dha.mom · the early Buddhist canon
What are you carrying today?
Name it, and the text will walk a little way with you — and set it down somewhere lighter.
Words of the Buddha
The Buddha was a wandering teacher who lived about 2,500 years ago.
Born Siddhartha Gautama into a noble family in ancient India, he gave up that life to search for a way beyond suffering. He found a deep and lasting peace, often called enlightenment, and spent the rest of his life as a monk, sharing it with anyone who would listen.
For generations his words were kept in memory and recited aloud.
About 400 years after his passing, they were finally written down.
The Dhammapada gathers some of them into one book.
The verses here are set out line by line in plain modern language drawn from several translations, each with a short explanation and a real-life example.
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