Bhikkhu Bodhi

Bhikkhu Bodhi was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1944. He studied philosophy at Brooklyn College and took a doctorate in philosophy at Claremont Graduate School in 1972. In his early twenties he was drawn to Buddhism, and after his doctorate he went to Sri Lanka. There he received novice ordination in 1972 and full ordination in 1973, both from Ven. Ananda Maitreya, a leading Sri Lankan scholar-monk.

He settled in Kandy and worked with the Buddhist Publication Society (BPS). He became its editor in 1984 and its president in 1988. For ten years he lived at the Forest Hermitage with the senior German monk Ven. Nyanaponika Thera.

His main work is translation. With Bhikkhu Nanamoli he produced the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (Majjhima Nikaya, 1995). On his own he translated the Connected Discourses (Samyutta Nikaya, 2000) and the Numerical Discourses (Anguttara Nikaya, 2012). In the Buddha’s Words (2005) is an anthology of discourses, and he was general editor of A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma. Many shorter essays and translations are free to read on Access to Insight.

In May 2000 he gave the keynote address at the first official Vesak celebration at the United Nations. He returned to the United States in 2002 and, according to the Bodhi Monastery page, teaches at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, New York.

In 2008 he and several of his students founded Buddhist Global Relief, a charity that supports hunger relief, sustainable agriculture and education in places with chronic poverty and malnutrition.