I was trying to read the Heart Sutra to chant it in Sanskrit. But it doesn't make any sense translated into English. At least it didn't until Wisdom Quarterly's Dharma editor explained it.* Now it's clear. Now I know why "enlightenment" eludes me. Now I know what to study and put into practice to know-and-see. Thanks, WQ!
one is called a noble disciple who is a stream-winner, no longer liable to ever fall into subhuman states of woe [1], assured of full and final enlightenment."
NOTE: 1.
The "stream-winner" (sotapanna) is sure to become fully enlightened (an arahant) within seven rebirths and will not be reborn more than seven more times, and such a person will never again be reborn in any state lower than the human plane.
the one "with seven rebirths at the utmost" (sattakkhattu-parama) ["one with only seven further rebirths at the utmost," is one of the three kinds of stream-winners (sotāpannas).
the one "passing from one noble family to another" (kolankola),
the one "germinating only once more" (eka-bījī, lit. "one seed" or perhaps "at most once more seeded").]
(1) "If a person, after the disappearance of the three lower fetters (personality-belief, skeptical doubt, attachment to rites and rituals), see samyojana), has entered the stream [that leads inevitably to nirvana], that person is no longer subject to any rebirth in the lower worlds [anywhere below the human plane], is firmly established, destined to reach full enlightenment. After having passed among celestial beings (deva) and human beings (manussya) only at most seven times more through the Round of Rebirths, one puts an end to all suffering. Such a person is called "one with seven rebirths at the utmost" (sattakkhattu-parama).
I continued to practice to make an end of all ill.
(2) "If a person, after the disappearance of the three fetters.... is destined to reach full enlightenment, that person, after having passed among noble families two or three times through the round of rebirths, makes an end of all suffering. Such a person is called "one passing from one noble family to another" (kolankola).
(3) "If a person, after the disappearance of the three fetters...is destined to full enlightenment, one, after having only once more returned to the human plane, makes an end of all suffering. Such a person is called "one germinating only once more" (eka-bījī).
7. This is an encouraging message for many! Compare it to the end of MN 22 and also the charming image of the newborn calf in MN 34. The Commentary (MA) to MN 22 says such people are termed "lesser stream-winners" (cula-sota-panna). This term is discussed in The Path of Purification (VM XIX, 27). [This term is more fully explained in The Path of Freedom (Vimuttimagga).] The stress laid here on the importance of faith (actually saddha, "confidence," "conviction," the trust sufficient to investigate that precedes personal verification) is interesting in view of later developments such as the Pure Land schools (e.g., Jodo-Shinshu or "Shin-Buddhism" in Japan).
(SN 22.109 PTS: S iii 160 CDB i 9650)
Maurice O'Connell Walshe (trans.), Sotapanno Sutta: The Sotapanna, "The Stream-Winner" Pali title based on PTS (Feer) edition; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly
(Buddha's Wisdom) 🔍 The ancient [Taoist] Zen map that reveals we've been seeking what we already have: The 10 stages of Zen enlightenment, known as The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures, are Zen Buddhism’s 1,000-year-old roadmap to awakening and self-discovery.
What does Zen consider "enlightenment"? There are two words used. The first is satori (from Japanese satoru, to know, to see, understand a gestalt) or "sudden realization." Any insight or epiphany might do. But there's another word, kenshō, that means suddenly seeing our "true face," our "nature," our intrinsic "Buddha-nature." Certainly, our "true nature," which is the true nature of all things, has three marks. Penetrating this is necessary to letting go of all clinging.
None of these accords with what the historical Buddha taught as enlightenment (bodhi, "awakening"), but seeing "emptiness" (suññatā) -- how all things are impersonal -- is necessary for the first stage of awakening called "stream entry."
The Ten Bulls or the "Ten Ox Herding Pictures" (Chinese shíniú 十牛, Japanese jūgyūzu 十牛図, Korean sipwoo 십우)
Created by 12th-century Chinese Chan Master Kuòān Shīyuǎn, these images explain the stages of enlightenment—from desperate seeking to the realization that the ox we’ve been chasing has been the "Buddha-nature" we already possess and have always possessed.
This isn’t just ancient art. It’s a mirror showing where we truly are on the path to awakening right now.
This video explores The 10 Stages of Zen Enlightenment: A Map to Buddha-Nature, decoding the Zen Buddhist path to awakening through Zen’s most iconic teaching story.
