THE QUESTIONS OF SAKKA – MAHASI SAYADAW

Editor’s Foreword

A number of the late Venerable Mahāsī Sayādaw’s discourses have been translated into English, and most of these have been reprinted before in Malaysia, but this new edition has been prepared for distribution in English speaking countries. Although many changes have been made to the original translation, they are only grammatical ones. The content of the Venerable Sayādaw’s discourse has been fully preserved and is now much easier to read than it was. I am indebted to Christine Fitzmaurice-Glendining for her meticulous work in correcting the grammar. She also checked the final proofs. If any errors have unwillingly been introduced into the translation then that responsibility is mine alone.

The Venerable Sayādaw’s discourses were addressed to meditators practising intensively at his meditation centre in Rangoon, so they contain many Pali words that, though familiar to those who have heard regular discourses, may be unfamiliar to others. In preparing this edition of the Sakkapañha Sutra I have replaced the Pali words with a translation wherever possible. However, since this book deals with advanced topics such as mental absorption (jhāna) and insight knowledge (vipassanā-ñāṇa), the use of Pali terms is sometimes preferable.

In the footnotes, references are to the page numbers of the Pali texts of the Pali Text Society, which in the translations are given [in square brackets] at the top of the page or sometimes in the body of the text. However, in the case of the Dhammapada or Sutra Nipāta, references are simply given to verse numbers.

The Sakkapañha Sutra is the twenty-first discourse of the Dīghanikāya, the long discourses.