Sutra Snips

[Skull]

Scores of sutras and shastras from the Buddhist tradition have been translated, many in English. Here are a few sample excerpts:

From the Benefits of Giving Sutra:

Discerning people give gifts in thirty-seven ways. What are the thirty-seven?

1. In order to be rid of miserliness, they give gifts out of faith.370
2. They give gifts at appropriate times.
3. They give the three objects that are fully purified as they accord
with those allowed by the Tathāgata.
4. In order to be rid of all the faults of disturbed thoughts, they give
gifts while showing respect.
5. In order to extract something worthwhile from the body that has
no worth, they give gifts with their own hands.
6. Giving gifts without causing any harm to others leads to accomplishing
a grand renunciation of property.
7. Giving colorful gifts leads to a beautiful complexion.
8. Giving aromatic gifts leads to the fragrant scent of good reputation.
9. Giving delicious gifts leads to the auspicious characteristic of
a supreme ability to discern tastes.
10. Giving refined gifts leads to refined enjoyments.
11. Giving gifts plentifully leads to plentiful enjoyments.
12. Giving food leads to freedom from hunger in all births to come.
13. Giving liquids to drink leads to freedom from thirst in all births to come.
14. Giving garments leads to the enjoyment of all sorts of cloth.
15. Giving housing leads to the possession of upper stories, courtyards,
gabled houses, palaces, mansions, gardens, pleasure groves, and land.
16. Giving beds and seats leads to birth in a high-ranking family.
17. Giving vehicles leads to the accomplishment of the four means of
supernormal power.
18. Giving medicine leads to the realization of nirvāṇa, the state that is
without aging and death and that is the termination of sorrow and affliction.

From the new collection of 25 sutras by Peter Skilling, Questioning the Buddha