Learn how Kuòān Shīyuǎn’s Ten Ox-Herding Pictures became a timeless visual guide to mindfulness, meditation, and non-duality in Chinese Chan and Zen Buddhism.
DISCOVER
The 10 ancient Zen stages explained step-by-step
How 12th century Master Kuòān Shīyuǎn transformed Taoist symbols into Zen training tools
The mystery behind the final picture—why enlightenment ends in a noisy marketplace
How the Heart Sutra and Zen Master Dōgen’s teachings appear inside these images
Why these ancient pictures still describe the modern search for meaning and peace
🙏 Are you somewhere between Picture 1 and Picture 4, searching, struggling, or starting to see glimpses? That's exactly where you need to be. Subscribe to continue the Path to Enlightenment series as we explore Theravāda's Four Stages and Mahāyāna's Bodhisattva Path.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro – “You’ve lost something”
01:09 Chp 1 – The finger pointing at the moon
03:11 Chp 2 – When you first spot what you’ve lost
07:52 Chp 3 – The years of wrestling your own mind
12:06 Chp 4 – The death of everything you think you are
17:57 Chp 5 – Why enlightenment [Zen's version of the awakened state] looks like a drunk in the market
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📚 SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
Primary texts:
"Ten Ox-Herding Pictures" by Kuòān Shīyuǎn (Kakuan) - 12th century Chan Buddhism classic
"The Platform Sutra" - Teachings of Huìnéng, Sixth Patriarch
"The Diamond Sutra" (Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra)
"The Heart Sutra" (Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya)
"Shōbōgenzō" by Dōgen Zenji - 13th century Zen master
"The Gateless Gate" (Wúménguān) - Classic Zen kōan collection featuring Zhàozhōu
Modern scholarship:
"Zen and Japanese Culture" by D.T. Suzuki
"The Three Pillars of Zen" by Philip Kapleau (commentary on ox-herding)
"Wild Ivy: The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin" translated by Norman Waddell
"The Zen Teaching of Rinzai" translated by Irmgard Schloegl
Historical Context:
Earlier buffalo-herding sets from Chinese Chan tradition
Evolution from earlier versions to Kakuan's refined ten-stage cycle
Song Dynasty Buddhist art and philosophy
Death (marana) is death because it is immediately followed by rebirth; there is no space in between, as the Bardo is misunderstood to be, because it will not be another human rebirth next
At the instant of death, in that submoment, what was a human life is lost, the impersonal process of consciousness relinks and rearises according to karma in a new form. It is neither a new existence nor the same as the one before, and this is confusing. Identity clings. But just as it was impersonal before, it is impersonal still, and the process (patisandhi in samsara) rolls on. Samsara is the "continued wandering on" and its detailed process the Buddha made known in the Abhidhamma, how cittas (mind moments) and impuslions (javanas) produce their results (vipaka and phala), and a "being" (which is really always a becoming) is unaware and just carried on...
What is a "band"?* It's a lot like a Buddhist "SELF," a "UCLA" (the American college), or a Greek SHIP of Theseus. It has a name, from which it derives its stable identity, but does it really have anything else for long? It's an illusion.
To demonstrate: I went to a college called UCLA. It doesn't exist. It started as a campus near USC, which is close to the skyline of DTLA/Downtown Los Angeles.
Plant, baby, is there really a "manic" nirvana?
If anyone can grasp these few examples, such a person will understand why the Buddha taught that ultimately speaking, there is no self, no soul, no essence, no abiding consciousness that travels from life to life or stands still here now.
That's impossible to accept. So reject it. Of course there's a self (atta). It's writing right now, and another self is reading right now...in a conventional way of speaking. No one is saying there's not that.
That being the case, WHY would the historical Buddha ever say there wasn't a self? We have to consider that. What is the reason, what did he mean, was he serious?
How does "suffering" come to be? 12 links.
The answer is: It is the unexamined assumption of what this "self" is that keeps us from awakening, keeps us from enlightenment (bodhi), keeps us from liberation (vimutti, moksha). There is something, lots of "things" (dhammas, "phenomena"). Such things arise by a process the Buddha called Dependent Origination (Conditioned Co-Genesis, Mutual Interdependence, this-that-that-this). This is, so that comes to be; when this is not, that does not arise -- as if "this" is not really more than "that."
