In the Buddha's teachings, what is liberation? What are the insights that lead to awakening? And what are the teachings that point to freedom? What does practice look like after liberation? Modern answers to these essential questions are strongly influenced by later Theravada and modern interpretations, which have long obscured some of the Buddha's central teachings. These teachings become manifest once we learn to see them in the Pali suttas. 

Based on the teachings in the Connected Discourses of the Buddha (Saṃyutta Nikāya), this program will present a radically new understanding of such core teachings as the Four Noble Truths, Dependent Arising, and the stages of liberation. In this text, we will see that the Four Noble Truths differ in meaning, insight, and experience from being an understanding of the cause of suffering and that dependent arising has a different function on the path of liberation than emphasizing conditionality as usually taught in Buddhism. This text also reveals that a two-stage model of liberation—i.e., that of "trainee" and "non-trainee"—is far more prominent in the Buddha’s teachings than the four-stage model held up in classic Theravada teachings. And practice before the first stage of awakening is different than after attaining liberation, when practice becomes solidly based on qualities of awakening itself. Exploring all four of these topics together will help us understand accounts of the Buddha's own enlightenment. We will also examine how this new understanding leads to a new appreciation of mindfulness practice taught in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta.

This program was originally offered as a lottery. We encourage you to join the waiting list.