Hi All - I had posted this question on the newcomers post and was told it would make sense to break them up into individual posts. So here’s the first of several.
1st Question
A big part of Sutta central and the discourse here is spending time reading the Suttas. As such, how does one read the Suttas and ensure that you understand them correctly.
Given the Suttas aren’t often clear and are prone to misunderstanding a whole range of modern and ancient commentaries have cropped up and expert scholars/practitioners to this day continue debate various interpretations. Layer in now an entirely new method of evaluation being comparative studies and all of a sudden the task of being able to as accurately understand the word of the Buddha becomes immense.
Bhikku Analayo in the Singless and Deathless references Bhikku Bodhi in the conclusion with the following statement: “Not only are the texts themselves composed in a clipped laconic style that mocks our thirst for conceptual completeness, but their meaning often seems to rest upon a deep underlying groundwork of interconnected ideas that is nowhere stated baldly in a way that might guide interpretation. Instead of resorting to direct expression, the nikāyas embed the basic principles of doctrine in a multitude of short, often elusive discourses that draw upon and allude to the underlying system without spelling it out. To determine the principles one has to extract them piecemeal, by considering in juxtaposition a wide assortment of texts. The situation that emerges from the above assessment makes it perhaps more understandable why the early Buddhist perspective on the construction of experience has up to now not received as much attention as I believe it deserves.”
It would seem that in order for one to ensure they are interpreting the Suttas correctly a deep amount of knowledge and expertise would be required.
How would a lay practitioner reading on their own acquire this skill.
2nd Question
This builds on my first which is the value of studying Pali.
Given the complexity required to even understand the Suttas in our native language it would seem adding another layer of learning Pali and ensuring a correct understanding would add a whole other dimension of difficulty. As with the Suttas themselves there are numerous examples of expert scholars disagreeing on the meaning of various Pali words. If that’s the case what chance does a hobbyist stand.
I think this has always been and will always be something to keep in mind, not just because we are reading on our own. When following a teacher we can off load some of the responsibility onto them, but at the end of the day it’s all on us.
The biggest danger I see is when people read the suttas to justify their own beliefs or pet theories. This is a chronic problem on internet forums especially. The Dhamma is so vast that it doesn’t take a genius to cut and paste things together so that they prove their own point.
So I’d say that one way we avoid misunderstanding the texts is to make sure we are always looking for what the Buddha/texts are saying and not how we agree with them. And especially when we think we have found some “contradiction” we need to be extremely cautious. Those so-called contradictions (or worse, “corruptions”) are often the doorway to understanding the deeper meaning.
I would recommend to start studying the sutta’s with an anthology. Bhikkhu Bodhi’s “in the Buddha’s words” is a very good one, in my opinion. From there on, you can read sutta’s on your own, using Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translations or the one on this website by Bhante Sujato, or both. I think it is good to read them both actually, because every translation is different and has its own nuances. There is not always a definite, ‘correct’ translation. Sometimes, a translator has to make a choice between different words, which are all correct, in a sense, but also carries their own connotations.
If you have time and commitment, learning Pali can be very helpful. Once you can read the sutta’s in their original language, a whole new world opens up. In my case, I was really into it because I love studying languages. But it takes a long time.
Learning Pali doesn’t make things more complicated, in my experience. On the contrary, it makes things more clear in the long run. Because you can read for yourself the passages which are discussed. But as I said, first you have to make the journey to get there.
There are courses for learning Pali online, also on this website I believe.
I don’t think however, that learning Pali is indispensable. Reading the sutta’s in translation, listen to the advice of teachers and then start practising it yourself, is enough to enjoy the fruits.
Thank you for this and makes sense. The part that’s tripping me up is how are we as lay practitioners supposed to avoid misunderstanding the texts when expert scholars and monks disagee on key concepts
Thank you, yes In the Buddhas Words, Noble Truths Noble Path Bhikku Bodhi, and PA Payuttos BuddhaDhamma are the texts I’m using initially for study. I think once I’ve internalised enough of the Cannon in English I’ll start to learn Pali.
I asked a similar question a few years ago and got some nice responses
I think what Snowbird says above is important. We are here 2600 years later looking back at the suttas with thousands of years of culture overlayed. The people the Buddha was talking to had a very different world view and context. It can be easy to think that the Buddha was teaching us in our context but that’s secondary to the context he is actually teaching.
What I do is rely on my teachers’ interpretation and translations. The key point is to choose teachers (plural, not singular). If most, if not all, interpret a sutta in a similar way, I would feel quite confident in their interpretation and then be able to focus on the meaning the Buddha was perceived as conveying.
