The Dhammapada

August 1, 2005
The Dhammapada, possibly the most popular and best-known of all Buddhist texts, sums up "in the simplest language the core teachings of the Buddha," as Jack Kornfield writes in the foreword. Translator Fronsdal, a Kornfield protege who has a doctorate in Buddhist studies from Stanford and has practiced Buddhism for three decades, offers a rendition that is faithful to the original Pali text, but not slavishly so. For example, right in the opening verses he translates dhamma as "experience" when it is often rendered as "teaching" or "truth," and samsara as "wandering" when it usually connotes the cycle of suffering. He also employs gender-neutral language throughout. Fronsdal provides a brief but illuminating introduction in which he describes the history of the Dhammapada and highlights two basic themes: how to obtain happiness in this and future lives, and how to achieve liberation from suffering. He discusses how some verses seem to be specifically addressed to the text's monastic audience, and suggests ways that lay Buddhists might apply those verses to themselves.