Bhikkhu Anālayo is a bhikkhu (Buddhist monk), scholar, and meditation teacher. He was born in Germany in 1962, and Pabbajja in 1995 in the Theravada monastic tradition of Sri Lanka. He is best known for his comparative studies of Early Buddhist Texts as preserved by the various early Buddhist traditions.[Bhikkhu Anālayo’s profile: http://agamaresearch.dila.edu.tw/?page_id=48]
Monastic life
Bhikkhu Anālayo temporarily ordained in 1990 in
Thailand, after a meditation retreat at Wat Suan Mokkh, the monastery established by the influential 20th-century Thai monk Ajahn
Buddhadasa.
In 1994 he went to Sri Lanka, looking to meet Nyanaponika Thera after having read his book
The Heart of Buddhist Meditation.
Nyanaponika Thera died just days before Analayo's arrival but he stayed on and studied with
Bhikkhu Bodhi.
In 1995 he took
pabbajja again under Balangoda Ananda Maitreya Thero.
He received his
upasampada in 2007 in the Sri Lankan
Shwegyin Nikaya (belonging to the main
Amarapura Nikaya), with Pemasiri Thera of Sumathipala Aranya as his ordination
Acharya.
has been Bhikkhu Anālayo's main mentor in the study of the Pāli discourses.
The late Bhikkhu Kaṭukurunde Ñāṇananda has also been an important influence in his understanding of the Dhamma,
[ A lighthouse that illuminated the path of Dhamma, Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka), 1 May 2018] whereas Godwin Samararatne has been the most influential meditation teacher in his early practice life.
Scholarly career and activity
Bhikkhu Anālayo completed a PhD thesis on the
Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta at the University of Peradeniya in 2000, which was later published as
Satipaṭṭhāna, the Direct Path to Realization.
During the course of that study, he had come to notice the interesting differences between the Pāli and Chinese Buddhist canon versions of this early Buddhist discourse. This led to his undertaking a
habilitation research at the University of Marburg, completed in 2007, in which he compared the
Majjhima Nikaya discourses with their Chinese, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit and Tibetan Buddhist canon counterparts.
[Published as A Comparative Study of the Majjhima-nikāya, (Dharma Drum Buddhist College Special Series), Taiwan: Dharma Drum Academic Publisher, 2011.] In 2013 Anālayo then published
Perspectives on Satipaṭṭhāna,
[Perspectives on Satipaṭṭhāna, Birmingham: Windhorse Publications, 2014.] where he builds on his earlier work by comparing the parallel versions of the Satipaṭṭhāna-sutta and exploring the meditative perspective that emerges when emphasis is given to those instructions that are common ground among the extant canonical versions and thus can reasonably well be expected to be early.
Bhikkhu Anālayo has published extensively on early Buddhism.[Bhikkhu Anālayo's research work: http://agamaresearch.dila.edu.tw/?page_id=28] At present he is the chief editor and one of the translators of the first English translation of the Chinese Madhyama-āgama (Taishō 26),
Central to Anālayo's academic activity remain theoretical and practical aspects of meditation. He has published several articles on insight and absorption meditation and related contemporary meditation traditions to their textual sources.
His comparative studies of early Buddhist texts have also led Anālayo to focus on historical developments of Buddhist thought, and to research the early roots and genesis of the bodhisattva ideal[The Dawn of Abhidharma, Hamburg, Hamburg University Press, 2014.]
Bhikkhu Anālayo was a presenter at the International Congress on Buddhist Women's Role in the Sangha.[;] Exploring attitudes towards (female monastics) in early Buddhist texts and the story of the foundation of the bhikkhuni order[Bhikkhu Anālayo's research on women, nuns and bhikkhunīs: http://agamaresearch.dila.edu.tw/?page_id=138 bhikkhunīs and women in Early Buddhism]
Bhikkhu Anālayo has retired from being a professor of the Numata Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Hamburg. He is the co-founder of the Āgama Research Group, a resident scholar at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies
Selected published work
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*co-editor
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(reprinted as a booklet together with translations into Sinhala, Thai and Burmese: West Malaysia: Selangor Buddhist Vipassanā Meditation Society, 2013; and New York: Buddhist Association of the United States, 2014). PDF
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External links
