I believe that this desire to ‘improve the Buddhas teachings’ is really the epitome of conceit of self, and is based on an incomplete understanding of what the Buddha actually taught. Unfortunately, it is only a tiny number of individuals (on a global scale) that have moved beyond these conditions and are able to know and see based on direct experience. For that very reason, I think the scholarship on the authenticity of the Buddhas teachings is so vital. The integrity of this scholarship is key, as the temptation (based on delusion) to think that the things one doesn’t agree with or understand must be corruptions, and to make those ‘corrections’ is always there in the background.
We know that there are some corruptions in the texts, and I hope that the knowledge of these will spread over time. Sadhu to all the careful sutta scholars working to achieve this
In fact, just this morning I was discussing this, with regard to some ‘corrupted’ text involving the portrayal of women. The damage that these ‘corruptions’ do on both a personal and on a ‘sasana’ level is pretty awful to witness.
With regards to the OP I think it is imperative to be able to acknowledge what are the direct teachings of the Buddha, and what are later works that expand or modify the teachings. It is all about knowing the difference and then making an informed choice about which modes of practice to pursue. Otherwise, we are just willfully propagating delusion. Please Note this is nothing to do with judgments about good or bad - but just about being as clear as possible on the ascertainable facts. As always there are huge individual variations about what helps and what hinders progress on the Path at different times for different individuals. Informed choice doesn’t restrict choice, it is just about clear seeing.
Ven. Yin Shun in 《雜阿含經論會編》[Combined Edition of Sutra and Sastra of the Samyukta-agama] p. 2 states that the most fundamental teachings of the Buddha are found in the sutra-anga portion of SA (SN):
《雜阿含經論會編》 序 p. 2: “「修多羅」分陰、處、因緣、聖道四大類，在《雜阿含經》的集成中，「修多羅」是最早的，正是如來教法的根本所在。”
This major part of SA (SN) is regarded by Ven. Yin Shun as an essential component for Buddhist traditions, both Mahayana and Hinayana/Early Buddhist Schools. Such a teaching, which includes the early Buddhist texts of SA (SN), is also today’s Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, influenced by Ven. Yin Shun.
It goes both ways though, self conceit could also lead to the idea that one has found the one absolute spiritual teaching and that therefore, one does not need to learn anything else and that no other tradition, religion or philosophy is valuable. This is a conceit one sees among certain EBT fundamentalists online as of late.
This may sound argumentative and perhaps even like a fundamentalist.
What if it’s true, though, that the Buddha is perfected, fully awakened, who teaches truth (Dhamma) good in the beginning, middle, and end? If we have experiential confidence in these qualities of the Buddha consistently expressed in the EBTs and the Dhamma he teaches, it seems like it might be unwise to seek other teachers and teachings just for the sake of not wanting to appear conceited.
On the other hand, perhaps you’re suggesting to be careful about being so sure one has found the teachings of a perfected one before one has actually investigated and verified this to be true or at least likely? This approach sounds useful.
This is tricky, especially given that conceit in English has two meanings, one of which is close to idea/belief.
So if paraphrase very slightly:
It goes both ways though, self conceit could also lead to the idea that one has found the one absolute spiritual teaching and that therefore, one does not need to learn anything else and that no other tradition, religion or philosophy is valuable. This is a belief one sees among certain EBT fundamentalists online as of late.
and add this to it
does the problem remain?
Not necessarily, but it does potentially. And it’s up to each individual practionioner/believer to guard against any unnecessary conceit about this view.
To get back to that general point I had made about the progressive nature of the Buddhist tradition over the millennia, an example is the current trend of gender equality and the deconstruction of gender as a concept. If we only read EBTs (and I don’t just mean Theravada suttas when I say EBTs), we would think that early Buddhists were sexists, and that’s the end of the story. Our current trends about gender equality appear to be brand new ideas foreign to Buddhist thought.
But that would not be true. Mahāyānists were deconstructing gender as a concept 1500 years ago. There’s, for example, this passage in the Commentary on the Prajñā Pāramitā Sutra that specifically chooses gender to explain the contemplation of signlessness and engages in a debate with a doubter. They also wrote sutras that bluntly refuted women’s supposed spiritual inferiority by depicting laywomen and female bodhisattvas as equal to any traditional male disciple (or even as more advanced, in the case of the arhats like Sariputra). See for example the Queen Śrīmālā Sutra, Sumati’s Questions Sutra, and the Gaṅgottara Sutra.
So, I personally think that there’s a bigger picture that exists when we look at the Buddhist tradition as a whole. There was a general movement towards a more realistic understanding that begins with EBTs, is refined in Abhidharma, and reaches a kind of post-modern conclusion in Mahayana writings. It seems parallel in a very general way to the arc of thought that took place in the Christian world. We’ve to some extent been re-inventing wheels Buddhists had devised about 1500 years ahead of us.
One thing I’ve been wondering is since the Chinese language doesn’t have gendered nouns, like Pali, Sanskrit, and some modern Romance languages do, and the subject of a sentence is often times dropped in Chinese, does a lot of the subtle sexist feeling found in the Pali suttas disappear? I know that “bhiskhu” was directly translated and included in the Agamas, but what about the rest of the sutras?
Sometimes it’s not obvious until you hit some context that makes it clear that “people” are really men in the passage. For example, there might be some discussion of the fourth precept that uses the term “person,” but then all the examples are from the point of view of men. So, yeah, classical Chinese is tricky that way. You can be reading along for a page and then some specific context will make an assumption obvious. And it’s not overall that much different any other ancient literature. Mostly men were writing and reading it, so it’s often implicitly from a male perspective.
