Bhante Sujato — Encounters With The Buddha's Words — 2019 Buddhist Library Sydney

[michaelh]

Bhante Sujato - The Suttas: Encounters With The Buddha’s Words at The Buddhist Library, Sydney, 2019

This is a 4-session course running from March 2019 til June 2019. This will be live streamed for live Q&A on this thread June 9th @3pm AEST (5am UTC) at:

Buddhist Library

Once the live stream finishes they’ll be listed on the Buddhist Library channel under “Live Streams” : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX1_rAjXr3LVsFCCVo2tUvQ

March - AN5.196 The Great Dreams
The Buddha recounts a series of dreams that came to him shortly before he was awakened.

April - SN 12.15 With Kaccānagotta and SN 12.2 Analysis
A deep dive into the most famous and difficult philosophical discourses.

May - MN 23 The Ant-hill
A curious parable consisting of a series of enigmatic metaphors.

June - DN 21 The Questions of Sakka
Some great dhamma, and a Pali love song!

Encounters With The Buddha’s Words 1 - The Great Dreams - Part 1
1:29:03 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnMiO_toiDQ] Audio : .ogg | .mp3
Sutta: The Great Dreams AN 5.196
The Buddha recounts a series of dreams shortly before he was awakened.
Topics: Ways to Read Suttas, Relationships in suttas with religions present before Buddhism: Brahmatical, Vedic beliefs that would become Hinduism

Bhante Sujato - Encounters with the Buddha's Words 1 - The Great Dreams (pt 1)

Encounters With The Buddha’s Words 2 - The Great Dreams - Part 2
1:04:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gfl-nKQNck] Audio : .ogg | .mp3
Sutta: The Great Dreams AN 5.196
The Buddha recounts a series of dreams shortly before he was awakened.
Topics: Ways to Read Suttas, Relationships in suttas with religions present before Buddhism: Brahmatical, Vedic beliefs that would become Hinduism

Bhante Sujato - Encounters with the Buddha's Words 2 - The Great Dreams (pt 2)

Encounters With The Buddha’s Words 3 - With Kaccānagotta Part 1
1:32:10 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsZOe_m375c] Audio : .ogg | .mp3
Sutta: With Kaccānagotta SN 12.15
A deep dive into the most famous and difficult philosophical discourses.
Topics: Dependent Origination and Right View

Bhante Sujato - Encounters with the Buddha's Words 3 - With Kaccanāgotta (pt 1)

Encounters With The Buddha’s Words 4 - With Kaccānagotta Part 2
1:00:13 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03zEj3qZfmU] Audio : .ogg | .mp3
Sutta: With Kaccānagotta SN 12.15
Sutta: Analysis SN 12.2
A deep dive into the most famous and difficult philosophical discourses.
Topics: Dependent Origination and Right View

Bhante Sujato - Encounters with the Buddha's Words 4 - With Kaccanāgotta (pt 2)

Encounters With The Buddha’s Words 5 - The Ant Hill Part 1
1:00:13 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_LgMRFfM9I] Audio : .ogg | .mp3
Sutta: The Great Dreams MN 23
A curious parable consisting of a series of enigmatic metaphors.
Topics: Frameworks for reading the suttas (literal, metaphorical, moral and transcendent), reading in terms of mythology

Bhante Sujato - Encounters with the Buddha's Words 5 - The Ant Hill (pt 1)

Encounters With The Buddha’s Words 6 - The Ant Hill Part 2
1:24:03 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0SgVb4-pfI] Audio : .ogg | .mp3
Sutta: The Great Dreams MN 23
A curious parable consisting of a series of enigmatic metaphors.
Topics: Frameworks for reading the suttas (literal, metaphorical, moral and transcendent), reading in terms of mythology

Bhante Sujato - Encounters with the Buddha's Words 6 - The Ant Hill (pt 2)

Audio Files
OGG opus 20.5Khz 52kbps mono
The Great Dreams Part 1 36MB 1:29:03
The Great Dreams Part 2 27MB 1:04:00
With Kaccānagotta Part 1 39MB 1:32:10
With Kaccānagotta Part 2 29MB 1:00:12
The Ant Hill Part 1 32MB 1:00:13
The Ant Hill Part 2 22MB 1:24:03

MP3 22Khz ~ 72Kbps mono
The Great Dreams Part 1 51MB 1:29:00
The Great Dreams Part 2 36MB 1:04:00
With Kaccānagotta Part 1 54MB 1:32:10
With Kaccānagotta Part 2 36MB 1:00:13
The Ant Hill Part 1 70MB 1:00:13
The Ant Hill Part 2 49MB 1:24:03

[Robbie]

Thanks for these

I didn’t know about the Buddhist Library YouTube channel. Cool.

[mikenz66]

@michaelh

March - AN5.65 The Great Dreams
The Buddha recounts a series of dreams that came to him shortly before he was awakened.

I believe this is 5.196: SuttaCentral

[waiyin]

Awesome! Thank you for these talks (worthwhile looking at the Youtube to get screenshots of the documents read out or pictures referred to).
The documents mentioned in relation to AN5.196 (The Great Dreams Part 2) are
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe15/sbe15075.htm
and

Dreams_of_the_Bodhisatta_part_I_BIS15-17_Bautze-Picron.pdf

[waiyin]

The documents mentioned in relation to SN12.15 (&SN12.2) (With Kaccanāgotta) are:

(SN22.90 was very enjoyable, an example of what Bhante Sujato mentioned in the previous sessions … Sammukhā metaṃ, āvuso channa, bhagavato sutaṃ, sammukhā paṭiggahitaṃ kaccānagottaṃbhikkhuṃ ovadantassa—
Thanks to that foray:
cetokhila - mental barrenness — MN i 101, 9-27 (MN16) - thanks to Bhikkhu Bodhi’s footnote.)

