Wise View: A Practitioner’s Guide to Core Ideas in Early Buddhist Texts

Instructor(s): William Edelglass

Program Description:

In early Buddhist texts, wise view is often described as the “forerunner of all wholesome things” (AN V, 236). Positioned as the first step of the Eightfold Path, it lays the foundation for awakening and helps us discern between skillful and unskillful manifestations of all other path factors. 

In this program, we will explore wise view as it appears in early Buddhist discourses, supplemented by traditional and contemporary scholarship. Through small-group sutta study, lecture, and discussion, we will investigate wise view itself, as well as some of the core views of early Buddhist texts, such as dependent arising, non-self, impermanence, dukkha, the Four Noble Truths, emptiness, and liberation. Finally, we will examine some of the ways that early Buddhist texts suggest we hold these views, ways that are themselves liberating from conceptual entanglements.

Noble Silence:

Noble silence will be observed following each evening session through breakfast the following morning.

Experience Level:

Suitable for beginning and experienced practitioners.

About the Instructor(s):
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  William Edelglass

  William Edelglass is Director of Studies at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.  He also teaches at Smith College, where he is the Director of the Five College Tibetan Studies Program in India, and is adjunct professor at the Central University for Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, India.  His scholarship explores questions in Buddhist studies, environmental humanities, and philosophy.  William has practiced in several different Buddhist traditions and has taught widely in dharma centers, academia, as a wilderness guide, and in several Tibetan academic institutions in India.  William’s most recent book is The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy.