A tribute to Bhante Sujato and his gift to us all. Anumodana to all those who have helped create, maintain, and develop this freely-available axis mundi of study, and repository of the Teachers’ words. 
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Thank you for sharing this! Excited to watch it. I am surprised to see it here first, and that it hasn´t popped up on my YouTube feed! You guys are everywhere on my feed, and I have zero complaints about it 
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Would be great if folks could share highlights or main points. I’m not a big video watcher.
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Greetings Snowbird! You can read the text of the interview by going to the YouTube site and scrolling down to “Show Transcript”. Here is an overview of topics discussed.
00:00 Introduction
01:56 Bhante Discovers the Suttas
07:01 The Origin Story of SuttaCentral
13:52 How Comparative Agama Study Supports Pāli Sutta Practice
20:59 Key Insights Uncovered Through Comparative Text Studies
29:45 Navigating the Impact of Text-Critical Studies on Faith
36:38 The Necessity of Jhāna and Its Role on the Path to Awakening
48:00 Layering Text-Critical Study with Traditional Pāli Canon Study
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I found this interview quite inspirational. It builds in a way that does not lend itself to soundbites, so I won’t offer any shortcuts. Thank you @nisabhobhikkhu for Clear Mountain Monastery’s initiative.
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I watched part one last night and am ‘chomping at the bit’ for part two tonight (well, upon further review it appears I will have to wait for a few more days 
boo). Still, I am at a loss (@sujato ) to understand where you keep all of this data… 
My mind can barely keep the data of my vehicle license plate…Maybe that’s a “me” issue. What is this well that you possess…? That is for a different time maybe.
One of the most interesting topics for me was the discussion around putting ourselves in the Buddha’s time and the speaking to what were the circumstances of the time. How does modern circumstance differ from that of the time of the Buddha? Seemingly, on a basic level, not that different. Things may be ‘faster’ in this time. But, how, if at all, does this change one’s perception of the path?
Regardless, thank you Ajahn Sujato for all of the work in interpreting the suttas and all of the discussion in which you are willing to engage. @sujato You have been such a great help for me on this path. Though I perceive I am not far on the path, I look to you and the other members of the Noble Sangha to assist me.
Your efforts are appreciated and acknowledged.
I also have to thank Ajahns Kovilo and Nisabho for providing this space, and for all of the hard work you’ve been doing. Congratulations on the purchase of the land. It is my hope that this will provide peace and ease to human beings, as it has done for me.
With gratitude,
Stacie
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This is a wonderful interview and I can’t wait for part 2. One of many intriguing things Venerable Sujato talked about was the importance of having a sense of who the Buddha was speaking to. Richard Gombrich addresses this to some extent in his book “What the Buddha Thought” but I’m wondering if anyone has other recommendations.
Bhante’s booklet “How Early Buddhism Differs from Theravāda: A Handy Checklist” is mentioned and rightly highly recommended by the Clear Mountain Ajahns during the interview. Later on, Ven. Sujato speaks rather pointedly about how many people teach Buddhism without having any knowledge of what the Buddha actually taught. It made me wish for a new volume in the series: “How Early Buddhism Differs from Mahāyāna, Vajrayāna and Westernized Insight Meditation.” 
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One standard is K. N. Jayatilleke’s Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge; it reads like a dense scholarly work but I found it immensely informative – still do. The brilliance of the work IMO are the drawn comparisons (and deviations) between Brahmanic texts and the EBTs.
The first third of A Survey of Hinduism by Klaus K. Klostermaier is another standard. However it is not a comparative study. That said, it’s super-informative and readable.
A much more recent one is Roberto Calasso’s Ardor (Translated by Richard Dixon). This arthur draws on the Vedic literature which, for me, juxtaposes well with Bhante Sujato’s approach. This is, however, not a comparative study.
I really haven’t found anything comparable to Bhante’s comparative studies, much of which is embedded as notes to his translations. There are bits and pieces in academia.
The bonus with Bhante’s notes is they are freely and generously offered
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Thank you very much for these very valuable recommendations. I will delve into all three books and am especially grateful to you for recommending Roberto Calasso’s book which I surely would not otherwise have discovered.
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Adding in part two of this conversation. A take down of paramis, bodhisatvas and AI, and a cry for humanity.
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spicy as ever! 
Can’t wait!
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But 波羅密 (jack fruit) is Ajahn Brahm’s favourite fruit. Okay, that pun only works for Chinese speakers. 波羅密 means parami and jack fruit.
Excellent interview. Though, I find it hard to believe the story of Gotami was made up. I’m not knowledgeable enough to make an informed opinion. Some day I’ll read Bhante Analayo’s paper on this topic, but not today. Procrastination is the way!
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Ayyā Somā has just talked about this for Anukampa Bhikkhuni Project, you can watch the video on youtube 
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I believe you meant 波羅蜜
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Oh dear, you’re right.
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Part one was great and part two was even better. Very inspiring!
I love it when someone has well researched knowledge about controversial topics.
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I love the question on jhanna (36:38, thanks BCH).
On the third instruction in the mindfulness of the body section of Anapanasati, I am fond of I. B. Horner’s explanation for the Pali Text Society. Here’s her translation of the passage, with her footnote:
He trains himself, thinking, ‘I will breath in experiencing the whole body.’[15] He trains himself, thinking, ‘I will breath out experiencing the whole body.’
[15] I.e. the breath-body
Interesting. Bhante Sujato’s translation is the same (except for pronouns), and he similarly adds a note:
The “whole body” (sabbakāya) here refers to the breath, marking the fuller and more continuous awareness that arises with tranquility. Some, however, interpret it as the “whole physical body”, broadening awareness to encompass the movement and settling of energies throughout the body.
