Pariyatti is a

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

focused on

Theravada ''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...

n tradition in Onalaska, Washington. It publishes, distributes, sells and donates books and media devoted to the teachings of the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...

. It has been called "North America's leading source of books for students of the

n tradition" by Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. The Pariyatti bookstore (both website and brick & mortar) carries almost 900 print titles.Carlson, Linda
“Serving as a Service Organization: Pariyatti’s Not-For-Profit Strategy,”
"

Independent Book Publishers Association The Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) is a not-for-profit membership organization serving the independent publishing community through advocacy and education. With nearly 3,000 members, IBPA is the largest publishing trade association i ...

Independent", October 2009, p. 41 Pariyatti also provides a number of services for free from its website, including classic texts that are out of print, podcasts, and emailed "Daily Words of the Buddha". Pariyatti is the sole distributor in North America of books published by the Sri-Lanka-based

Buddhist Publication Society The Buddhist Publication Society (BPS) is a publishing house with charitable status whose objective is to disseminate the teaching of Gautama Buddha. It was founded in Kandy, Sri Lanka in 1958 by two Sri Lankan lay Buddhists, A.S. Karunaratna and ...

(BPS) and the sole distributor in the Americas of books published by the London-based

Pali Text Society The Pali Text Society is a text publication society founded in 1881 by Thomas William Rhys Davids "to foster and promote the study of Pāli texts". Pāli is the language in which the texts of the Theravada school of Buddhism are preserved. The ...

(PTS), including the Tipitaka, the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition – also known as the

Pāli Canon The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school. During ...

. It also carries titles from other publishers, including hard-to-find publications from the Vipassana Research Institute(VRI) and

Motilal Banarsidass Motilal Banarsidass Publishing House (MLBD) is an Indian academic publishing house, founded in Delhi, India in 1903. It publishes and distributes serials, monographs, and scholarly publications on Asian religions, Buddhology, Indology, East ...

, both based in India. Pariyatti has published more than 30 titles, including those under its own imprint and reprints of selected titles published by VRI and BPS.

History

Pariyatti's roots go back to a home-based mail order service established by a

Vipassana ''Samatha'' (Pāli; sa, शमथ ''śamatha''; ), "calm," "serenity," "tranquillity of awareness," and ''vipassanā'' (Pāli; Sanskrit ''vipaśyanā''), literally "special, super (''vi-''), seeing (''-passanā'')", are two qualities of the ...

meditator in Northern California in 1984 to enable fellow meditators in the West to buy books that support the practice of Vipassana meditation in the tradition of S. N. Goenka and

Sayagyi U Ba Khin Sayagyi U Ba Khin ( my, ဘခင်, ; 6 March 1899 – 19 January 1971) was the first Accountant General of the Union of Burma. He was the founder of the International Meditation Centre in Yangon, Myanmar and is principally known as a leadin ...

. Independent of that effort, Vipassana Research Publications of America (VRPA) was launched in 1995 by a second meditator, with the encouragement of Goenka, to make publications from VRI available in the West. The two entities were combined in 1996 and eventually became known as Pariyatti, which is a word in the

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...

language roughly meaning ''the intellectual background or theoretical understanding of the teachings of the Buddha''.

References

{{reflist

External links

Pariyatti home page

Vipassana meditation as taught by S. N. Goenka in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin
Buddhist media Buddhist websites Book publishing companies based in Washington (state) Book selling websites Independent bookstores of the United States Non-profit organizations based in Washington (state) 501(c)(3) organizations Retail buildings in the United States Charities based in the United States Publishing companies established in 1984 Religious organizations established in 1984