Welcome.
This site offers an extensive collection of English translations of suttas from the Pāli Canon, as well as a multitude of free downloads of Dhamma from the Kammaṭṭhāna (or Thai Forest) Tradition of Buddhism. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu of Metta Forest Monastery is the speaker, author or translator unless otherwise noted.
- Site Update
- The site has been updated with new functionality based on the feedback we have received. These are the highlights:
- A dedicated page for each book with download options and table of contents.
- Navigation for books and suttas, with the table of contents in a sidebar and links to the previous and next pages in the book.
- An improvement to the search interface: Results belonging to one book are grouped together, with the most relevant result for that book visible.
- Improvements to the accessibility of the website for people that use screen readers.
- In addition, all of the ebooks have been updated to reflect the changes made to the site. See also the three previous news items for other updates regarding the ebooks.
- posted Oct. 13
- ePublished Dhamma Talks
- The ePublished Dhamma Talks series has been removed and consolidated with the transcripts available on the evening talks archive. The transcripts that do not have audio recordings available were re-edited and collected into a new ebook, titled Lost & Found.
- posted Oct. 13
- Kobo ebooks added
- We have added a new ebook format for our ebooks that is optimized for Kobo e-readers.
- posted Oct. 13
- Mobi ebooks removed
- The download options for the obsolete Mobi ebook formats have been removed. People that still need Mobi ebooks may download the epub formats and convert them to Mobi ebooks using Calibre.
- posted Oct. 13
- 3 New Suttas
- Saṁyutta 48:40 Uppaṭika Sutta, Saṁyutta 48:42 Uṇṇābha Brāhmaṇa Sutta, and Saṁyutta 48:43 Sāketa Sutta.
- posted Oct. 2
- September Dhamma talks
- regular evening and short morning
- posted Oct. 2
- New Essay
- The View from Outside the World, by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. Was the Buddha really a prisoner of his culture?
- posted September 29
- BMC Revisions
- The Buddhist Monastic Code, Volumes I & II have received substantive revisions. Readers who have downloaded the BMC ebooks previously, should replace them with these updated versions. A changelog of the revisions is also available for review.
- posted Sept. 16
- August Dhamma talks
- regular evening and short morning
- posted Sept. 8
- Libro nuevo
- Nos alegra presentar Regalos que dejó a su paso : El legado de Dhamma de Phra Ajaan Dune Atulo. Este libro es una recopilación de las breves enseñanzas de Ajaan Dune — verdades puras al más alto nivel, lecciones y advertencias que dio a sus estudiantes, respuestas a preguntas y pasajes de las palabras del Buda en el Canon que siempre le gustó citar. (título original en inglés, ‘Gifts He Left Behind’).
- publicado el 3 de agosto
- July Dhamma talks
- regular evening and short morning
- posted August 1
- 1 New Sutta
- Majjhima 37 Cūḷa Taṇhāsaṅkhaya Sutta | The Shorter Craving-Destruction Discourse.
- posted July 30
- New Book
- Not-self Q & A is available in ebook formats and can be read online as well. Answers to sixteen basic questions on the topic of not-self, plus readings from the Pali Canon on which the answers are based.
- posted July 26
- June Dhamma talks
- regular evening and short morning
- posted July 2
- New Essay
- In the Same Way, by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. The similes that the Buddha uses to provide the proper framework for understanding the skills needed on the path.
- posted June 30
- May Dhamma talks
- regular evening and short morning
- posted June 3
- New Essay
- The Desire to Make a Difference : The Role of Right Resolve, by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. Right resolve and its relationship to right view and right concentration.
- posted June 1
- April Dhamma talks
- regular evening and short morning
- posted Apr. 23
- 14 New Suttas
- Aṅguttara 1:77-82 Paññāvuḍḍhi Sutta, Aṅguttara 1:347 Attharasa Sutta, Aṅguttara 2:1 Vajja Sutta, Aṅguttara 2:2 Padhāna Sutta, Aṅguttara 3:1 Bhaya Sutta, Aṅguttara 3:98 Ājāniya(2) Sutta, Aṅguttara 3:99 Ājāniya(3) Sutta, Aṅguttara 3:100 Potthaka Sutta, Aṅguttara 4:157 Roga Sutta, Aṅguttara 5:56 Upajjhāya Sutta, Aṅguttara 5:167 Codanā Sutta, Aṅguttara 5:210 Muṭṭhassati Sutta, Aṅguttara 6:17 Kusala Sutta, and Aṅguttara 7:69 Aggi Sutta.
