Improving the Dhamma

[JoeL]

Listening to a wonderful talk by Thannissaro about the bad influence of romanticism on modern Buddhism. One point he mentions is the Buddha talked on the dangers of improving the Dhamma with an analogy of a drum. Does that sound familiar. Interested in finding the specific suttas

20140426 Thanissaro Bhikkhu sati romanticizing the buddha part 1 空白视频

[Snowbird]

If you do a search for “drum” you will find this post:

On Drums and Pegs

In SN 20.7 we have a memorable little story about a people who used a drum and kept repairing it until the original had vanished. This is used as a simile for the disappearance of the Dhamma. As people stop reading and studying the suttas, gradually the true teaching will vanish. There’s a Chinese parallel at SA 1258. As often happens in the suttas, the overall intent of the story is clear, but the details are much less so. In fact as a musician I have always found the translations somewhat puz…

I don’t mean to nag, but you can really find a lot of good content by using the search. I won’t say that all the questions have been asked, but there are quite a few that have.

[Snowbird]

Sorry, I should have been more specific.

Clicking on the magnifying glass icon it opens the search functionality on the forum (not the main website). It’s quite powerful. You can see the settings icon on the far right. That will take you to the advanced search.

Search is not perfect, and there is nothing wrong with starting new conversations. But you may be able to find your answer more quickly by doing a search. And it does make it more difficult for future forum users if there are a bunch of very similar discussions in different threads.

[Jhana4]

Argh! Other people have beat me to my soap box! LOL

I discovered “The Peg” sutta decades ago and have been harping on that it isn’t know well enough.

Thanisarro Bhikkhu has an article on the same subject. It is quite good and worth reading.

Buddhism was changed many times already as it spread to each Asian culture too.

If you substituted out the Buddhist terms, then compared the content of SGI Buddhism to the EBTs most people wouldn’t think the two sets of content were from the same religion. The serious experts would, but not likely until they finished their first cup of coffee.