Understanding D.O. in one example: What is a "candleflame"? If we break it down, deconstruct it, we find that it is five things. Who cares? Well, it's important because in place of this "self" we all believe in and never question the existence of, the Buddha is going to teach us that what we have been failing to see and penetrate is this very principle of conditioned co-arising or D.O. Okay, then, what five things?
Where does suffering go?
There is (1) wax, (2) wick, (3) heat, (4) oxygen, and (5) a very mysterious process of combustion. (Add to the list or take away, it doesn't really matter for the example to sink in). When these five are in a functionally integrated arrangement, bam, candleflame! Where did it come from? When it goes out, where will it "go" -- east, west, north, south, hell, heaven, the sphere of nothingness, the ground, my neighbor Robby Joiner's yard never to be seen again like all my frisbees? No, the designation does not apply; it is not correct to say the candleflame "goes" here, there, or anywhere. We just say it goes "out." That is to say, when these [factors, conditions, limbs] are present, that [candleflame] arises. When they are not, it is not. Therefore, in a sense one can say that a "candleflame" does not really exist, which is to say it does not exist independent of those factors upon which it utterly depends.
A candleflame does not exist.
Yet, we don't think it is any of those factors. It really seems independent, a new thing that came into being or brought those things (causes and conditions) with it. When does it come into being? When does it manifest what we conventionally call its "being" (beingness) into existence? When the final element (aggregate) is added. Try it. Put together any four of the five elements. There won't be a candleflame. Now, add the fifth. Viola! "Candleflame" arises in the mind -- which is what these five aggregate processes look like. We think it arises in the world, but probably all that was there before is still there now, nothing actually having been added. And when it goes out, one or the other factors (limbs) upon which it depended has been exhausted or removed. Right? Try it. Can we say that, for example, the heat is the candleflame? No, because there's heat everywhere yet there are very few candleflames. Is it the wax? No, because there's a world of wax yet relatively few candleflames.... But when we add the final element, "candleflame" seems to jump into existence. And, of course, it does conventionally speaking. But ultimately speaking, it does no such thing. It doesn't really ever exist, in a manner of speaking. I'll make this point again and again until it clicks what's being said and what is not.
This "UCLA" that I say does not exist, isn't it right over there in Westwood? There sure is something called "UCLA" in Westwood right now. But what was born and originated near USC, other than the name or some transient traditions and a charter or photos, and what things came over from that first place that remain unchanged?
All of the faculty are different
All of the students are different
All of the curricula, books, desks...
In fact, let's imagine the first place burned down and was completely incinerated, so that nothing, not a brick, not a scrap of the original went from DTLA to the Westside, would we still call it "UCLA"? We sure would! Why? What we identify or imagine to be UCLA is moving from here to there.
In a century, will there be a "UCLA"? No, but there almost surely will be a college (university) called "UCLA." All the faculty, students, books, lesson plans, and ephemera will be different, but it'll still -- in a sense -- be good ol' UCLA, at least in our minds and on some plot of real estate somewhere in LA.
There is no ship
Is it the same ship or a different ship?
Aside from the example of an empty college, a figment of our consensus reality to call this this and that that, maybe the ancient Ship of Theseus example would better communicate this. A ship sets off for Greece but along the way has to change the sails then the oars then the floorboards then the wheel then, piece by piece, every single piece. Is it still the same ship that arrives in Greece?
Whaddya mean "there's no car?" It's right here!
The nice answer is that it neither is exactly the same ship, but we can't say that it's another. It is, of course, not the same, but to say it's different does violence to our language and what we mean, as Bhikkhu Bodhi pointed out in As It Is. The same with your car. You could take it into the mechanic over and over so many times that they change every single piece. Then is it still the same car? It's your car either way, but not a lick of it remains, not a single piece. But a paper somewhere at the DMV says it's yours, even with a new license plate and engine block number, paint job, glass, carpet, upholstery, gas, oil, screws, everything.
There is no oxcart
There is no such thing as an oxcart.
In the same way, in ancient times, an oxcart. What is it? It is, broadly speaking, five components fitted in a functionally operational way (wheel, axle, body, steering, ox). Add pieces to the definition or take them away, it doesn't matter. But five is easy. Whose oxcart is this? It belongs to Thad. Its wheels are broken. Change them. Axle is broken. Change it. The body is broken. Change it. The steering is shot. Change it. Ox is exhausted. Change it. Now, every part having been changed, what oxcart? That one. Whose oxcart is it? Thad's. Why? It's because in a conventional sense (by our agreement and his delusion) it has been his all along, even though it is completely different. He has no control over it really; he can't keep it from breaking apart. But we still call it his, and we seem to have no trouble identifying it even as every single part gets switched out.
