Does the Pali Canon convey the authentic teachings of the Buddha?

The Watercooler
,
102

With 4000 suttas in the Pali Canon, and a certain restlessness at the brevity of life, I have chosen to read the suttas I can actually grasp. I’ve been reading DN33 for months now, deeply grateful for Sariputta’s terseness. The Lotus Sutra will have to remain unknown to me until I dispel that restlessness. The sutta is simply inaccessible due to its verbosity, as is much of the abhidhamma, sadly. I lack the patience currently. I also lack the patience to watch TV shows or listen to songs to their conclusion.

:pray:

1 Like
103

I wonder if the common man in East Asia had access to the entire cannon if they would have gone for the Lotus sutra. :roll_eyes:

104

I’ve not actually read the Lotus Sutra, but skimming through the summary on Wikipedia, it’s clear that it is the origin of many influential concepts and similes that I have heard a lot! Though I take the point that there is not time to read the vast corpus of Buddhist literature, I also think that it is possible to take inspiration from such writings, even if one doesn’t take them as the literal word of the Buddha. This interview sheds some light on that sort of issue:

:heart:

1 Like
105

I find this a rather rude remark, and I won’t go into deeper dispute on this style of exchange, because I don’t see an intention to do a clarifying dispute at all.
A clarifying intention would be visible if there were, for instance, a question like “on what sort of examples do you arrive at such a sentient?” Maybe, a discussion of such example would lead to convergence towards a common judge, and that interest is what I expect with seriously engaged discutants.
Well, for the other folks around, I’ve done a long, or let’s better say, intense discussion about that topic of absurde gigantic speculations in the so-called “maha-parinirvana-sutra”. That discussion has been done in the german buddhist newsgroup in April 2007; the thread is in google-groups where I documented there my surprise and gave examples of (in my view: sick minded) gigantomanic tellings.
(For the interested reader to get more of the dispute and also of its unpleasant general style I’ve prepared a pdf-file with that what seemed most significant to me)
To give just one example, provided by some contributor “karl”,
(…)

(…)
Chapter One Introductory

Thus have I heard. At one time, the Buddha was staying at Kusinagara in the
land of the Mallas, close to the river Ajitavati, where the twin sal trees
stood. At that time, the great bhiksus [monks] as many as 80 billion hundred
thousand were with the Blessed One. They surrounded him front and back. On
the 15th of the second month, as the Buddha was about to enter Nirvana, he,
with his divine power, spoke in a great voice, which filled the whole world
and reached the highest of the heavens. It said to all beings in a way each
could understand: "Today, the Tathagata [i.e. Buddha] the Alms-deserving and
Perfectly Awakened One, pities, protects and, with an undivided mind, sees
beings as he does his [son] Rahula. So, he is the refuge and house of the
world. (…)

My own initial expression of surprise about that readings was first this (see first msg in the google-groups-thread by “Gottfried Helms”)

(…)
h) That the noble Mahaparinirvana Sutra itself is “unique”, “the ultimate of
all Mahayana discourses”, the “most excellent King of sutras [scriptures]”,
revealing “the very ultimate meaning of all sutras”,

FWIW, that cowboy-ish attack injecting terms like “unfair” and “double-standard” here into the discourse (without any intention to clear /resolve possible discrepancies first) reminds me much on the then discussion and I don’t think it’s worth to engage again in that style here in 2019.

1 Like