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Bhikkhu Bodhi

Bhikkhu Bodhi

1944 CE · Modern · Brooklyn (NY)

b. 1944 CE (living)

Bhikkhu Bodhi (Jeffrey Block, b. 1944) is an American Theravāda monk and one of the foremost contemporary translators of the Pali Canon into English. Born in Brooklyn and trained in philosophy, he ordained in Sri Lanka in the early 1970s and for many years edited the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy, living alongside the senior monk Nyanaponika. His complete or major translations of the long, middle, connected, and numerical discourses set a modern standard for English readers. Since returning to the United States in 2002 he has taught in New York and founded Buddhist Global Relief, an organization addressing hunger and poverty. He is a living, well-documented figure and is treated aniconically.

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Stop 1 of 3Born

Brooklyn (NY)ברוקליןNew York, USA

What they did here

Born Jeffrey Block in 1944; studied philosophy (PhD, Claremont) before travelling to Asia to ordain.

About Brooklyn (NY)

Brooklyn, coextensive with Kings County, is one of the five boroughs of New York City. It began as the Dutch village of Breuckelen, chartered in 1646, remained an independent city until it was consolidated into New York in 1898, and is today the most populous borough. Roughly a fifth of its residents are Jewish, and since the mid-twentieth century it has been a world centre of Orthodox and Hasidic life: Chabad-Lubavitch has had its headquarters in Crown Heights since 1940, Satmar is centred in Williamsburg and Bobov in Borough Park, alongside many yeshivas and Modern Orthodox congregations. Several American Buddhist teachers, among them Bernie Glassman and Bhikkhu Bodhi, were born in Brooklyn.

In Brooklyn (NY) at the same time

Sylvia Boorstein, Bernie Glassman, Lama Surya Das

Across the traditions, in Brooklyn (NY) at the same time

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Bhikkhu Bodhi’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Bhikkhu Bodhi’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(2)

The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering

Kandy (Buddhist Publication Society) · 1984

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In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon

Chuang Yen Monastery, Carmel · 2005

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