and Its Results
What kamma is, why beings differ, and why the results of deeds are not mechanical.
Start herePractice in Daily Life
The Buddha’s advice to lay people on family, work, money, friendship, generosity and love.
StudyNot-Self and the Five Aggregates
The aggregates of clinging, the characteristic of not-self, and the danger of holding even the teaching wrongly.
PracticeWorking with the Five Hindrances
Sensual desire, ill will, dullness, restlessness and doubt: what feeds them, what starves them, and how to set them aside.
DeepeningPurification and Insight
The canonical sources behind the seven purifications. The sixteen insight knowledges of the Visuddhimagga are a later commentarial map built on this structure.