Study Strategies For Reading All Of The Suttas In The Pali Cannon

[Jhana4]

@brooks

That was my approach when I first endeavored to read the four Nikayas. Like @Jhana4 I had also read In the Buddha’s Words and was immersed in the Goenka tradition. I wanted to go to the source and get a general sense of what the Buddha taught overall since most traditions I had encountered seemed to disagree on significant points.

Learn what is there, and then go back and understand it more to apply it to a purpose.

My motivation in thinking about doing this is that I found 3 suttas I consider to be “game changers” for how the Buddha’s teachings are viewed and I have not seen those suttas mentioned in any anthologies I have come across.

It makes me wonder what other golden nuggets are buried in the pages.

Per your quote, I discovered those suttas by going to Goenka retreats, hearing some strong statements, and then asking the leader ( westerner, ex-monastic ) of a sutta class about those statements.

That he was able to give me references off of the top of his head was iImpressive. This was before entire translations of the sutta tipitaka were online and searchable with computers.