- posted April 22
- 8 New Suttas
- Saṁyutta 20:1 Kūṭa Sutta, Saṁyutta 20:3 Kula Sutta, Saṁyutta 20:8 Kaliṅgara Sutta, Saṁyutta 20:9 Nāga Sutta, Saṁyutta 20:10 Viḷāra Sutta, Saṁyutta 20:11 Sigāla(1) Sutta, Saṁyutta 20:12 Sigāla(2) Sutta, and Saṁyutta 47:29 Sirivaḍḍha Sutta.
- posted April 22
- March Dhamma talks
- regular evening and short morning
- posted Apr. 5
- 1 New Sutta
- Aṅguttara 10:59 Pabbajita Sutta | Gone Forth.
- posted Mar. 11
- February Dhamma talks
- regular evening and short morning
- posted Mar. 11
- New Essay
- Things as They Can Be, by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. The role that the four noble truths and the three perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self play in leading to awakening.
- posted Feb. 25
- January Dhamma talks
- regular evening and short morning
- posted Feb. 11
- New Book
- Beyond Desire & Passion : The Buddha’s Training for Freedom is available in ebook formats and can be read online as well. Ven. Sāriputta once proposed introducing the Buddha’s teachings to intelligent foreigners by saying, “Our teacher teaches the subduing of desire and passion.” This book explores the implications of taking this sentence as a starting point for understanding the Dhamma.
- posted Jan. 19
- 2 New Suttas
- Saṁyutta 22:25 Chanda-rāga Sutta, and Saṁyutta 22:26 Assāda Sutta.
- posted Jan. 15
- December Dhamma talks
- regular evening and short morning
- posted Jan. 2
- 1 New Sutta
- Aṅguttara 4:53 Saṁvāsa Sutta | Ways of Living Together.
- posted Nov. 29
- November Dhamma talks
- regular evening and short morning. Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Ajaan Geoff) is traveling abroad until December 17th, so this is likely the last batch of audio Dhamma talks to be posted until his return.
- posted Nov. 16
- Milestone
- The Buddha’s Wisdom, given on November 7, 2024, is the 5,000th evening Dhamma talk by Thanissaro Bhikkhu posted to dhammatalks.org.
- posted Nov. 10
- New Chant
- Metta Luang chant. A chant to aid in developing the sublime attitudes (brahmavihāras): limitless goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity.
- posted Nov. 7
- 2 New Suttas
- Aṅguttara 4:34 Pasāda Sutta, and Aṅguttara 4:52 Puññābhisanda Sutta.
- posted Nov. 6
- October Dhamma talks
- regular evening and short morning
- posted Nov. 1
- New Essay
- The Desire for Awakening, by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. On using desire, effort, and a sense of agency on the path.
- posted October 31
- New long Dhamma talk
- A new long Dhamma talk, given to the BuddhaDhamma Foundation on October 11, has been added to the lectures page.
- posted Oct. 22
- September Dhamma talks
- regular evening and short morning
- posted Oct. 1
All of the Dhamma here is offered freely―no price tags, no advertising, no suggested donations, no memberships, no strings attached in any way. This is distributing the Dhamma in line with the Dhamma, in line with how the Buddha himself taught that his teachings should be offered.
For those who want to express gratitude for the teachers’ generosity, the best way is to put the teachings into practice, earnestly―to see for yourself, for your own benefit, and for the benefit of the world.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey DeGraff) is an American Buddhist monk of the Kammatthana (Thai Forest) Tradition. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1971 with a degree in European Intellectual History, he traveled to Thailand, where he studied meditation under Ajaan Fuang Jotiko, himself a student of the late Ajaan Lee. He ordained in 1976 and lived at Wat Dhammasathit, where he remained following his teacher's death in 1986. In 1991 he traveled to the hills of San Diego County, USA, where he helped Ajaan Suwat Suvaco establish Metta Forest Monastery (Wat Mettavanaram). He was made abbot of the Monastery in 1993.
