When I first began to take a serious interest in Buddhism, after an initial trip to Sri Lanka, I asked myself where this wisdom actually came from. What texts do we possess to understand the Buddha’s thought, and above all, how authentic are they? In Sri Lanka I had discovered the marvellous teaching of a lay master named Godwin Samararatne. I wanted to write a book about him and make his approach to meditation known in France. To do so, I needed to request permission from his heirs to use his writings. I then learned that the association Friends of Godwin Samararatne held the copyrights to his work. They gave me the email of the association’s director, a monk living in southern Thailand. That is how I came into contact with Venerable Anandajoti, who turned out to be one of the finest translators of the Pāli Canon—the oldest collection of the Buddha’s discourses that has come down to us in its entirety.
Thanks to him, I was able to kill two birds with one stone (if I may say) : I obtained permission to use Godwin’s texts for my book (which was published under the title “Vipassana. La pratique de la vision pénétrante”), and at the same time I made the most extraordinary intellectual discovery of my life—this formidable body of texts, a large part of which can legitimately be regarded as nothing less than the Buddha’s own words.
It was around that time that the Covid pandemic swept across the world. I found myself confined in the Breton countryside, suddenly endowed with the time needed for such a study. Yet a serious problem soon arose. Besides the fact that the Pāli Canon had been only partially translated into French—whereas it existed in a complete English translation—I was confronted with the sheer size of the corpus. Indeed, the Pāli Canon is far more voluminous than the Bible, Old and New Testaments combined. A recent Thai edition comprised forty volumes and more than twenty million characters! Like many researchers, whether French or English-speaking, I felt dizzy faced with the magnitude of the task. One lifetime would not suffice to read this vast collection of texts. And even if I embarked on such an undertaking, where should I begin? And above all, how could I be sure of properly understanding the Buddha’s discourses?
I needed a reliable guide, someone with a complete knowledge of these texts and, more importantly, the intelligence to illuminate them. I therefore wrote to Venerable Anandajoti to express my perplexity. He replied that what I was seeking did indeed exist: an annotated anthology covering the entirety of the Pāli Canon, compiled by one of the greatest Western specialist on the subject, Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi. I immediately ordered “In the Buddha’s Words”, which one might translate as “Le Bouddha par lui-même.” This book quickly became a true bedside companion. I would readily compare it to those magical books one finds in Borges’s stories, containing an entire world within their pages.
This authoritative anthology offers the most comprehensive introduction to the Buddha’s teaching in his own words. Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi, whose numerous translations are widely regarded as authoritative, presents here a selection of the Buddha’s discourses drawn from the Pāli Canon. Divided into ten thematic chapters, “In the Buddha’s Words” reveals the full breadth of the Buddha’s teachings, from family life and marriage to the homeless life and the realization of nibbāna (nirvāṇa in Sanskrit). Each chapter is preceded by a concise and illuminating introduction, guiding the reader toward a deep understanding of the texts that follow.
The book offers a clear translation of the Buddha’s original teachings, a carefully curated selection of texts from the Pāli Canon, and chapters devoted to the Buddha’s life, ethics, meditative practices, wisdom, and awakening. All the essential questions we naturally ask concerning the origin of suffering and the possibility of its cessation, kamma, the pursuit of a happy life, rebirth, and so on, find clear answers here, in a work prefaced by the Dalai Lama. “In the Buddha’s Words” allows readers unfamiliar with Buddhism to grasp the importance of the Buddha’s contribution to our global spiritual heritage. Taken as a whole, these texts eloquently testify to the richness and depth of his teaching and point the way toward an ancient yet ever-living path. Beginners, practitioners, and scholars alike will find in this systematic presentation an indispensable resource.
This work, organised progressively from the simple to the difficult, from the elementary to the profound, is ideally suited to anyone seeking an accessible introduction to the scriptural corpus of early Buddhism, while also serving as a precious resource for readers already familiar with the Pāli Canon but looking for a more structured presentation of its materials.
“All very well,” you might say (if French is your language) “but it’s in English!” I then decided to undertake a translation of the book together with a Swiss friend, Noé Ismet, a good connoisseur of early Buddhism. To this end we contacted Bhikkhu Bodhi, who was delighted by our initiative. Bhikkhu Bodhi was—and still is—willing to answer our questions. However, he insisted that the translation of the Buddha’s discourses be made directly from the Pāli rather than from his English translation. At the time, we were unable to meet this requirement. We therefore set out in search of the best available French translations, notably those of Mohan Vijayaratna. But he did not deign to reply to our messages. Furthermore, it was uncertain whether we could access all the French translations of the texts cited by Bhikkhu Bodhi in his book “In the Buddha’s Words”. We were fully aware of the book’s importance, of its indispensable nature, of the extraordinary contribution it could make to the understanding of the Buddha’s original teaching in the French speaking world.
Several years passed without finding a satisfactory solution. We were disheartened that such an important book could not reach the French-speaking public. Eventually, we learned that a French-speaking monk, Venerable Cittaguno, had done what we had not dared to do: he translated the entirety of Bhikkhu Bodhi’s book into French, and that this translation would be published by Almora (a French publisher reknown for it’s spiritual books) under the title “L’essentiel du Bouddha”. Personally, I find that this title does not do justice to the importance of the work. A title such as “La Parole du Bouddha” would have seemed more appropriate to me. Nonetheless, I must congratulate Venerable Cittaguno for his translation, which is perfectly faithful to the thought and style of Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi. “L’essentiel du Bouddha” is faithful to the English original down to the smallest detail, which makes it, in my view, the most important book for understanding Buddhism to have been published in French in decades.
Whether you know nothing at all about Buddhism and wish to discover the Buddha’s wisdom at its source, whether you are engaged in a spiritual quest, whether you are a traditional Buddhist, a convert, a member of another religion, a meditation practitioner or a scholar, “L’essentiel du Bouddha” will not disappoint you! In recent years I have met in France dozens of people who complained that they had no access to the Buddha’s authentic teaching in French. Well, that time is over—no more excuses!
