Books, Bhikkhu Cintita

Satipaṭṭhāna Rethought: a meditation manual based on earliest Buddhist  texts.  Satipaṭṭhāna (often translated as “Foundations of mindfulness”) is the Buddha’s method of wisdom contemplation, best known through the ancient practice tutorial The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta. It is recognized as the basis of modern vipassanā or insight meditation and of many other modern and historical practices. Unfortunately, the complexities of Buddhist intellectual history have not been kind to this early teaching.

Satipaṭṭhāna Rethought is a short meditation manual for the modern student that covers the same exercises found in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, and is based entirely on a critical rereading of the earliest Buddhist texts, undertaken to recover a doctrinally coherent, cognitively realistic and etymologically sound interpretation of this ancient wisdom practice. Satipaṭṭhāna as taught here extends Dhamma study to investigation in terms of direct experience, actualizing the Buddha’s instruction to “come and see.” It integrates samādhi or jhāna as a necessary and critical factor in this practice. Its fruit is “knowledge and vision of things as they are,” declared by the Buddha as close to awakening. Widely neglected aspects of the ancient practice are highlighted in this manual, including its sophisticated exploration of non-self and of the mental constructedness (emptiness) of the “objective world.”

Dependent Coarising: meaning construction in the twelve links. The twelve links of dependent co-arising are touted traditionally as among the deepest teachings of the Buddha. Yet they have become misunderstood and marginalized as a support for actual practice.

The epistemic approach of this book  restores the cognitive basis of this critical teaching, thereby recovering the subjectivity and insubstantiality fundamental to the early Buddhadharma, particularly  in revealing how we misperceive the world . It discusses each of the twelve links in detail and explains how they cohere into the process that keeps us entangled in saṃsāra. Each link thereby becomes a focus for practice toward liberation from the human dilemma.

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Mindfulness, where Dharma meets Practice. This book is about Dharma, practice, and how they intersect in mindfulness. It is a nutshell introduction to Buddhism based almost exclusively on the earliest Buddhist sources, which are the historical basis for all of the diverse later schools of Buddhism, and which represent what the Buddha actually taught, as best as we can determine. It is a textbook that has been used to supplement about ten hours of class time.

In spite of its conciseness, this text provides a comprehensive overview of the range of Buddhist practice and understanding and contains practical advice on how we can integrate Buddhist practice into busy modern lives. It begins from the premise that Dharma serves solely as a support for practice and that the role of mindfulness is to enable Dharma effectively to inform practice.

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With Needle and Thread: essays on early Buddhism. This volume presents a set of essays, each of which is intended to put a few stitches in what the author regards as a common traditional or modern mis­understanding of an important point of Dhamma, or (in the case of the first es­say) Vinaya. In each case it advances an alternative interpretation, at least as a way of encouraging further discussion. Of the six essays in this volume, the first concerns the role of women in the Buddhist community, the second con­cerns issues of faith and belief, the third a seemingly small doctrinal point that has led, I maintain, to great misunderstanding of a significant portion of early Dhamma, and the final three with aspects of meditation: mindfulness (sati) and concentration (samadhi).

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Buddhist Life / Buddhist Path: the foundations of Buddhist based on earliest sources. This textbook, bases on the earliest stratum of Buddhist texts, provides a holistic and proportionate account of the range of the Buddha’s Dharma, interpreted for the modern student. We discover in the earliest teachings a corpus that is astonishingly profound and comprehensive, consistent, brilliantly coherent and still intelligible today. Topics include not only the higher training of meditation, psychology and the path to awakening, but also practical advice on virtue, harmony, community and basic human values. This book is divided into two parts, each of which can be studied independently: Buddhist Life concerns living devoutly, virtuously, harmoniously and in community. Buddhist Path, on the higher course of training toward awakening based on the noble eightfold path.

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A Culture of Awakening: the life and times of the Buddha-Sasana. The Buddha-Sāsana, is the living Dharma, that is, Buddhism in its personal, cultural, social and historical dimensions, something organic, located in time and space, that can grow, thrive, self-regulate, propagate, uphold authenticity, and brighten any landscape with its civilizing influence. It was explicitly propounded in the early teachings of the Buddha and set in motion in a form and functionality that it has maintained surprisingly well over a span of a hundred generations. The Buddha-Sasana is the source of the malleability and resilience that once made Buddhism the first world religion and that is characteristic of Buddhism to this day. It has been the basis of a culture of Awakening in many Asian lands.

This rather unique book lays bare the inner life of the Buddha-Sasana to reveal why Buddhism has proved so adaptable to cultural influences yet so faithful to its original message. Significantly, it explores the condition of the Buddha-Sasana as it is taking root in the West. It will be an aid in developing healthy and inclusive Buddhist communities, in instilling a sense of responsibility for upholding the Sasana, in understanding and navigating the many varieties of Buddhist doctrine, and in making sense of the variety of “religious accretions” in Buddhism.

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Through the Looking Glass: An American Buddhist Life. One begins life with a certain innate personality, what Buddhists have interpreted as residual karma from a previous life, a lump of clay already exhibiting certain surprisingly distinctive qualities. As a boy and then a man grows, he makes life decisions and takes on certain behaviors under the influence of the world in which he lives, he slowly but continually, aware of it or not, shapes and reshapes that lump into different forms, which are typically at each stage not an improvement. To commit to Buddhist practice is to undertake to shape that lump of clay into something astonishingly beautiful, something imbued with virtue, serenity and wisdom, in sharp contrast world in which that life is lived. To take up monastic practice is to recognize the preposterous quality of conventional life that threatens at each stage to choke off this beauty. It is to pass through the Looking Glass to live on the other side according to the way things really are rather than how they appear. This is the story of my attempt to live the promise of the monastic path.

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All Cintita’s Books Printed

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Coming Soon

• The Parittas: Burmese versions, romanized with English translations.