Very diplomatic, to include “whole physical body” as a possible interpretation.
More interesting to me is Bhante Sujato’s emphasis on cessation as the principal engine of jhana. He notes that the cessation of the hindrances results in the induction of the first jhana in sermons like DN 2 (Bhante’s translation and notes; emphasis in first note, my addition):
But when these five hindrances are given up inside themselves, a mendicant regards this as freedom from debt, good health, release from prison, emancipation, and a place of sanctuary at last.*
Seeing that the hindrances have been given up in them, joy springs up. Being joyful, rapture springs up. When the mind is full of rapture, the body becomes tranquil. When the body is tranquil, they feel bliss. And when blissful, the mind becomes immersed.**
*Each simile illustrates not the happiness of acquisition, but of letting go.
**The Buddha did not emphasize technical details of technique, but the emotional wholeness and joy that leads to deep meditation.
In some suttas, there is an effort cited in connection with the induction of the first jhana:
And what is the faculty of immersion? It’s when a noble disciple, relying on letting go, gains immersion, gains unification of mind. Quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, they enter and remain in the first absorption, which has the rapture and bliss born of seclusion, while placing the mind and keeping it connected.
(SN 48.10, tr. Bhante Sujato; emphasis added)
Herein… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness. (The disciple), aloof from sensuality, aloof from evil conditions, enters on the first trance, which is accompanied by thought directed and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein.
(SN 48.10, tr. Pali Text Society vol V p 174; parentheticals paraphrase original, emphasis added)
What Bhante Sujato has translated as “unification of mind” is, I believe, more generally translated as “one-pointedness of mind”. I’m very pleased to have found Bhikkyu Kumāra’s discussion of “ekaggatā”, or “one-pointedness”, in his What You Might Not Know About Jhana and Samadhi, p 42-45):
… “One-pointedness” has gained such wide acceptance as the translation for ekaggatā that most people don’t question it. So, people who assume it means “fixing of close, undivided attention on a spatially limited location”, and believe it’s necessary, will try to practice that.
… The Pāli word has three parts: eka (one), agga, and tā (-ness). So clearly this common translation takes agga to mean “pointed”.
… Actually, “agga” has another meaning, as a contracted form of “agāra”. … it’s literally “empty place”, with agāra being simply “place”.
Could this other meaning of agga, i.e. “place”, be the actual meaning in “ekaggatā”?
Let’s join the parts: ekaggatā = eka (one) + agga (place) + tā (ness) = “one-place-ness” or “one-placedness” (modelling after “one-pointedness”).
The question is, what does reliance on “letting go” or “making self-surrender the object of thought” have to do with “one-placedness”? Here’s an answer I’ve quoted before, from Zen teacher Koun Franz:
Okay… So, have your hands in the cosmic mudra, palms up, thumbs touching, and there’s this common instruction: place your mind here. Different people interpret this differently. Some people will say this means to place your attention here, meaning to keep your attention on your hands. It’s a way of turning the lens to where you are in space so that you’re not looking out here and out here and out here. It’s the positive version, perhaps, of ‘navel gazing’.
The other way to understand this is to literally place your mind where your hands are–to relocate mind (let’s not say your mind) to your centre of gravity, so that mind is operating from a place other than your brain. Some traditions take this very seriously, this idea of moving your consciousness around the body. I wouldn’t recommend dedicating your life to it, but as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go–and a fascinating one.
( “No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site; emphasis added)
I would differ from Koun Franz only in that, as I wrote recently: "for me, the practice is to realize a freedom of consciousness, so that attention can take place anywhere in the body right to the surface of the skin. Not ‘where it is placed’, but ‘where it takes place.’”
So, not to place the mind with the “centre of gravity” but to allow the “one-pointed” mind to take place at any particle of the body. To that end, I find these instructions helpful:
… just as a handy bathman or attendant might strew bath-powder in some copper basin and, gradually sprinkling water, knead it together so that the bath-ball gathered up the moisture, became enveloped in moisture and saturated both in and out, but did not ooze moisture; even so, (a person) steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease.
(AN 5.28, tr. Pali Text Society vol. III pp 18-19; emphasis added)
And similarly:
The (Tai Chi) Classics say that the mind and ch’i (“breath energy”) stay together in the tan t’ien. This is the “seeking of the released mind” to arrive at the perfect place of cultivation without harm.
(“Cheng Tzu’s Thirteen Treatises on T’ai Chi Ch’uan”, Cheng Man Ch’ing, tr. Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo and Martin Inn, p 59; parenthetical added)
Ch’i can be translated as “breath” or “breath energy”. Cheng defined the tan-t’ien as the center of gravity.
Benevolence is man’s mind, and righteousness is man’s path. How lamentable is it to neglect the path and not pursue it, to release this mind and not know to seek it again! When men’s fowls and dogs are released, they know to seek for them again, but they release their mind, and do not know to seek for it. The great end of learning is nothing else but to seek for the released mind.
(Mencius; Book 6, Part A, Chapter 11 inside the Gaozi I; tr. James Legge, except “released” instead of “lost” for fang, as per Lo and Inn’s translation of Cheng Man Ch’ing’s “Thirteen Treatises”)
I find the reflection “This is not mine; This I am not; This is not the Self of me” (with regard to body, feeling, perception, habitual tendency, and consciousness) useful in releasing the mind, but so too is the relaxed necessity of breath.