Kammatthana: Literally, “basis of work” or “place of work.” The term is most often used specifically to identify the Thai Forest Tradition, i.e., the forest tradition lineage founded by Phra Ajaans Mun and Sao. For an introduction to the history of the Kammatthana Tradition, see the essay “The Customs of the Noble Ones,” by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Ajaan Mun was born in 1870 in Baan Kham Bong, a farming village in Ubon Ratchathani province, northeastern Thailand. Ordained as a Buddhist monk in 1893, he spent the remainder of his life wandering through Thailand, Burma, and Laos, dwelling for the most part in the forest, engaged in the practice of meditation. He attracted an enormous following of students and, together with his teacher, Phra Ajaan Sao Kantasilo Mahathera (1861-1941), established the Kammatthana Tradition that subsequently spread throughout Thailand and to several countries abroad. He passed away in 1949 at Wat Suddhavasa, Sakon Nakhorn province.
Ajaan Lee was one of the foremost teachers in the Thai forest ascetic tradition of meditation founded at the turn of the century by his teacher, Phra Ajaan Mun Bhuridatto. His life was short but eventful. Known for his skill as a teacher and his mastery of supranatural powers, he was the first to bring the ascetic tradition out of the forests of the Mekhong basin and into the mainstream of Thai society in central Thailand.
Ajaan Fuang was one of Ajaan Lee’s most devoted students, spending some 24 rains retreats in the company of his renowned teacher. After Ajaan Lee’s death, Ajaan Fuang continued on at Wat Asokaram, Ajaan Lee’s bustling monastery near Bangkok. A true forest monk at heart, Ajaan Fuang left Wat Asokaram in 1965 in search of greater solitude more conducive to meditation, and ultimately ended up at Wat Dhammasathit in Rayong province, where he lived as abbot until his death in 1986.
Born on August 29, 1919, Ajaan Suwat ordained at the age of 20 and became a student of Ajaan Funn Acaro two or three years later. He also studied briefly with Ajaan Mun. Following Ajaan Funn’s death in 1977, Ajaan Suwat stayed on at the monastery to supervise his teacher’s royal funeral and the construction of a monument and museum in Ajaan Funn’s honor. In the 1980’s Ajaan Suwat came to the United States, where he established four monasteries: one near Seattle, Washington; two near Los Angeles; and one in the hills of San Diego County (Metta Forest Monastery). He returned to Thailand in 1996, and died in Buriram on April 5, 2002 after a long illness.
The best introductions to the Dhamma are The Buddha’s Teachings, a short introduction to the basic concepts and values underlying Buddhist practice; Noble Strategy, a collection of essays about Buddhism by Thanissaro Bhikkhu; Awareness Itself, a collection of short teachings by Ajaan Fuang, Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s teacher; and Refuge, a compilation of essays and scriptures from the Pali Canon addressing basic elements of the Buddhist Path.
The best starting point for learning breath meditation is the new book, With Each & Every Breath. The other fundamental guide to breath meditation is Keeping the Breath in Mind by Ajaan Lee.
The Dhammapada, the Udana, and the Itivuttaka are all excellent gateways to the Pali Canon.
Not for beginners, but the essential guide to practicing the Buddhist Path, following the Buddha’s own summary of his teachings, is The Wings to Awakening.
The Basics collection is a graduated series of 10-15 minute Dhamma talks addressing many areas of the practice. Any of the Dhamma talks can be played initially during meditation to provide guidance and ideas for experimentation. Alternatively, the Guided Meditations collection provides a few variations of a longer guided meditation providing more structure.