If I have questions about any interpretation, I’d just ask here on SuttaCentral.
If you are good at languages, learning Pali is good. I’m not gifted and I don’t think my Pali is good enough to interpret the Pali text correctly without help.
I’m afraid such “democratic” approach isn’t very reliable, since the more subtly point in discussion the more likely majority would agree on wrong interpretation.
If your teacher is an ariyan, you really don’t need consulting others. Unfortunately this merely relocate the problem, since puthujjana value judgement about ariyahood of this or that teacher is more guessing, so rather very uncertain.
Not quite so. No doubt only ariya can interpret certain Suttas correctly, but in this analysis above another aspect is not mentioned, namely faith. We make our judgements based on our understanding, that’s unavoidable. But our faith should tell us that Suttas are more trustworthy than our opinions, so in the most cases when Sutta verbatim contradicts our ideas, most likely our ideas are wrong, and we should change them, no need for changing the obvious meaning of words.
For some reasons this seems to be very difficult to practice. For example this is what Bhikkhu Bodhi says in his introduction to Brahmajala Sutta:
The Brahmajāla’s claim to exhaustiveness is thundered out in the refrain that brings each section of the exposition to a close: “Outside of these there is none.” The title of the sutta further underscores this claim while the same idea is given concrete shape in the memorable simile with which the discourse ends. The scheme of sixty-two cases is a net cast out by the Buddha upon the ocean of human thought, designed to catch and contain all possible philosophical theories on the nature of the self and the universe. It takes as its target not only those views that were being formulated by thinkers contemporary with the Buddha, or those that have come to expression in the course of humanity’s intellectual history, but all that are capable of coming to expression whether they have actually appeared or not. The Brahmajāla is an all-embracing net, a net which contains no loopholes and no portals of escape. Just as a fisherman casting his net over a small pond can be sure that all fish of a certain size will be caught within the net, so, the Buddha declares, whatever thinkers speculate about the past or the future can with certainty be found within the net of his teaching.
Whether the sutta, in its present form, really does succeed in matching this claim is difficult to assess. On reflection it seems that many views from the history of philosophy and theology can be called to mind which resist being neatly classified into the scheme the sutta sets up, while other views can be found which agree in their basic credo with those cited in the sutta but appear to spring from causes other than the limited number that the sutta states they can all be ultimately traced to.
So it looks like Bhikkhu Bodhi is unsure where to put his trust: in Lord Buddha’s words or his reflection. Undoubtedly it is sometimes difficult to classifie this or that view, but regarding the source of all of them, they may be formulated only in the presence of sakkayaditthi.
Another example. In his commentary to MN 9 Bhikkhu Bodhi define sankharas as follows:
In the context of the doctrine of dependent origination, formations (sankhārā) are wholesome and unwholesome volitions, or, in short, kamma. The bodily formation is volition that is expressed through the body, the verbal formation volition that is expressed by speech, and the mental formation volition that remains internal without coming to bodily or verbal expression.
And for some reason even does not provide the Pali terms. Unfortunately for Bhikkhu Bodhi and anyone who trust him, Suttas define these sankharas quite differently.
So Bhikkhu Bodhi changes the meaning of sankharas to adjust them to his ideas, for some reason doesn’t like to change his ideas to adjust them to the meaning of words as defined by Suttas. The problem here is rather the problem of faith, one doesn’t have to be ariyan to trust more Suttas than one’s own opinions and judgements based on reflection.
“Bhikkhus, whatever the Tathāgata speaks, utters, or expounds in the interval between the night when he awakens to the unsurpassed perfect enlightenment and the night when he attains final nibbāna,657 all that is just so and not otherwise; therefore he is called the Tathāgata. AN IV 23
“Bhikkhus, in this world with its devas, Māra, and Brahmā, among this population with its ascetics and brahmins, its devas and humans, whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, reached, sought after, examined by the mind—that I know.
“Bhikkhus, in this world with its devas, Māra, and Brahmā, among this population with its ascetics and brahmins, its devas and humans, whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, reached, sought after, examined by the mind—that I have directly known. It has been known by the Tathāgata,662 but the Tathāgata did not become subservient to it.663“Bhikkhus, if I were to say, ‘In this world with its devas … whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, reached, sought after, examined by the mind—that I do not know,’ that would be a falsehood on my part.
“Bhikkhus, if I were to say, ‘In this world with its devas … whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, reached, sought after, examined by the mind—that I both know and do not know,’ that too would be just the same.664“Bhikkhus, if I were to say, ‘In this world with its devas … whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, reached, sought after, examined by the mind—that I neither know nor do not know,’ that would be a fault on my part.
