The Dhammapada, Vol. 1: The Way of the Buddha

The Dhammapada is a collection of sayings of the Gautama the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures. This is volume one of a 12-volume series of Osho Talks, where Osho brings Buddha's Dhammapada into the 21st century, opening them for a new understanding for contemporary mankind.

In alternating chapters, Osho comments on specific sutras of Buddha and responds to questions from his audience, deepening the understanding of these timeless works. "My talking on Buddha is not just a commentary: It is creating a bridge. Buddha is one of the most important masters who has ever existed on the Earth - incomparable, unique."

The setting of these talks is an open-air auditorium at the Osho International Meditation Resort in Pune, India. Osho and his audience sit surrounded by trees, and the elements of nature - the chirping of birds, wind, and the cracking bamboos as well as the distant sound of the local Pune-Mumbai morning train - are all parts of these recordings and give them a truly existential flavor.

Osho employs his penetrating insight and wonderful humor to remove the dust of many misunderstandings gathered on Buddha's teachings and again emphasizes meditation over dogma, meditation being Buddha's greatest contribution to the development of human consciousness.

"Buddha transformed the word meditation. Meditation had always been something of the mind, and Buddha brought a new quality, so totally new, diametrically opposite to the old meaning: He said meditation means a state of no mind. It is not concentration; it is not contemplation. It is not thinking; it is not thinking about God. It is not even prayer, because thinking is of the head, intellectual; prayer is emotional. That is another side of the head, not very far away from it - a different language used by another part of the head."

Osho Talks are "meditating talks", allowing the listener an experience of meditation. "These words of Buddha come from eternal silence. They can reach you only if you receive them in silence."