Chanting for Meditators

A Monthly Schedule from Myanmar

A Pāli and English line by line (interlinear) version of this major collection of chanting texts from the Theravāda tradition.

translated by

Ānandajoti Bhikkhu

(April 2016)

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Preface

The following work is a chanting schedule spread over a month, which includes some of the most important meditation teachings in the Theravāda tradition as well as many of the traditional protection chants.

It is based on the chanting schedule used in the Pa-Auk Tawya in Moulmein, Myanmar, where meditation training and practice is the main activity and a thorough knowledge of the texts is required to support the practice.

There are chantings that take place every morning and evening, and then chantings that rotate on a monthly schedule, and supplementary chants that are used occasionally, or on special occasions.

During the second half of the month there is a sequential chanting of the Mahāsatipaṭṭhānasuttaṁ (DN 22), which is considered the most basic text for meditators, and is also one of the longest discourses in the Canon. It is split into fourteen sections for recital.

There are also other important texts which make up the month or are chanted at various times including basic texts like the first and second discourses, and Abhidhamma texts like the Explanation of the Conditions.

This work although it follows the Pa-Auk Tawya chanting schedule differs from it in that I use my own established versions of the texts, and not the versions published in the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana editions. I also format the text differently to transliterations of that edition.

The translations are all my own, of course, and many of them were published elsewhere on this website before I ever began on this book. Others were prepared specially for the book, and were then published separately, many in much fuller versions than are presented here.

I hope that this work will be a support to serious practitioners everywhere, and that the benefits accrued through the work done in preparing this book will help the liberation teachings of the Buddha gain wider circulation for the benefit of all mankind.

I owe special thanks to the American monk Ven Subhūti who first asked me to do the work, and has compared and corrected it according to recordings made in Myanmar, and has put a lot of effort and encouragement into getting this work ready.