Online Pāli Reading Group (starting February 2025)

Events Pali Course
1

I’m planning to start a new Online Pāli Reading Group starting Sunday, February 9, 2025, at 6pm (US East Coast time) or 11pm (UTC), which is, for my location in Brisbane, Australia, 9am Monday, February 10, 2025. The class will run bi-weekly (that is every two weeks), and for me will be interspersed with a Pāli beginner’s class I will be teaching that runs at the same time of day and starts one week earlier.

These two classes are not compatible with each other – that is, a student cannot enrol in both at the same time as one is targeted towards complete Pāḷi beginners with no prior knowledge of the language, whereas this reading group is targeted for those people who already have a sound basis in the language, either through having undertaken a beginner’s class with me or another Pāli teacher in the fairly recent past, or who, through self-study have mastered at least three quarters of the lessons in either the Gair and Karunatillake or the Warder, or similar. [Completing de Silva’s Pāḷi Primer only does not count, since it doesn’t cover a lot of important material nor go into a good enough depth].

This course will not be teaching Dhamma (I am not a Dhamma teacher), but of course by reading selected suttas you will pick up Dhamma on your own. Also, it is not a formal grammar course, but we will be addressing Pāli grammar issues as they come up.

Class Registration

Please indicate your interest in joining this class simply by responding to this thread. Please include in your response your name, what time zone you are in, and what prior Pāli learning experience you have. I look forward to working with you all.

As I said for the beginner’s class, there is no perfect time slot to suit everybody in the different time zones around the globe, unfortunately, and this new course, will only be at a generally convenient time in North and South America, New Zealand, and Australia, and East and South-East Asia, but not so good for those in Europe and Africa. My apologies to those in these latter time zones, but this is the only time-slot that conveniently fits in with my schedule.

Class Textbook

There is no textbook for this reading group. I will select certain suttas and we will each download the Pāli text for that sutta from the web and work through it together.

Class Cost

There is no formal cost for the course, as I’m happy to offer my service as a teacher freely. My personal reward comes from the satisfaction of finding so many people interested in learning Pāli. But, I’m also a firm believer in the value of the principle of Dāna, where students can show their gratitude to the teacher, and cultivate their own generosity, by offering a monetary donation of whatever amount is comfortable (monastics excepted, of course). Since I don’t need anything personally, I would be happy if those who are moved and able to offer dāna for the class would donate to either of these two organizations:
Buddhist Global Relief (Bhikkhu Bodhi’s charitable organization tackling hunger around the world), or Sutta Central itself, which constantly seeks resources to fund the great work they do bringing the Buddha’s words to everybody around the world. See links below:

Buddhist Global Relief

DONATE

HELP US CREATE A WORLD in which all are free from hunger and poverty. Donate Now HELP US

https://suttacentral.net/donations?lang=en

10 Likes
2

Nice to see so many Pāli opportunities. :slight_smile:

I go by Dōgen online, living in GMT +3.

My prior Pāli knowledge is rummaging through Bhikkhu Bodhi’s “Reading Buddha’s Discourses in Pāli” as well as the first course of OCBS.

Because I learn better as I work, I recently finished translating the Therīgāthā into Turkish, as documented in this thread:

To nail down the basics again, I enrolled in Mor Ifrah’s Pāli course, which is to begin in less than a week:

I was unsure whether to enroll for the new G&K course as well, but I believe this reading group, along with restarting basics with Mor Ifrah would be a better idea for me personally. :slight_smile:

Much merit to you sir!

1 Like
3

Dear John,

I appreciate your generosity! I would love to join Pāli Reading Group! You already know I’m the slowest student in class, but I love Pali and Sutta. I don’t want to stop. I think the only way I can improve is by repetition and not giving up. So, if you think it’s ok for me to join this class, please sign me up. I enjoy studying Pali with you!

3 Likes
4

Hi John, I would like to sign up for the reading class.

Beth
New York time
Completed the Warder class with you; about half the G&K class.

