Coming Home to the Dhammapada

Written By Mel Pine

As I’ve written in the From the Pure Land blog, I’m working on a book about the Dhammapada, and you may get glimpses of it as I go along. In the introduction, I explain a bit about its importance.

Over 40 years, I’ve gone from the early forms of Buddhism eventually to the “completely beyond” tantric teachings of Vajrayana. That liberation brought me back to the roots of Buddhism, like the Dhammapada, and understanding them for the first time.

In the Introduction to his translation of the Dhammapada, Eknath Easwaran (1910-1999), scholar of Indian spirituality, writes:

If all of the New Testament had been lost, it has been said, and only the Sermon on the Mount had managed to survive these two thousand years of history, we would still have all that is necessary for following the teachings of Jesus the Christ. The body of Buddhist scripture is more voluminous than the Bible, but I would not hesitate to make a similar claim: if everything were lost, we would need nothing more than the Dhammapada to follow the way of the Buddha.

For me, on first reading 40 years ago, I didn’t get these 423 verses organized into 26 chapters. They seemed like nice platitudes, but I was missing something deeper. They require spiritual maturity—a period of applying meditation, contemplation, and teachings to life experience—before absorbing them on a deeper level. But I agree that the path to awakening is all there.

The best estimates of the Buddha’s lifetine place his teachings in the 5th century BCE. Then and for hundreds of years afterward, writing in what’s now northeastern India was considered profane—a tool needed for commercial use but not suitable for sacred texts. So his words were memorized and passed along from generation to generation.

Around the 3rd century BCE, during or soon after the reign of Emperor Ashoka, newly forming Buddhist communities gathered the most loved short sayings of the Buddha and compiled them into verses for easier oral transmission. That was the birth of the Dhammapada. During the Fourth Buddhist Council in Sri Lanka in 29 BCE, the compiled verses were transcribed onto palm leaves.

The Dhammapada is a tiny fraction of memorized teachings transcribed during the council, which together are known as the Pali Canon. The council produced, on palm leaves, what in English translation takes up about 20,000 pages—11 or 12 Christian Bibles in length.

I think of the Dhammapada, the suttas, and other elements of the Pali Canon as the words of the being named Siddhartha Gautama who became enlightened under the famous bodhi tree. But given the 400 years of memorization and transmission before being committed to written form, followed by more than two millenniums of translations and transcriptions, I can’t be sure of that.

But it doesn’t matter. The wisdom expressed in those words over the centuries still relieves suffering for those who follow the path.

The best of paths is the Eightfold [Path]; 
     The best of truths, the Four [Noble Truths].
The best of qualities is dispassion;
     And the best among gods and humans
          Is the one with eyes to see.

This is the path
     For purifying one’s vision; there is no other.
Follow it,
     You’ll bewilder Māra.
Follow it,
     You’ll put an end to suffering.
This is the path I have proclaimed,
     Having pulled out the arrows.

—The Dhammapada, verses 273-275, Gil Fonsdal translation

I wrote about those verses in December 2014. Follow the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, live with equanimity, and you’ll remove the obscurations that distort your view of reality. You’ll never again add angst to the unavoidable pains that come with life.

You will have awakened.

There are so many good translations of the Dhammapada that I can’t recommend just one. If you’re comfortable reading online, you can read respected versions here and here and here. The last link there is to a translation in the public domain and can easily be copied and pasted into the format you prefer.

Ebooks, paperbacks, and often audiobooks are offered for the following translations. If you use an Amazon link I provide, I make get a tiny commission that doesn’t affect the price you pay.

Mel Pine

Mel Pine's end-of-life mission is to share the wisdom he has gained over almost eight decades of life and four decades of Buddhist practice to relieve the suffering of others.

He is a seasoned writer, Buddhist practitioner, and spiritual communicator with six decades of experience in clear nonfiction writing. Through his blogs and teachings, he has cultivated a substantial following across the United States and internationally, offering accessible teachings and practices drawn from his extensive spiritual journey and Buddhist practice.

Describing himself as a "Jewish Buddhist contrarian"—Jewish by birth and early culture, Buddhist by calling, and contrarian by temperament—Mel's writing style is characterized by honesty, heart-centered communication, and a focus on practical wisdom that can reduce suffering across spiritual traditions.

His professional career has included 10 years in multi-edition daily newspapers, 20 years in corporate public relations, and two years in trade association communications. He spent decades in consulting and freelancing, including as a writer, editor, and project manager for a company packaging and ghostwriting books for leaders in business, management, and finance.

His next book, due out in mid-year 2026, is a spiritual memoir on trauma as a spiritual gift. It will be published by the Prospecta Press, an imprint of Easton Studio Press.

Mel and his wife, Carol, live in Loudoun County, Virginia, close enough to their son, Carl, that a highlight of their week is Family Dinner Night.

https://melpineauthor.me
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