The Early Teachings of the Buddha with Sarah Shaw

This lecture series looks at several texts in the Pali Canon from the Dīgha Nikāya, the “collection of long discourses”. Sarah explores the Buddha’s teachings on subjects including meditation, ethics, meditative states and conditionality. This series is an excellent foundation for understanding the underpinnings of all Buddhist philosophy.

The discourses are set within narratives of the Buddha’s life. These texts have varied genres designed to have different effects. They range from prescriptive ways to apply the practice, to evocative imagery that symbolises the teaching, to ethical recommendations about how to act in the world. This course explains the context and background of these timeless teachings.


- 1: Course overview. The historical and cultural background for the early suttas and the key teachings in Buddhist philosophy including the four noble truths and the eightfold path
- 2: Samaññaphala-Sutta: The Fruits of the Contemplative Life, the stages of meditative absorption, the jhānas
- 3: Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna-Sutta: The Great Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness, the four foundations of mindfulness
- 4: The Mahāsamāya-Sutta and the Mahāsudassana-Sutta
- 5: The Sangīti-Sutta
- 6: The Sigālovāda-Sutta 
- 7: The Mahānidāna-Sutta – The Great Causes Discourse

Sarah Shaw received her Phd in English from Manchester University. After studying Pali and Sanskrit at Oxford, she began teaching and writing on Buddhist subjects. She has written several books on meditation theory and practice, and jātaka literature and is a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies.