SuttaCentral

Gratitude for the many augmenting benefits of Sutta Central

The Watercooler
#1

Dear Friends,

I was just reflecting on the many additional, supplementary benefits that have arisen as a result of the work of Sutta Central, quite apart from providing the ‘greatest gift’ - accessibility to the Dhamma through the teachings of the Buddha.

Rather than keeping this reflection to myself, I invite you all to share any additional ways in which SC has been of benefit or enriched your life and practice :slight_smile: :pray:

I’ll start :slight_smile:

In this era, so far removed from the time of the Buddha and drowning in ‘dhamma confusion’, we have a digital platform that allows otherwise sole or isolated practitioners to interact with Kalyanamittas and teachers, regarding the direct teachings of the Buddha. For me this has been such a source of riches, due to which the ability to prosper in the practice is strengthened exponentially. Thankyou for the Kalyanamittas and the digital ‘sangha’ :smiley:

With boundless gratitude and 1,000,000 Sadhus to Bhante Sujato and all those many people who have worked, and continue to work, to make this possible

May all beings be free of suffering

:anjal: :anjal: :anjal:
:sparkling_heart: :sparkling_heart: :sparkling_heart:

18 Likes
#2

Hey guys, This was ‘supposed’ to be a list… :rofl: :joy: :slightly_smiling_face: I only mentioned one of 100’s of other things to start off

Here are a couple more of my ‘favourite’ things

Pictures of Buddha Beings :cat: :dog2: :unicorn: :panda_face:

The ability to ask obscure technical questions at any time, day or night, and get brilliant answers :nerd_face: :exploding_head: :mage:

Translators hang out :open_book: :books: :writing_hand: :coffee:

Creative release for all the haiku poets and limericists :woman_artist: :man_artist:

etc etc etc Help me out here… tell us your favourite things and what has been of benefit to you. Share the love :smiley:

11 Likes
#4

I appreciate Viveka for coming up with the lists! :smile_cat:

A few more, specific to Discourse on SuttaCentral

  • getting to see monastics’ sense of humor
  • Ajahan Sujato’s strikedowns of misinformation
  • having a safe place to discuss rebirth and other lay-Buddhist taboo subjects
  • learning about great initiatives like RainBodhi and Bhikkhuni ordinations
  • those folks like @faujidoc1 who seem to be able to answer any “what Sutta said xyz” question
  • being my only “social media” :joy::smile_cat:

:heart::heart::heart::pray::pray::pray:Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu!!!

10 Likes
#5

Some things I love:

  • Freely available, excellent translations of the Pali Canon
  • Hearing such a wide range of scholarship, translation expertise, and monastic and lay-life practice experience
  • Getting to see how Bhantes and monastics think about the world, a glimpse beyond the Dhamma talk
  • A place where wanting to learn Pali isn’t weird
  • Bhante @Akaliko’s love of Buddha Beings
  • An online community whose members aspire to Right Speech
10 Likes
#6

Amazing and wonderful…
The love and enthusiasm for the word of the Buddha that so strongly permeate this digital space.
The inspiration and sense of connection I receive from checking in.
Fresh translations at my fingertips.
Bhante Sujato and Ajahn Brahmali. :blush:

8 Likes
#7

It provides an opportunity for me to offer service to the wider Buddhist community from wherever I am. :smiley:

ADDED: And I experience so much incidental learning as I move through threads to moderate them. It is really a privilege to be able to hang out with so many people with well developed pañña and sīla and to learn from them.

Sadhu to @viveka for proposing this thread. :pray:

8 Likes
#8

What a great thread Viveka :slight_smile: I will add my list of gratitude. If we take into account both SuttaCentral.net AND Discuss & Discover forum then the gratitude is magnificent indeed!

SUTTACENTRAL:

  • All amazing translations available and very clearly sorted out.
  • Amazing translator work by Bhante Sujato, Ajahn Brahmali and others.
  • The fact that you can have pali text and english texts taken to the side, or pali text appearing by mouseover on english one is simply amazing. It helped me so much in my scholarly work.
  • Very easy to find sutta in particular translation, so you can quickly compare for example Bhikkhu Bodhi and Bhante Sujato translation and ponder on differences.
  • Very easy in comparison to other tools to find suttas once you get “the basics”.
  • Really got me inspired to read a lot of suttas in various translations and to understand more words in pali.
  • Even sharing this page with others is making good kamma :smiley:

There are no words how grateful I’m for SuttaCentral. Without it my P.hD work would be a harrowing. It is still not easy, but SuttaCentral makes it much easier.

SUTTA CENTRAL D&D FORUM:

  • I’m very grateful for meeting there one of my best kalyanamittas, @Viveka.
  • I had first opportunity to speak with some monastics here. And I’m very grateful for presence of Ayya @Charlotteannun Ajahn @Brahmali, Bhante @sujato, Bhante @Khemarato.bhikkhu Bhante @Dhammanando, Bhante @Akaliko and other monastics, and also Anagarika @sabbamitta :slight_smile: It is really great to see you all interacting with us and with each other. It gives a lot of inspiration, information and helps understand buddhism as a living tradition, and to participate in it ! :slight_smile:
  • Many great non-monastic users aswell :slight_smile: I’m very grateful especially for those are always remain very deeply kind to everyone, and to those who share useful information and funny stuff :heart:
  • A lot of questions answered greatly :slight_smile:
  • A lot of help in finding sutta refferences :slight_smile:
  • I also apprieciate presence of those dealing with Agamas like @cdpatton, because this is also a very importaint mine of knowledge about early buddhism.
  • A big thank you to moderators team for doing so much selfless work :slight_smile:
  • A lot of wisdom and information read on this forum… the amount of threads I’ve read in last year is quite big :stuck_out_tongue:
  • It also helped me to understand more how to write correctly (Even thou this post might not seem like it :stuck_out_tongue: ), and how to behave more kind in Internet space.

So, I’m really, really deeply grateful for SuttaCentral. Actually it is a place where I probably spend most of time online, maybe together with youtube haha. But youtube is not nearly as wholesome, quite the opposite lol. :sweat_smile: :crazy_face:

So, thank you again Bhante Sujato for being pretty much the leader of this initiative. It really changed my life for the better. From person who barely read any sutta, right now I remember numbers of many favorites, and read many in various translations, from all nikayas. :slight_smile:

So even thou I don’t participate that much on the forum (both lack of time and I feel like other people simply know more than I), I read everyday and it keeps me in constant touch with dhamma and dhamma people.

I might also say I’m addicted to Internet (I suppose it’s not that uncommon nowadays :D) , which is simply a fact, and SuttaCentral helps me to steer this craving into a really wholesome activity. :slight_smile: It helped me spend much less time on facebook too, because it fulfills the “need” for social media in an extremely more wholesome way. :slight_smile:

I might even say that this forum is somewhat a “home on the Internet” for me, because it focus on most wholesome subject, which is study of EBTs. :slight_smile: :dharmawheel:

Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu to SuttaCentral and all who created/maintain/evolve it ! :slight_smile:
:anjal: :anjal: :anjal:

14 Likes
#9

Aw shucks… :blush: …that’s just thanks to reading the suttas anytime, anywhere on SuttaCentral! :slightly_smiling_face: :four_leaf_clover:

7 Likes