Some people have downloading problems with the large .zip archives. Internet connections are often interrupted, and the download managers in web browsers are bad at resuming downloads. The download either fails, or it “completes” but is corrupted. If you're internet connection is bad, it’s recommended to use a download accelerator. These do a much better job at resuming interrupted downloads and leaving you with uncorrupted files. Some of these download accelerators are available as extensions to your web browser. Others are stand alone applications. An excellent free one that works on Windows, Android, and Linux is Uget.
An RSS feed is a simple list of new content to this site that your browser or feed reader will automatically check for updates. Then that list will be accessible from, ususally, your browser toolbar as a dropdown menu. Since the RSS feed is just a small text (xml) file, it doesn’t use as much bandwidth to check for new content as would visiting the site periodically to check for new content. Each item link in the feed’s list will open the location on dhammatalks.org where you can download the referenced content.
If you use Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers just left-click on the “subscribe” link and everything should be straightforward. Google Chrome doesn’t have an RSS feed reader, but you can get an add-on, such as Feedly, from the app store. This feed is RSS 2.0 but also ought to work with “atom” readers.
Many of these books can be downloaded in DAISY 3.0 and Braille Ready Format (BRF) formats directly from bookshare.org without any requirement of membership.
The epub format works for most e-readers, such as Android, iPhone, iPad, Nook, Sony, Adobe Digital Editions, desktop and laptop computers, among others. But not Kindles! Kindles use either the azw3 or mobi format.
The azw3 and mobi are Amazon’s proprietary formats for Kindles. The azw3 is a big improvement over the mobi, and Kindles can finally benefit from the intended formatting and fonts. Amazon, however, does not (yet?) support the azw3 in the Kindle Personal Documents Service, so reportedly manual (usb) uploading to the Kindle device is still necessary. The mobi format will continue to be made available until Amazon fully supports the azw3.
The pdf format is the old standard and should be supported by all devices. The primary disadvantage of pdfs relative to epub, azw3 and mobi, however, is you cannot enlarge the font size without the text overflowing off the edge of the screen. That can make it quite challenging to read on small devices. Additionally, with the large ebooks, ones with 1,000 or 2,000 pages, your device might freeze or struggle to scroll through the pdf. Because of the way they’re constructed, that won’t happen with the other ebook formats.
Epub. The epubs have the intended fonts and formatting because of the capabilities of the epub format itself and because the ebooks from this website were created originally as epubs. The mobis, on the other hand, are just push-button conversions from the epubs using the Calibre application. While the mobis are fully functional, no additional effort is put into correcting their formatting for the Kindle. It’s a credit to Calibre that they come out looking as well as they do. The original formatting and fonts are available on a Kindle by using the azw3 format, which is almost identical to the original epub version.
There are a number free reader apps. Purely for reading epubs, Adobe Digital Editions has a slick interface. Calibre is a more comprehensive option which allows for converting to other formats. There are also a Sony Reader app and a Nook-for-PC app. These might be of interest if you also have one of those devices for purposes of syncing. Kindle-for-PC reads mobis but is not recommended.
Please see the book request list for instructions. Please do not contact the website administrator via email to request books. Such requests will be disregarded.
Case 1: Instead of downloading the mobi file, the Safari browser tries to open it as web page. Answer: I was able to download the files on Safari by clicking on them while holding down the "option" button. Using Firefox instead of Safari also takes care of the problem. Based on a little research I did, it seems like the mobi as HTML problem on Safari is nothing new.
Case 2: The mobi downloads as a .txt file using a Samsung Galaxy tablet running Android 4.2.2. Answer: I noticed the url contained the mobi extension, but when I download it, it gets changed to a .txt extension. Manually renaming the file from filename.txt to filename.mobi fixes the problem, and it opens up in Kindle just fine.
The little orange “play” button will open your browser’s media player on the page. The little orange “close” button will stop playback.
If you click on the name of the talk or chant, the link will automatically tell your browser to download the file. If it still insists on streaming the talk, such as in Firefox, right-click the link to get a menu where you can choose download. Also, double check that your browser’s privacy extensions or settings are not interfering.
Because hard drive space is expensive on a hosted web server, it was costly to store those large archives for the downloading convenience of a small number of users. It shouldn’t be too difficult to build a local collection by downloading the full month zip archives. In any case, there are advantages, since there is a much smaller chance of ending up with a corrupt file downloading ten 150 MB archives than a single 1.5 GB one.