This "SELF," what is it? It is five things (form, feelings, perceptions, formations, consciousness). Whose is it? This one's mine. What do you call it? "Me." Sometimes "I." It's myself, I mean, my self. My soul. My ego. My personality. My atta (Sanskrit atman). My vessel into which I load my store of karma (deeds, doings, intentional acts, or all of my willed actions).
By "form" you mean this rapidly deteriorating arrangement of materiality composed of solidity, movement, cohesion, and temperature? That's the one! So this material form, this body (this temporary vessel or vehicle), is actually just Four Great Elements, which are not "elements" as such but rather qualities of materiality, in a sense quanta or quantities of it because all material particles (rupa kalapas) are actually composed of all four elements or dhatus (or maha bhuta) but in differing amounts, so that when solidity is in preponderance, it gets labelled "solid" but still has all of the other features to a lesser degree. This is "you"? No. It is my body, but I am not the body. The body changes, but "I" stay the same forever and ever, the eternal self, the unchanged soul, the essence or core of the ego (psyche), the invisible watcher, holder, and owner of all that stands.
Okay, these feelings, that's "you"? Yes, that's me. I'm the feeler. So you're not the feeling? Well, no, not exactly, but feeling-feeler, same thing. Okay, all of them? Which all? You are all pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings passing through? Yeah, sort of, I am the feeler.
All right then. These perceptions? Yes, I am the perceiver. And you are the perceptions passing through, too? Sure, okay, perception-perceiver, I am the all.
And these other mental formations, like these volitions, impulses, motives, intentions (cetanas)? Yes, I am the intender. And the intention? Intention-intender, same thing. I am the all, the owner, the doer, the knower, the experiencer, the controller or the one-who-thinks-he's-in-control.
Okay, and this consciousness? Yes, I am consciousness. All of them? "All"? "You" are eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind-consciousnesses? Uh, yes, I am consciousness. And all the consciousnesses passing through conscious experience? Uh, I guess.
"Self" as impersonal processes
Does anyone know why the Buddha called each of these heaps an "aggregate"? It's very important. It is because there are trillions of them, not one form, one feeling, one perception, one formation, one consciousness. At least with the oxcart, it seems like there is one (or more) wheels, axle, one body, one steerer, one ox, and the conglomeration of those forms one oxcart. But with "SELF," there are no such single items. There are aggregations (heaps of rupa kalapas) of material particles, countless numbers of them in every "material" thing, and that's just the body, the form, which has 32 main parts and lots of subsidiary parts, so many that one cannot find it tenable to consider one's "self" this body. So we cling to the other four mental formations as "self." (Yes, we call the fourth heap "mental formations" or sankaras, but the fact is that feelings, perceptions, and consciousnesses are all mental formations, too. The Buddha segregated them into these five for explanatory and insight purposes. As we develop liberating insight into these, we will clearly know-and-see that what we took to be MY feeling was just feeling being felt -- arising, turning, and passing away at all times, hurtling towards destruction, never standing still for even a submoment. The reason a feeling lasts is not because it arises and hangs around for a while then, realizing it's impermanent, it leaves. One feeling arises, turns, passes away, as another almost identical feeling arises, turns, passes away, in succession until this process dies out, at which time "the feeling" which was a heap of feelings passes to be replaced by another kind of feeling. The same is true of the other four aggregates. Science tells us this material body is nothing but a conglomeration of cells, which are molecules, which are atoms, which are quarks and strong-and-weak forces and thingies and whatnots, ever more subtle until they're not even material.
Add ingredients to the definition of "SELF" or take them away, it doesn't matter. The same is true. What we call "self" is not-self. It is impersonal, and radically impermanent, and ultimately disappointing, painful, stressful, incapable of ever fulfilling us.
*What is a "band"?
Meet the future legendary "Mr. Jimmy" [Sakurai] as he shreds on guitar for an adoring crowd
If ANY of this has made sense, let us deal with the problem at hand: What is a "band"? It's a group, an assemblage, an aggregate, a "heap" of four or five basic members. Whose band is it?
(Whoever owns the name, which is just about the only stable thing other than ownership rights of music catalog performed and/or written under that name).
