Reading list

Sources and further reading behind the foundational document, grouped by tradition, with notes on what the text draws from and where to read more. Where a useful free edition exists it is listed first, because a document that costs nothing should not require an expensive shelf. Modern editions are suggestions, not requirements.

The document reads these sources as ancestors and witnesses: with gratitude, without obedience. A citation identifies a source; it does not make the source an authority, and repeated ideas across traditions are not treated as proof. English wording varies by translation, so readers should check the cited work and passage rather than treating one rendering as uniquely canonical.

#Start here

If you read only six things, read these. Together they cover most of what the document says, in the ancestors' own words.

1. Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning.
2. The Bhagavad Gita, chapters 2 and 6.
3. The Dhammapada, and the Kalama Sutta.
4. The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 to 7.
5. Epictetus, Enchiridion.
6. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, lectures I, XVI, and XVII.

#Hebrew Bible and rabbinic texts

• Genesis 1:27, 1:31, 2:15. Exodus 20:9-10, 20:16, 22:21, 23:2. Deuteronomy 6:4, 30:19. Job 2:10, 38:4. Psalms 19:1, 46:10, 90:12, 100:4. Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, 3:8, 5:4, 9:7, 12:7. Isaiah 1:11-17, 58:6-7, 66:1. Ezekiel 34:2. Amos 5:21-24. Micah 3:11, 6:8. Free: the JPS 1917 translation and the King James Version are public domain; sefaria.org has the Hebrew with several English translations side by side. Modern: the NRSV or the Robert Alter translation.
• Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 (whoever saves a single life). Mishnah Yoma 8:9 (no atonement until the wronged person is appeased). Talmud, Shabbat 31a (Hillel and the whole Torah on one foot). Free: sefaria.org, with English.

#New Testament

• Matthew 5:23-24, 5:37, 5:39, 5:42, 6:19, 7:16, 10:8, 16:25, 18:15-17, 18:20, 22:37-40, 23:8-10, 25:40. Mark 2:27, 9:40. John 4:21, 14:2. Acts 2:42-46, 17:24. Romans 5:3-4. 1 Corinthians 3:16. Galatians 6:7. 1 Thessalonians 5:18, 5:21. Hebrews 13:2. James 1:22, 5:16. Free: the King James Version and the World English Bible are public domain (Project Gutenberg, ebible.org). Modern: the NRSV.

#Quran and hadith

• Quran 2:115, 2:155-156, 2:174, 2:190, 2:256, 3:185, 4:135, 6:165, 7:32, 14:7, 17:34, 17:85, 24:22, 47:19, 49:6, 49:13, 55:26-27, 102:1-2, 107:1-3, 109:6. Free: quran.com, with a dozen translations to compare. Modern: M. A. S. Abdel Haleem's translation (Oxford World's Classics) is the clearest in English.
• Hadith. Sahih al-Bukhari (none of you believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself; the whole earth made a place of prayer). Musnad Ahmad (the seedling at the Hour). Al-Tabarani, al-Mu'jam al-Awsat (the best of people are those most beneficial to people). Free: sunnah.com, with Arabic and English and grading.

#Hindu texts and the epics

• Rig Veda 1.164.46 (truth is one; the wise call it by many names). Free: Ralph Griffith's 1896 translation at sacred-texts.com, dated but complete. Modern: Jamison and Brereton (Oxford), the scholarly standard.
• Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.5.15 (neti, neti). Katha Upanishad 2.3.10 (the highest state). Free: Max Müller's translation in the Sacred Books of the East at sacred-texts.com. Modern: Patrick Olivelle (Oxford World's Classics) for accuracy; Eknath Easwaran for readability.
• Bhagavad Gita 2:14, 2:20, 2:31-38, 2:47, 6:5. Free: Edwin Arnold's The Song Celestial (1885) at Project Gutenberg. Modern: Eknath Easwaran; Laurie Patton (Penguin Classics); Winthrop Sargeant for a word-by-word edition.
• Mahabharata, Anushasana Parva, section 113 (do nothing to another that you would regard as injurious to yourself). Free: Kisari Mohan Ganguli's complete translation (1883-1896) at sacred-texts.com; the cited passage is in Anushasana Parva CXIII.
• Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (dhyana). These are useful comparative reading for concentrated contemplative states, although the optional deeper-sitting appendix no longer presents them as a direct source for its method. Modern: Edwin Bryant's translation with commentary (North Point Press).