Please note that mp3 files with an “NR” or “(oly)” notation indicate recordings of somewhat lower audio quality -- “NR” for applied “Noise-Reduction” and “(oly)” for “Olympus,” an inferior recording device at the Monastery. Any of these could also be labelled “low-fi.” “(Sony)” is similar to “(oly),” but the audio quality is more acceptable. More recently the Sony device has been labelled “med-fi.”
The site admins welcome your feedback at dhammatalks.feedback@gmail.com.
Please contact us at this email to:
- alert us to broken links, corrupted files, other trouble with the site;
- (When reporting trouble please indicate the hardware and software you are using, e.g. Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7, or iPad with iOS5, to the extent you are able.)
- report typos in any of the content, including the suttas, ebooks, dhammatalk transcriptions, etc.
- give general feedback and suggestions regarding usability;
- request additional content be made available; or
- anything else reasonably related to site administration.
Please DO NOT contact us at this email to:
- reach Thanissaro Bhikkhu. All inquiries about the Dhamma should be directed to Thanissaro Bhikkhu at Metta Forest Monastery by regular mail or by telephone;
- request printed books. Book requests sent here will be disregarded. For book requests please follow the instructions at: book requests; or
- sell us anything. This site has a strict policy against hosting advertising or linking to commercial sites.
Bhikkhu, Thanissaro. Head & Heart Together, 9 Jan 2018. dhammatalks.org. Retrieved from https://
Bhikkhu, Thanissaro. “The Joy of Effort.” Head & Heart Together, 9 Jan 2018. dhammatalks.org. Retrieved from https://
Bhikkhu, Thanissaro. Head & Heart Together. Valley Center, CA: Metta Forest Monastery, 2016. Epub Edition. dhammatalks.org. Retrieved from https://dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/Ebooks/HeadHeartTogether180109.epub.
Bhikkhu, Thanissaro. “Names for Nibbana.” dhammatalks.org, 2018. Retrieved from https://
Madhupindika Sutta [The Ball of Honey] Majjhima Nikaya 18. (Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu). dhammatalks.org. Retrieved from https://
Ajaan Fuang Jotiko. Awareness Itself: The Teachings of Ajaan Fuang Jotiko (Translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu). 7 April 2018. dhammatalks.org. Retrieved from https://
Bhikkhu, Thanissaro. “Feeding Off the Future,” 19 Nov 2013. Evening Dhamma Talks on dhammatalks.org. Audio retrieved from https://
Bhikkhu, Thanissaro. “Feeding Off the Future.” Youtube, uploaded by Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, 17 June 2014, https://
All of the content on this site is meant to be released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Unported License. Most of the pre-2014 works are tagged with simple ‘for free distribution only’ language. More recent content is explicitly tagged with the Creative Commons (CC) License. Both licenses are meant to guide users to use and distribute the Dhamma in line with the Dhamma as explained above.
There is some uncertainty about the meaning of ‘Commercial’ with regard to the CC NonCommercial License. For example, some consider the sale of content to support a non-profit entity to be ‘NonCommercial.’ The author and copyright holder of the content on this site considers any sale, including by non-profit entities for non-profit purposes, to be ‘Commercial’ and a copyright violation.
To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
Metta Forest Monastery (Wat Metta) has some useful information for day and overnight visitors to the Monastery, including maps, directions from the airport, transportation information, etiquette, the daily schedule, a calendar of uposatha days, as well as some photos from around the Monastery.
Forest Dhamma provides free publications of the Dhamma talks and books of Ajaan Mahā Boowa and his disciples. The translations are either by Ajaan Paññavaddho, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, or Bhikkhu Silaratano (Ajaan Dick). Also there is information regarding Forest Dhamma’s monastery, in the tradition of Ajaan Mun and Ajaan Mahā Boowa, on a parcel of forest in rural Virginia, USA.
TheravadaCN.org has Chinese translations of many of the Theravada writings from this website and Access to Insight.