Nāgārjuna: Mūlamadhyamakakārikāḥ (May All Being Happy: Nāgārjuna: Mūlamadhyamakakārikāḥ)
yaḥ pratītyasamutpādaḥ śūnyatāṃ tāṃ pracakṣmahe |
sā prajñaptir upādāya pratipat saiva madhyamā || MMK_24,18
kātyāyanāvavāde cāstīti nāstīti cobhayam |
pratiṣiddhaṃ bhagavatā bhāvābhāvavibhāvinā || MMK_15,07
Who? What? (thanks to wikipedia)
Nāgārjuna (c. 150 – c. 250 CE) is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers, … considered to be the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
There exist a number of influential texts attributed to Nāgārjuna…
The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is Nāgārjuna’s best-known work. It is "not only a grand commentary on the Buddha’s discourse to Kaccayana, the only discourse cited by name, but also a detailed and careful analysis of most of the important discourses included in the Nikayas and the agamas, especially those of the Atthakavagga of the Sutta-nipata.

Extract from DN33:
Three choices:
Tayo saṅkhārā—
good choices, bad choices, and imperturbable choices.
puññābhisaṅkhāro, apuññābhisaṅkhāro, āneñjābhisaṅkhāro. (35)
Also in SN12.51.

[waiyin]

The stuff mentioned in relation to MN23 (Tbe Ant-Hill) are:

Set of 4 perspectives

1. Literal – [is]
2. Moral - practical — [ought]
3. Metaphorical - creative — [maybe]
4. Transcendant — [?]

kumārakassapa - KN:Thag2.41, AN1.217, DN23 (Parallel: The Story of Paesi (Paesi-kahanayam): Soul and Body in Ancient India: A Dialogue on Materialism; Text, Translation, Notes and Glossary; Article in Journal of the American Oriental Society 123(4):913 · October 2003 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272928381_The_Story_of_Paesi_Paesi-kahanayam_Soul_and_Body_in_Ancient_India_A_Dialogue_on_Materialism_Text_Translation_Notes_and_Glossary)), Vin:(Pli-Tv-)Kd1 (62 Gabbhavīsūpasampadānujānana)

Ant-hills are worshiped in Hinduism

The Vammika Sutta (MN 23) has a rather unique and tantalizing structure. Typically suttas will explain their main message in explicit terms, then use a simile for illustration. But this sutta, framed as a riddle presented to the monk Kumāra Kassapa, places the obscure riddles front and center, and only then does the Buddha draw out the Dhammic implications. Following the Upanishadic precedent, the Buddha makes an explicit and direct connection between each point in the sutta and a particular po…

• WY: Casket as a translation for caṅgavāra is cool! Also a memory of how I used to build metaphorical bunkers to protect my own feelings. (Bhante Sujato: “It’s okay to feel pain, as you learn in meditation.” 20190715 Thank you!)

maṃsapesi - MN54
-WY: lump of meat being a symbol for nandīrāga has the additional features of it being anicca (meat rots; one’s desires changes, often when one has that which one desires in hand, it is no longer wanted).

satthaṃ ādāyā - WY: in addition to sattha being a symbol for wisdom, does anyone else see a relation to satthaharaka? E.g. How wisdom can be a danger, when not tampered by kindness & compassion? (Thank you for the reminder that there are “sharks” (danger, though not MN67) in the ocean (which I feel is reading suttas in Pāli akin to as opposed to reading the English translation “a small pool”), thankfully there are many rafts (like modern day teachers of Early Buddhist Texts and MN22).

Apologies for putting so much of my own thoughts here.

PS - Mirkwood is awesome!

Links to DN21:
Part 1 (Part 7 of series): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=676FhnkqwSA
Part 2 (Part 8 of series): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAuIEpOiFY4
mp3 files (downloaded them as mp3, edited using Audacity, export as .flac, lame -b 16 -1 --resample 11 --lowpass 5 -X3 *.flac output.mp3 as suggested by Musiko, thank you; established when we were editing sutta readings from Ajahn Brahmali’s retreats):
Part 1: https://scdd.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/original/3X/8/0/800f38345ba2fb909967d02405fa346587e90924.mp3
Part 2: https://scdd.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/original/3X/c/2/c2af8298fe5f5d0699227aba48c141a6e0e6b998.mp3

On Soṇa and tuning instruments

In the famous story of Soṇa, the former musician, we hear the Buddha giving a simile based on the tuning of an instrument. The story appears in AN 6.55 and its various parallels: Pi Tv Kd 5, SA 254, EA 23.3, Zh Mi Kd 6, Zh Dg Kd 5, MA 123, and in various Sanskrit fragments, and probably other Vinaya passages. The instrument is the vīṇā, which is usually translated as “lute”, but in fact it was more likely to be something in the arched harp family. They’re an instrument that remains quite close …

papañcasaññasaṅkhā
ekantavāda ekantasīlā ekantachandā ekanta ājjhosāna
taṇhāsaṅkhayavimutta (MN37)

Thank you.

[sabbamitta]

@michaelh

June - DN 21 The Questions of Sakka
Some great dhamma, and a Pali love song!

I am just looking at this thread again—and am wondering: What happened to the fourth talk, the one on DN 21?

I’d totally confirm that it’s about great Dhamma and the most hilarious Pali love song!

[Danny]

You mean this?

Ajahn Sujato - Encounters With The Budda's Words 7 - The Questions of Sakka Part 1

Ajahn Sujato - Encounters With The Budda's Words 8 - The Questions of Sakka Part 2

[sabbamitta]

Cool! Thanks for bringing it here!