#Buddhist texts

• Dhammapada 5, 21, 129-130, 277. Free: Max Müller's translation at sacred-texts.com; Acharya Buddharakkhita's at accesstoinsight.org. Modern: Gil Fronsdal (Shambhala).
• Kalama Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya 3.65 (do not go by hearsay, tradition, or scripture). Alagaddupama Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 22 (the raft). Mahasaccaka Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 36 (the Buddha's austerities and the middle way). Mahaparinibbana Sutta, Digha Nikaya 16 (be lamps unto yourselves; strive on with diligence). The four noble truths, Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya 56.11. The Vinaya (the monastic code, cited for its graduated procedures). Free: suttacentral.net has all of these in Bhikkhu Sujato's translations, with the Pali alongside. Modern print: Bhikkhu Bodhi's translations of the Majjhima and Anguttara Nikayas (Wisdom Publications).
• Udanavarga 5:18 (hurt not others in ways you would find hurtful). Free: W. W. Rockhill's 1883 translation from the Tibetan, Udanavarga: A Collection of Verses from the Buddhist Canon, at archive.org. Verify the verse number against the Dhammapada parallel before quoting; the widely circulated citation is not always exact.
• Dogen, Tenzo Kyokun (Instructions for the Cook). Modern: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment (Uchiyama and Wright, Weatherhill), or Kazuaki Tanahashi's Moon in a Dewdrop.
• Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness (Beacon Press) for washing the dishes; The Heart of Understanding (Parallax Press) for interbeing and the cloud in the paper.

#Jain texts

• Acaranga Sutra (all beings wish to live). Mahavira (non-violence as the highest duty). Anekantavada, the doctrine of many-sidedness. Free: Hermann Jacobi's translation of the Acaranga Sutra in Sacred Books of the East vol. 22, at sacred-texts.com.

#Sikh texts

• Guru Granth Sahib: Ik Onkar (the opening word); Ang 62 (truth is high, higher still is truthful living). Guru Nanak: the three pillars (naam japna, kirat karni, vand chakna), the langar, and "there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim." The principle of the sangat. Free: srigranth.org and sikhitothemax.org have the full text with Sant Singh Khalsa's English translation, searchable by Ang.
• Guru Gobind Singh, Akal Ustat, verse 85 (recognize the whole human race as one), from the Dasam Granth. Free: searchgurbani.com.

#Zoroastrian texts

• Yasna 30:2, from the Gathas (hear with your ears the best things; each one for himself choose). The threefold path: good thoughts, good words, good deeds. Free: avesta.org has the Gathas in several translations. Modern: Stanley Insler, The Gathas of Zarathustra (1975), the scholarly standard.

#Chinese texts

• Tao Te Ching 1, 15, 46, 71, 81. Free: James Legge's 1891 translation at sacred-texts.com. Modern: D. C. Lau (Penguin Classics) for accuracy; Ursula K. Le Guin's rendering for the ear.
• Analects of Confucius 2:17, 4:16, 12:5, 15:23 (numbering varies by edition; 15:23 appears as 15:24 in some). Free: James Legge's translation at ctext.org, with the Chinese. Modern: Edward Slingerland (Hackett), with traditional commentary.

#Baha'i texts

• Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah (the earth is but one country). The independent investigation of truth, a principle set out throughout the Baha'i writings. Free: the Baha'i Reference Library at bahai.org/library.

#Sufi and bhakti poets

• Rumi, Masnavi (the lamps are different, but the Light is the same). The English is R. A. Nicholson's, from his translation of the Masnavi (1925-1940) and his selections in Rumi: Poet and Mystic (1950). Modern: Jawid Mojaddedi's Masnavi (Oxford World's Classics). Verify the book and line before quoting; the line circulates widely without a reference.
• Kabir (where do you search for me, friend?). Free: Songs of Kabir, translated by Rabindranath Tagore (1915), at Project Gutenberg. Modern: Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Songs of Kabir (NYRB Classics).

