Theology
c. 5th century CE, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka
The great commentator who systematized Theravada Buddhism, mapping the whole path from virtue through concentration to the wisdom that sees a world of pure conditions and ends suffering.
Start learning Buddhaghosa →Buddhaghosa’s great project - gathering the ancient Sinhala commentaries preserved at the Great Monastery of Anuradhapura and rendering them into Pali, so that the settled meaning of the Buddha’s word could be organized…
Buddhaghosa’s analysis of sila , moral discipline - the first of the three trainings and the indispensable foundation of all meditation: restraint of the senses, right livelihood, and the purification of conduct that pr…
Buddhaghosa’s detailed method for cultivating the four brahmaviharas or divine abidings - loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity - and above all his technique of ‘breaking down the barriers’ so tha…
Buddhaghosa’s exposition of paticca-samuppada , dependent origination - the twelve-linked chain by which suffering arises through conditions rather than through a creator, fate, or chance, and the ‘wheel of becoming’ th…
Buddhaghosa’s Abhidhamma analysis of experience into momentary events of consciousness ( citta ) and mental factors ( cetasika ), and how kamma and rebirth can operate through this impersonal stream with no enduring sel…
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