/lit/ - Literature

>>11032398
>Once detachment, viveka, is interpreted mainly in this internal sense, it appears perhaps easier to achieve it today than in a more normal and traditional civilization. One who is still an "Aryan" spirit in a large European or American city, with its skyscrapers and asphalt, with its politics and sport, with its crowds who dance and shout, with its exponents of secular culture and of soulless science and so on —among all this he may feel himself more alone and detached and nomad than he would have done in the time of the Buddha, in conditions of physical isolation and of actual wandering. The greatest difficulty, in this respect, lies in giving this sense of internal isolation, which today may occur to many almost spontaneously, a positive, full, simple, and transparent character, with elimination of all traces of aridity, melancholy, discord, or anxiety. Solitude should not be a burden, something that is suffered, that is borne involuntarily, or in which refuge is taken by force of circumstances, but rather, a natural, simple, and free disposition. In a text we read: "Solitude is called wisdom [fekattam monam akkhātam] he who is alone will find that he is happy";" It is an accentuated version of "beata solitudo, sola beatitudo, "

Post best books about buddhism and buddhist meditation. Any recommendations about good english editions of the Majjhima Nikaya or the whole pali cannon? I think it's quite big so if you have different recommendations about starting in a different part of the cannon instead of the middle length discourses that's also appreciated.

>>10986872