So one day four guys and their manager became the New Yardbirds. And they got threatened with a lawsuit, so they became Lead Zeppelin. But Peter Grant, the manager and fifth member, said, "To avoid mispronunciation, let's call the band Led Zeppelin." All agreed. They played, recorded, became famous, and then the drummer had a son and died. End of the story. Led Zeppelin was over. But capitalism and greed being what they are, Led Zeppelin lived on. There was even a reunion of sorts, but they couldn't bring back the dead, so they did the next best thing: They brought in the next of kin, drummer John Bonham's son Jason. It was like having 3.5 of the original four members present. It worked!
It worked so well, that everyone but Jimmy Page or Robert Plant could have quit, and the behemoth could have gone on like the Who, Stones, Chicago, or any other massive rock act has done for years and years until not even a single member of the original band is touring! How is that possible?! Ship of Theseus. Oxcart.
Who am I? There is no me?
What're ya doin in my hole?!
In fact, there's an Early Buddhist or later Chinese Buddhist parable that may illustrate this even better: A man (let's say it's YOU) is walking and falls into a deep hole, at the bottom of which are two ghoulish demons arguing as they prepare some human stew from human limbs strewn all around their gloomy hole. Seeing you fall in, the angry one asks what the h*ll you're doing there and tears your arm off. And the other, just to p*ss off the first, grabs another arm from off the ground and attaches it to your body. It works! You move the fingers. These demonic ghouls have black magic powers. You're elated to get your arm back, which p*sses off the first, who then tears off your other arm. The other grabs another arms, attaches it to you. Again it works, you're elated, and it, being p*ssed off, tears off a leg, which is replaced, a torso with heart and head. Getting all five limbs torn off and others reattaches, you get the heck out of the hole. Who got out? Who went in. All five limbs are still down in the hole, but here "you" are running away. Is it you, is it not you, is it sort of you?
There is no UCLA?
"UCLA" can restart anywhere with anyone.
Is there one "UCLA," many UCLAs, no UCLA? Is this feeling the self, is that perception the self, is this consciousness what dies and is reborn -- or is it all an impersonal ("empty," devoid of self) process just rolling on? And that's all it's ever been? Ask Jason.
Because Jason must have asked all the remaining members of Led Zeppelin, Inc. to join him on tour. But for one reason or another (think ego, clashes, not wanting to ruin the profitable brand, and solo careers), they did not. So he did. Jason did. Jason went on tour.
Is there a Robert Plant? - Now and Zen
The O2 Arena show (called the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert) was in 2007, and on Saturday night, Jason Bonham said he's been doing JBLZE about 16 years or so. That seems to be how long Jason and Co. ("JBLZE," Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Evening) have been at it. They don't need Page; they have "Mr. Jimmy" (Sakurai) on guitar, and he looks and plays more like Page did back then than Jimmy Page does now.
Anattā is not a joke or punchline. All things are impersonal and always have been. And so long as we do not realize it (or that they are impermanent and disappointing, too), we will cling. And by clinging, we will suffer. And the way to let go (and stop suffering) is to realize the True Nature of All Things.
THERE IS NO SELF (an-attā, not-atta): "not-self," egolessness, soullessness, the impersonal nature of all phenomena (particularly the Five Aggregates clung to as "self") is the final and most incomprehensible of the Three Universal Characteristics of All Existence (ti-lakkhana).
The anattā doctrine is unheard of throughout the universe, except that a supremely awakened buddha has made it known (or a nonteaching buddha has cultivated up to supreme realization) and thereby opens up an escape from the phenomenal world of endless rebirth and incomprehensible suffering.
This doctrine teaches that neither within body-and-mind (nama-rupa, the bodily and mental phenomena of existence) nor outside of them can there be found anything that in THE ULTIMATE SENSE able to be regarded as a self, soul, self-existing real ego-entity, or any other abiding essence or substance.
This is the central doctrine of Buddhism. Without understanding it, real knowledge of Buddhism is altogether impossible.
It is the only really specific Buddhist doctrine with which the entire structure of the Buddha's Teaching (Dhamma) stands or falls.
All of the remaining Buddhist doctrines may, more or less, be found or hinted at in other philosophical systems, doctrines, or religions. But the anattā-doctrine has been clearly and unreservedly taught only by a buddha.
