I am planning on creating an epub and possibly printable book called Desert Island Suttas - The Buddha’s Essential Teachings. I want to create a short book of maybe 20 to 40 suttas so that someone who has never read the Dhamma has a good place to start. I am planning on using my Desert Island choices and some of ones you all shared in my post What is your Desert Island Sutta?
I am going to give credit for everyone who has contributed a sutta that makes it in the book and of course it will be freely available for all of us and interwebs and the world as the Suttas are now freely available as the Dhamma always should be.
Also, if you have not contributed to this thread and have any great sutta ideas, it would be greatly appreciated. I have about 10 go to suttas of my own and I’m going to keep using the random sutta feature on accesstoinsight and then using the sutta central version of Bhante Sujato’s translations for the book.
One I am done I will write a post to see if anyone might help create a beautiful cover photo around the Desert Island idea so it is appealing for all new Sutta readers.
Thank you all in advance for any help, input and suggestions.
Hey, this sounds great. Before doing anything final, check back in with us, and we’ll make sure you have the latest and greatest texts (not all of which are live).
The only thing I would advise would be to do some research as to what is already available. There are so many “Buddhist 101” books and manuals out there that I cannot keep track of them and many Buddhist sites already have tons of books available. This is not to discourage you, but if I was doing it, I would want to offer something a bit different or unique than what is already widely available by so many other people.
You can publish the material easy enough nowadays by yourself via the internet, I would just make sure that it is grammatically correct and free of errors before you made it available to people to read. I would also make sure that any sutta you use is generally viewed as being one which was translated properly versus other versions that may have questionable translations. Make sure that any material you are using is free of copyright issues (or its copyright has expired) and, where necessary, ensure that you get permission from the author or translator prior to publishing (generally not really an issue with sutta/sutra material) and give credit where its due, etc. The last thing that you want is for your good intention to turn into a massive legal headache for you and everyone else involved
I have taken a first step in this process. It may be a long one or a short one, I don’t know at this point. The most important thing is that I’ve begun.
The only reason I’m putting my name on the cover as “Compiled by Amitabha Metta Love” is so that some people in my family and friends might be inclined to read it and discover the Buddha’s teachings for themselves and gain more freedom and peace.
Bhante @sujato does this feel okay for you to do this? If not, I will take my name off of it. I would really like to put your name on the front if you don’t mind.
This has gotten me reading more suttas than I had in the past and it has blown my mind even more at how incredible the Buddha’s teachings are. It is going to be really hard to do this, finding the essential teachings.
If anyone has any advice, I will gladly accept and consider it. I hope this work compiling brings the Buddha’s teachings to a few more people and helps to honour the hard work of Bhante Sujato in translating the most important words ever written down.
