NOURISHING THE ROOTS
  
Contents 

Nourishing the Roots  I 
Mind and the Animate Order  16 
Merit and Spiritual Growth  25 
The Path of Understanding  38 
About the Author 

Nourishing the Roots 
  
"The course of spiritual training taught by the Buddha is a double process of self-transformation and self-transcendence issuing in complete emancipation from suffering. When this process is brought to its culmination, suffering is extinguished, for with the awakening of wisdom the basic root of suffering - craving backed by blinding ignorance - falls away never to rise again." 

These sensitive and perceptive essays are intended to probe into the spiritual dimension of Buddhist ethics. They are concerned with Buddhist ethics, not as a guide to interpersonal relations and social action, but as an integral part of the quest for purification and liberation. The author views the Buddhist training as an organic unfolding which draws its sustenance from its ethical roots. In each essay he explores this process from a different angle, highlighting the perfection and purity of the Buddhist path. 

The author, Bhikkhu Bodhi, is an American Buddhist monk from New York City. Ordained in 1972, he is presently the Editor and President of the Buddhist Publication Society.  
The Venerable Webu Sayadaw of Myanmar (Burma) was one of the greatest Theravada Buddhist meditation masters of recent times. An exemplar of the strict and simple meditative life, he constantly stressed to his disciples the need to tread the Buddha's path to its final goal right here and now, in this precious but fleeting human existence.  
The vehicle he chose for his own practice was Anapanasati, mindfulness of breathing, and he constantly called this the direct short cut to Nibbana. The discourses included in the present book were translated from talks he gave to group of lay disciples in the Burmese countryside. Again and again, the master hammers home the point that the only worthy aim of human life is the attainment of Nibbana by practice of the Buddha's teaching. And again and again he tells us that this entire practice lies literally right in front of our noses. Translated from the Burmese original, these discourses give us not only access to the mind of a wise and compassionate teacher, but also a direct glimpse into living Buddhism as it is practiced in rural Southeast Asia.