It is on account of this that the historical Buddha was known as the anattā-vādi, or "Teacher of Impersonality." [He was also called a karma-vadin for emphasizing personal actions and karmic results.]
Whoever has not penetrated the impersonal nature of all existence and does not comprehend that in reality there exists only this continually self-consuming PROCESS of arising, turning, and passing away of bodily-and-mental phenomena and that there is no separate (independent, self-standing) ego-entity in or outside of this process, that person will be unable to understand Buddhism.
That is, that person will be unable to understand the teaching of the Four "Noble" (Enlightening) Truths (sacca) in the correct light. One will instead think that it is:
one's soul, self, ego, or personality that experiences suffering (dukkha, disappointment, pain, distress),
one's personality that performs skillful and unskillful deeds (good and evil actions)
one's soul who will be reborn according to such actions (karma),
one's personality that will enter into some kind of everlasting heaven, sphere, place, or state the Buddha called "Nirvana" (Pali Nibbāna),
one's "self" that practices on the Enlightening (Noble) Eightfold Path.
So it is said in The Path of Purification (Vis.M. XVI):
Mahayana exalts itself and condemns a scarecrow stick figure of its own creation, the Hinayana, no school of which remains, the last being the Sarvastivada
Save oneself or save everyone else? Buddhism's most dangerous question
(Buddha's Wisdom) May 6, 2026: ⚡ FOR 2,000 YEARS BUDDHISM HAS BEEN FIGHTING ITSELF...AND NO SIDE HAS WON YET. Is personal enlightenment (arahantship) selfish?
Buddhism's two greatest paths ideals, that of the Arhat and that of the Bodhisattva, have been locked in the most consequential debate in Buddhist history since the first century CE.
What began as a philosophical disagreement between Mahāyāna and [Hinayana schools until they were all destroyed and] Theravāda Buddhism [arose]. It became something far more dangerous: a 2,000-year argument about what "liberation" (vimutti, moksha) actually means, who it's for, and whether saving oneself first is an act of wisdom or an act of cowardice.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 The [apocryphal] trial of Śāriputra [where Ven. Sariputra, male disciple "foremost in wisdom," comparable to Ven. Khema, female disciple "foremost in wisdom" used as a stick figure to represent first the Hinayana ("Lesser Vehicle"), a pejorative epithet, and later the Theravada ("Teaching of the Elder Enlightened Disciples of the Historical Buddha") to attack them with Brahminical and Hindu residues on what the Buddha Taught]
02:01 The debate we've been building to
04:19 The prosecution — Mahāyāna's real case
08:10 The defense — the sentence that stops everything
13:19 The trap — who is taking this infinite vow?
18:26 The real wound — self-view in spiritual clothing
24:01 The dissolution — each path guards the other
29:19 The same mountain
🔍 DISCOVER
Why the [apocryphal Mahayana invented discourse] Vimalakīrti Sūtra placed the arhat (Pali arahant) ideal on trial
How the Lotus Sūtra reframed personal liberation through the One Vehicle (Ekayana) teaching
Why Theravāda’s strongest defense begins with one simple fact: the Buddha called himself an was called an arahant
How the Diamond Sūtra complicates the bodhisattva vow through no-self (anatta) and emptiness (shunyata)
Why Vajrayāna Buddhism refuses to take sides in this debate...and what that refusal reveals about both paths simultaneously
📚 SOURCES AND FURTHER READING: (with affiliate links)
Primary [Mahayana] Buddhist texts: Vimalakīrti Sūtra (Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra) — Robert Thurman translation recommended https://amzn.to/3QTtGSD
Diamond Sūtra (Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra) — Red Pine translation recommended https://amzn.to/3OP9Mro
Primary [Theravada] texts: Majjhima Nikāya (Collection of "Middle Length Discourses" from the Pali canon) — Ariyapariyesanā Sutta (MN 26) — Bhikkhu Bodhi translation https://amzn.to/4dcS2y9
Pāli canon — Nikāya (collection of) discourses on the brahma-vihārās ("Four Divine Abidings" of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity or dispassionate looking on)
Scholarly and Modern Resources
Paul Williams — Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations https://amzn.to/4evxKCq
Bhikkhu Bodhi (translator) — The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha https://amzn.to/3OMwqkd
Étienne Lamotte — The Teaching of Vimalakīrti
Peter Harvey — An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics https://amzn.to/42e1RH9
Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism https://amzn.to/4d5IG7h
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