#Indigenous traditions

• The Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace and later seventh-generation formulations are relevant to the stewardship discussion. The familiar modern wording should not be treated as a verbatim ancient quotation without a source. Readers should prefer Haudenosaunee sources and clearly identified editions when tracing the principle.
• For historical context on religious peyote use, see Omer Stewart, Peyote Religion: A History (University of Oklahoma Press). Appendix B mentions long-standing psychoactive sacramental traditions only as context; it does not make their practices part of the table's required practice.

#Greek and Roman philosophy

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II (virtue as habit; one becomes just by doing just acts). Free: W. D. Ross's translation at classics.mit.edu. Modern: Terence Irwin (Hackett).
• Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus (death is nothing to us) and Principal Doctrines 27 (friendship). Free: R. D. Hicks's translation, in Diogenes Laertius Book X, at Project Gutenberg. Modern: The Epicurus Reader (Inwood and Gerson, Hackett).
• Epictetus, Enchiridion 1 and 5. Free: Elizabeth Carter's translation at Project Gutenberg. Modern: Robin Hard (Oxford World's Classics).
• Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.20. Free: George Long's translation at Project Gutenberg. Modern: Gregory Hays (Modern Library).
• Socrates (the unexamined life), in Plato's Apology. Free: Benjamin Jowett's translation at Project Gutenberg.

#Christian and Jewish writers after the scriptures

• George Fox, Journal (steeple-houses; the church as the people gathered). The Quaker peace testimony of 1660 and the testimony of simplicity. Free: the Journal at Project Gutenberg; Quaker Faith and Practice (Britain Yearly Meeting) at qfp.quaker.org.uk, which prints the 1660 declaration and the testimonies.
• Simone Weil, letter to Joë Bousquet, 13 April 1942 (attention as generosity), in Seventy Letters (Oxford, 1965; reissued by Wipf and Stock). Also Waiting for God for her essay on attention.
• Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath (a palace in time) and God in Search of Man (radical amazement), both Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Martin Buber, I and Thou, Walter Kaufmann's translation (Scribner).
• Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (Doubleday), on ubuntu and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

#Modern witnesses

• Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (Beacon Press). The three roads to meaning, the last freedom, meaning that must ensue, the rule of living as if for the second time, and tragic optimism are all here; the last is in the postscript added in 1984.
• Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943, and Letters from Westerbork (Henry Holt). The thinking heart of the barracks is in the Westerbork letters.
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (the line dividing good and evil). The passage is in Part IV, chapter 1, "The Ascent." The abridged edition (Harper Perennial) includes it.
• Albert Camus, The Plague and The Myth of Sisyphus (Vintage International).
• Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, "Maxims and Arrows" 12 (he who has a why to live for can bear almost any how). Frankl quotes it throughout. Free: at Project Gutenberg.

#Consciousness and psychology

• William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). By their fruits, not their roots, is in Lecture I; the authority of mystical states is in Lectures XVI and XVII. Free: Project Gutenberg.
• Robert Monroe, Journeys Out of the Body (1971), Far Journeys (1985), Ultimate Journey (1994), all Doubleday. Appendix A adapts elements associated with Monroe's preparatory exercises, including the box, resonant tuning, the working affirmation, and the Focus 10/12 terminology. The appendix deliberately leaves the metaphysical interpretation of those experiences open and is not required doctrine.
• Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Vintage) for active imagination and its dangers. The letter to Bill Wilson (30 January 1961) is reprinted in the AA Grapevine (January 1963) and in AA's Pass It On.
• Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (Houghton Mifflin), for unconditional positive regard and being heard without judgment.
• Ramana Maharshi, Nan Yar (Who Am I?), the short text on self-inquiry. Free: Sri Ramanasramam publishes it at sriramanamaharshi.org.
• Jiddu Krishnamurti, the speech dissolving the Order of the Star, Ommen, 3 August 1929 (truth is a pathless land). Free: the full text is at jkrishnamurti.org.

#A note on verification

References are provided so readers can check the document's claims against their sources. English wording varies by edition and translation, and some traditional sayings circulate in forms whose precise textual history is uncertain. Where the foundational document uses a paraphrase rather than a stable quotation, this list aims to identify the underlying source or tradition rather than manufacture false precision.

Particular care is warranted with widely circulated attributions such as the Udanavarga parallel, the Rumi line, and modern renderings of the Haudenosaunee seventh-generation principle. Corrections, stronger primary-source references, and better translation notes are welcome by pull request. No entry in this file should be read as a claim that every wording has a single uncontested English form.