Dhamma Within Reach

Description

Dhamma Within Reach contains rewritten and expanded essays based on the transcripts from a selection of video and audio talks and discussions. All of the essays in this collection share the same central theme: suffering, and freedom from it. The style of the essays reflects the author’s uniquely practical and concrete approach to the Dhamma, beginning with discussions about the nature of dukkha, and the need to do more than merely manage it. Dukkha is not just suffering, not just this or that particular discomfort. Rather, dukkha is one’s liability to suffering, and freedom from suffering can only be achieved if that liability is uprooted; one must learn how not to be affected in the first place. This is far more easily said than done, but as the book progresses, Ajahn Nyanamoli gives clear, practical guidance on how to get closer to that goal. Rejecting popular notions of meditation and mindfulness as nothing more than forms of management, he instead emphasises the necessity of sense restraint and self-honesty, and the importance of cultivating endurance toward both pleasant and unpleasant feelings, as being of vital importance.Also available for free (virtually) on hillsidehermitage.org and physically at pathpresspublications.com.