Bhikkhu Analayo is a scholar of early Buddhism and a meditation teacher. He completed his PhD research on the Satipatthanasutta at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, in 2000 and his habilitation research with a comparative study of the Majjhima Nikaya in the light of its Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan parallels at the University of Marburg, Germany, in 2007. His over five hundred publications are for the most part based on comparative studies, with a special interest in topics related to meditation and the role of women in Buddhism.
"""Venerable Analayo skillfully illuminates how some of the earliest Buddhist texts provide a systematic path for engaging with and experiencing the world in its pure essence, free from the defilements that cause so much suffering. He then takes us one step further to show how this clear perception, once applied and stable, recognizes Nirvana for what it truly is: empty and deathless. An essential read for students of the Buddhadharma.""--Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche ""The Signless and the Deathless is a new approach to a deeper understanding of the central goal of Early Buddhist practice: the breakthrough to Nirvana. Bhikkhu Analayo investigates in detail signless (animitta) concentration--that is, a state of mind free from distraction achieved by way of letting go all characteristic marks of things--and the deathless (amata/amrta)--that is, Nirvana as the complete transcendence of mental affliction by mortality, experienced while still alive. Ven. Analayo's in-depth treatment of these crucial issues is most impressive and convincing because he is thoroughly familiar with early Buddhism both as a scholar and as a practitioner. His exposition is based on an exhaustive and thorough scholarly analysis of the relevant textual sources not only of the Pali canon but also of all other reciter traditions as far as they are still available in the original or in Chinese and Tibetan translation. To read this extraordinary book is a must not only for specialists but for anybody interested in a deeper understanding of the central issues of Buddhist teaching.""--Lambert Schmithausen"