The Dhammapada

⚖The case for it

The most accessible entry point to Buddhist philosophy: 423 verses on suffering, impermanence, mindfulness, and the path to liberation. 'All that we are is the result of what we have thought.' Direct, pithy, ruthlessly practical. Not theology but psychology; the mind is the problem and the mind is the solution. Twenty-five centuries of meditation practice compressed into a single volume.

— the canon

✕The case against

Translation is destiny here: dozens of English versions disagree on nearly every verse, and the most famous line, the one about mind preceding all things, varies so much between renderings that you may be quoting the translator rather than the Buddha. As philosophy it asserts rather than argues, list after list, and the later chapters' contempt for the body runs more ascetic than modern readers bargain for.

— the honest librarian