Practical Wisdom with Dr. Rick Hanson
Jun 17, 2026 · 41 min · 13 segments
Do you ever feel caught up in striving, worrying about how you’re doing, or trying to become a better version of yourself? In this talk, I explore an early Buddhist teaching on how craving and…
Rick HansonHost
What I'd like to do is to go through and kinda talk through a fairly short sutra or sutta from early Buddhism.
As context here , the Buddha lived and taught for many years, probably close to eighty or so, and his teachings were listened to and essentially memorized by the monastics of his time.
And then those memorized versions of his teachings as including some commentaries from other people, and we'll be hearing one of those tonight, were then passed down in an oral tradition for hundreds of years until written records survived.
That is the basis for the canon, the collection of sutras and teachings that we have today that were written down originally in several languages.
P-perhaps the, the one that's best known is Pali, P-A-L-I, which gives us the Pali Canon, the collection of teachings from early Buddhism.
I think of it as OG Buddhism, you know, original gangster [chuckles] old guard, original Buddhism.
And I'm often struck by the degree to which sometimes people in, in, you know, Tibetan or, or Zen or modern mindfulness settings just are not aware of the root teachings th-that really began this whole lineage.
They're really down to earth and unflinching, unafraid in the directness of the analysis of the mental processes that create suffering and harm for ourselves and others, and the practices that we can engage.
Everyone is invited to engage these practices that can lead increasingly to freedom and awakening and, and the highest happiness, which is peace, to quote the Buddha.
Let's recognize that it's probably an imperfect reconstruction of the exact words that were used.
I'm gonna deliberately glide right past some major sections of this sutta to really focus on the parts that I think are most down to earth and most relevant for our own practice.
What I'd like to do is to go through and kinda talk through a fairly short sutra or sutta from early Buddhism.
As context here , the Buddha lived and taught for many years, probably close to eighty or so, and his teachings were listened to and essentially memorized by the monastics of his time.
And then those memorized versions of his teachings as including some commentaries from other people, and we'll be hearing one of those tonight, were then passed down in an oral tradition for hundreds of years until written records survived.
That is the basis for the canon, the collection of sutras and teachings that we have today that were written down originally in several languages.
P-perhaps the, the one that's best known is Pali, P-A-L-I, which gives us the Pali Canon, the collection of teachings from early Buddhism.
I think of it as OG Buddhism, you know, original gangster [chuckles] old guard, original Buddhism.
And I'm often struck by the degree to which sometimes people in, in, you know, Tibetan or, or Zen or modern mindfulness settings just are not aware of the root teachings th-that really began this whole lineage.
They're really down to earth and unflinching, unafraid in the directness of the analysis of the mental processes that create suffering and harm for ourselves and others, and the practices that we can engage.
Everyone is invited to engage these practices that can lead increasingly to freedom and awakening and, and the highest happiness, which is peace, to quote the Buddha.
Let's recognize that it's probably an imperfect reconstruction of the exact words that were used.
I'm gonna deliberately glide right past some major sections of this sutta to really focus on the parts that I think are most down to earth and most relevant for our own practice.
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