The Buddha’s Path to Deliverance

A Systematic Exposition in the Words of the Sutta Pitaka

By:  Ñ??atiloka Mahathera

This classic anthology from the Pali Canon charts the entire course of spiritual development as prescribed in the most ancient Buddhist texts. Drawing upon the Buddha’s own words from the Sutta Pitaka, the compiler has arranged them in accordance with two overlapping schemes of practice: the threefold training in virtue, concentration, and wisdom, and the seven stages of purification. The long chapter on concentration provides sutta sources for all the forty classical subjects of meditation, while the chapter on wisdom cites texts relating to the development of insight. The result is a comprehensive meditation manual composed almost entirely from the Buddha’s discourses, illuminated by the author’s own brief explanations.

The German Buddhist monk Ven. Nyanatiloka Thera (1878-1957) was the first Continental European in modern times to be ordained into the Theravada Buddhist order. A prolific translator of Pali Buddhist texts into German and English, he spent over fifty years in the Buddhist order, mostly in Sri Lanka. His autobiography is published by the BPS.