Analayo - Meditator’s Life of the Buddha

Bhikkhu Analayo offers an inspiring biography of the Buddha from the viewpoint of his meditative development and practice, based on combining extracts from the early discourses with his own commentary.The focus is on the Buddha as a meditator, so this is a life story offering inspiration and guidance for readers who are also meditators. Bhikkhu Analayo covers the period up to the Buddhas awakening and from the awakening to the Buddhas final Nirvana. Following this, he explores recollections of the Buddha, a topic that in one way or another underlies all the chapters. Each of the twenty-four chapters concludes with suggestions for meditative practice or conduct.ReviewPraise for Mindfully Facing Disease and Death:In this wonderfully accessible and compassionate book Bhikkhu Analayo illuminates classic Buddhist teachings and offers practical counsel for facing death with clarity and kindness. - Frank OstaseskiAn invaluable and extraordinary resource on the profound teachings by the Buddha on dying, death, and grieving. - Roshi Joan HalifaxThese teachings invite us to integrate their guidance directly into the laboratory of our own meditation practice and life, in the spirit of deep investigation and inquiry. As committed meditation practitioners know first hand, there is no more worthy or meaningful introspective undertaking in the world, nor a more difficult challenge for human beings to adopt and sustain throughout life.- from the Foreword, Jon Kabat-Zinn, co-editor (with Mark Williams) of Mindfulness: Diverse Perspectives on Its Meaning, Origins, and ApplicationsThis is an indispensable book for serious students of Buddhism. It has the potential to transform the lives of everyone who reads it. - Toni Bernhard, author of How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness: A Mindful GuideReviewIn this work, Bhikkhu Analayo applies his consummate knowledge of the textual collections of Early Buddhism to the task of constructing a biography of the Buddha that focuses on his life as a meditator. The book not only paints a very human picture of the Buddhas life, but through the exercises attached to each chapter it enables the reader to join the Buddha on his quest for enlightenment and beyond, into his mission as a teacher and through to his parinirvana or passing away. While offering a scholarly portrait of the Buddha, this book is also a testament to the overarching unity of the various early Buddhist schools in their conception of the Buddhas life, a unity that coexists along with a rich diversity in their detailed narrations about particular events in that life. - Ven. Bhikkhu BodhiA Meditators Life of the Buddha explores the remarkable inner journey that transformed Siddhartha Gotama into a fully awakened Buddha. It traces the unfolding of the Buddhas path from his going forth and discovery of the path, to the triumphant night of his full awakening, four and a half decades of compassionate teaching, and concludes with his final meditation. This book is simultaneously a biography of a great man, an insightful study of Early Buddhism, and a practical guidebook for serious meditators. Each chapter offers readers a rare, and often surprisingly intimate, account of how the Buddha met real-life situations. We learn how he faced difficulties and overcame fears, struggled to abandon defilements, prioritized his commitments, mastered concentration states, recognized the significance of insights, and experienced the great peace that finally characterized his life as an awakened one. It is an inspiring guide that will accelerate the readers own journey of awakening. Highly recommended, and sure to inspire dedicated meditators! - Shaila Catherine, author of Focused and Fearless: A Meditators Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and ClarityAnalayo is both an outstanding scholar and a devoted practitioner, and this account of the Buddhas life through his engagement with meditation may be his ideal subject. We need more accounts of the Buddhas life that draw out what the early texts say, distinguishing that from the legends that came later. Analayos mastery of both the Pali and the Chinese sources, as well as the scholarship that surrounds them, makes him an unrivalled authority in this, and an attentive guide to the Buddhas explorations of the mind and meditative states. In another persons hands all this knowledge could have made A Meditators Life of the Buddha an exercise in scholarship, but Analayos heartfelt engagement with the material and his dedication to meditation practice is evident on every page. Vishvapani, author of Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teachings of the Awakened OneThe Buddhas life story provides an implicit support for one of the most important of early Buddhist meditation practices, the contemplation of the Buddha. Analayos highly original approach to the familiar story is to present his material in the form of an explicit guide to this practice, laid out in 24 stages, which follow what we know of the Buddhas own meditation practice. Analayo brings his formidable scholarship to elucidating what this consisted in, drawing on discourses preserved in Pali and Chinese that have a reliably early provenance. The extremely useful exercises with which each chapter concludes ground the scholarship in a fervent awareness of the goal, represented by the Buddha, which we should always have in mind in our own practice. Jinananda, author of Warrior of Peace: The Life of the BuddhaFrom the Inside FlapBhikkhu Analayo offers an inspiring biography of the Buddha from the viewpoint of his meditative development and practice, based on combining extracts from the early discourses with his own commentary.The focus is on the Buddha as a meditator, so this is a life story offering inspiration and guidance for readers who are also meditators. Bhikkhu Analayo covers the period up to the Buddhas awakening and from the awakening to the Buddhas final Nirvana. Following this, he explores recollections of the Buddha, a topic that in one way or another underlies all the chapters. Each of the twenty-four chapters concludes with suggestions for meditative practice or conduct.From the Back CoverBhikkhu Analayo offers an inspiring biography of the Buddha from the viewpoint of his meditative development and practice, based on combining extracts from the early discourses with his own commentary.The focus is on the Buddha as a meditator, so this is a life story offering inspiration and guidance for readers who are also meditators. Bhikkhu Analayo covers the period up to the Buddhas awakening and from the awakening to the Buddhas final Nirvana. Following this, he explores recollections of the Buddha, a topic that in one way or another underlies all the chapters. Each of the twenty-four chapters concludes with suggestions for meditative practice or conduct.About the AuthorAnalayo is a professor of Buddhist Studies at the Sri Lanka International Academy in Pallekele. He teaches at the Center for Buddhist Studies of the University of Hamburg and researches at the Dharma Drum Buddhist College in Taiwan. Analayos published works include Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization (2003), Perspectives on Satipatthana (2014), Compassion and Emptiness in Early Buddhist Meditation (2015), and Mindfully Facing Disease and Death (2016).