Free books on Buddhism and Yoga

The gift of Dhamma excels all other gifts (Dhammapada 354)

Painting of the Buddha's first discourse, turning the Dharmacakra.

Sanskrit Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra manuscript. Nalanda, Bihar, India. Circa 700-1100 CE.

Wikimedia Commons

One (...) should not go about as a trader in the Dhamma (Udana 6.2)

In our society we are used to paying for stuff. There is also a culture that if something is free it must be worthless.

The survival of Buddhism, on the other hand, has always been based on dana - donations.

We can call it donationware...

When I first became a Buddhist, in the 1970's, there was not much information available, except on books, few and expensive. With the Internet we began having access to free ebooks, mainly Theravada, the oldest branch of Buddhism, prevalent today in Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia.

In the Theravada tradition books are free, temple stays and retreats are free, and no one will ask you for payment. You should freely give, though. It's dana and a great feeling of helping to support those nice bald men in orange robes.

Other traditions don't take the above Udana and Dhammapada quotations to the letter, so it's harder to find free Vajrayana or Zen books, for example.

You know you can find anything online if you put yourself to it. Just remember that illegal downloads are a violation of the second moral precept - not taking anything which was not given to you. More on that later.

Even more than Buddhism, Yoga is big business in the West, so it's also difficult to find free resources online.

Here goes a limited list of trustworthy sites I visit, in alphabetical order. Feel free to add more in your comments.

Buddhism

• A Buddhist Library, with many books of all traditions, not only Buddhist.
• Access to Insight, the colossal work of a Western monk, Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
• Buddhanet eBooks, the work of another Western monk, Ajahn Pannyavaro, contains ebooks on all Buddhist traditions.
• Ajahn Buddhadasa Indapanno (Buddhadasa Bhikkhu) at Suan Mokkh, the monastery he founded to welcome foreigners.
• Ajahn Lee Dhammadaro and other Thai forest tradition masters, at Ajahn Thanissaro's website, including his own work.
• Ajahn Maha Boowa Nanasampanno, who was a student of the founder of the Thai Forest Tradition, Ajahn Mun Buridatto, of whom he wrote a biography.
• Buddhist Publication Society, founded in 1957 in Sri Lanka, the BPS is perhaps the world's largest publisher of Buddhist texts, most of which are available for download.
• Dhammadownload, Burmese site, with books in English.
• Forest Sangha Books, from the Ajahn Chah tradition, ebooks in twelve languages.
• Internet Sacred Texts Archive, classical texts of all religions
• UrbanDhamma, Buddhist books and Dhamma talks in PDF plus audio and video downloads.
• Vipassana Research Institute, S. N. Goenka's living legacy, the largest non-monastic Buddhist meditation community.

Yoga

• Bandha Yoga, the anatomy of yoga postures.
• Centre for Yoga Studies, Paul Harvey's huge library of yoga texts.
• Holybooks.com, a search engine just for that! Free yoga books, and many other.
• Roger L. Cole's YOGeBooks.
• Sri Aurobindo's writings.
• Sri Swami Sivananda Saraswati Maharaj: his and many other books at the Divine Life Society he founded.
• Sri Ramanashram, books by and on Sri Ramana Maharshi.
• Swami Krishnananda Saraswati books; he was the successor to Swami Sivananda as head of the Divine Life Society.