Thank you so much :slightly_smiling_face: :pray:t2:

(Would advocate for a one-hour class, versus 1.5 hour? :thinking:)

3 Likes
5

Dear John,

I studied Pali with Bhante Sujato and later with you last year. As I’m only semi-retired, I may not be available to attend your class regularly. The last time I attended your G&K course was in March this year, when I started to have work assignments every Monday.

Would you mind if I watch your recordings (if you plan to do so)?

Dheerayupa, Victoria, Australia

2 Likes
6

Hello, John.

I’m interested in joining the reading group.

Brandon, CST (UTC-6). I was in our first class, but I don’t think I should sacrifice my sleep this time. Maybe I could be an “async student” and follow the recording later if possible.

Thank you for giving this opportunity.

1 Like
7

Hi Brandon, since the class is at UTC 11pm, if you are in US CST, then that would be 5pm for you, so you shouldn’t have an issue with timing. Happy to have you in the reading group.

8

Dear John,

I am very interested in joining this reading group, please count me in. Brisbane 9am is Thailand 6am - what a good way to start a day with reading Pāli first thing in the morning! I am very grateful for your generosity and look forward to continuously learning from you and studying with other classmates together.

Best regards,

Mickey

1 Like
10

Dear John Please sign us up for the Pali Reading Group. We have really enjoyed making our way through the textbook with your help. Thanks for the all the work you have put in to making the course happen. Hugo and Alison

2 Likes
11

I am interested. Name is Ryan, although just a few weeks ago I was given the Pali name Cattasallā so that works too. My prior experience with Pali is that I have done all of the coursework of Bhante Bodhi’s courses on de Silva and G&K, finished them a few years ago, and have since spent a LOT of my spare time translating suttas on my own for fun. (Like that’s most of what I do in my free time!) But I would love to get more formal education on it, and instead of continuing through Ven Bodhi’s recorded lectures on his Dropbox a live class would be great. (Well, I am on his mailing list for his live class but it happens during a time I have to do my job.) I am in the eastern time zone and 6 pm Sunday biweekly sounds like it would work really well for me.

2 Likes
12

Hi John

As suggested by 2 people here, may I be considered? I should be 2 hours behind your time in Brisbane. I have sent u a message earlier. Thank u.

With metta
Hui Ling

13

Absolutely, Hui Ling.
I’ve just seen and answered your private message with the same response.
See you online in February.

1 Like
14

Actually, Hui Ling. I’m sorry, but I didn’t read your personal message to me closely enough the first time. But now I see that you have zero Pāli learning experience, so this reading group is definitely not for you. Please instead sign up for my Beginner Pāli course which starts a week earlier on 2/3 Feb at the same time and runs every second week (alternating with the reading group). Here is the link

15

John - I am interested in the beginner’s class. My time zone is US eastern time. I have had minimal exposure to Pali from taking classes from BCBS and studying dhamma from various texts.

Rebecca Duncan

1 Like
16

I am interested in more information as it becomes available. Thanks!

1 Like
17

Hi John,
I’d love to join. I’m on Sydney time.
How long are the sessions?
I’m sharing internet with others and probably need to be off by 7pm ish.

1 Like
18

Hello Ven Pasanna,
The sessions will run from 9am until approx. 10:30am, Brisbane time. This would be 10-11:30am Sydney time, at least until DST ends.
I hope this will work out for you, though I understand that it might not, depending on what time, as a monastic, you will be receiving your dāna meal.

19

Hi Richard,
There is lots of information already in my initial announcement post at the top of this thread. Keep an eye here for anything further, as I’m still mulling what suttas we will read through together.

1 Like
20

Hello Rebecca,
It would be lovely to have you join us, however, your post implies that you have not studied any Pāli grammar at all, but just have familiarity with many Pāli words from BCBS classes and other dhamma study.
Above I’ve copied in the requirements for this reading group from the top of this thread. Unless I’ve misinterpreted your post, it sounds as if you would be far better off joining my Pāli beginners class which will be held at the same time of day, but starting a week earlier, with both groups being held every 2nd week, alternating with each other.

1 Like
21

Oh no! :frowning_face: I read 6pm Brisbane time.
Yeah that’s definitely not going to work with dāna time.