SuttaCentral
Hi,
I made a calculation:
The Digha Nikaya has 34 Suttas, that are about 80 minutes long, according to pali audio. Majjhima Nikaya, 152 suttas that are 60 minutes, Samyutta Nikaya 2000 suttas, 10 Minutes, and Anguttara Nikaya 10.000 suttas, 2 minutes. This is 866 hours of speaking time. When the Buddha taught for 44 years he would speak 1hour of teaching every 19 days. How does that make sense?
Why arent there more or longer suttas? Do you think the suttas are words of the buddha?
The Cƫិasuññata Sutta (MN 121) suggests not every single Dhamma talk was recorded.
Do you think the suttas are words of the buddha?
Mostly yes.
Thanks, can you show me the part, where it talks about dhamma talks not being recorded?
No such sutta detailing that teaching. I believe Vasubandhu used this sutta as part of his argument that because not all teachings were recorded in the sutras there was validity to the Mahayana texts. In other words, there could be secret or alternative teachings not recorded in the sutta/sutras.
There are no esoteric teachings:
âWhat more does the Saáč gha of monks want from me, Änanda? I have taught the Dhamma without making an inside or outside (version).21 The TathÄgata has no closed fist with regard to teachings.22â- DN 16, Maha Parinibbana sutta
Notes:
In other words, the Buddha had no esoteric version of the Dhamma that he taught only to an inner circle or a select class of privileged beings. The Dhamma that he taught to his close disciples was consistent with the Dhamma he taught at large.
In other words, he did not hold back any teachings from his students until he was about to die. As the narrative of this sutta makes clear, the teachings he taught up to the night of his unbinding were identical to the teachings he had taught for his entire career.
The teaching has an internal integrity which is available to those who study the suttas :
Ven. Sariputta: âLord, I donât have knowledge of the awareness of the worthy ones, the rightly self-awakened ones of the past, future, & present, but I have known the consistency of the Dhamma. Itâs as if there were a royal frontier city with strong ramparts, strong walls & arches, and a single gate. In it would be a wise, competent, & intelligent gatekeeper to keep out those he didnât know and to let in those he did. Walking along the path encircling the city, he wouldnât see a crack or an opening in the walls big enough for even a cat to slip through. The thought would occur to him: âWhatever large creatures enter or leave the city all enter or leave it through this gate.â12â-DN 16
I agree. I was merely stating part of Vasubandhuâs argument, as I understand it.
Given that the teaching is self-contained, why would practitioners waste time on extraneous material?
I suspect one factor is that he must have repeated himself a lot. The same questions and topics come up repeatedly for any teacher. Especially back in those days with oral transmission being the only way to spread teachings.
I donât know. How much does it matter? The suttas are close enough, otherwise we wouldnât have noble disciples alive today.
Iâm not a follower of Mahayana so I canât possibly say.
I think you are possibly mistaking an argument from Ven BhÄvaviveka for one from Ven Vasubandhu. Ven BhÄvaviveka cites an untraced parallel to the Simsapasutta, saying that the Buddha did not teach Vens Änanda et al. the MahÄyÄna because it was not useful âto them.â I had conversation with Ven Dhammanando concerning this here on the forum. Give me a second to link to it.
âHearing (or reading) the Dhamma, he remembers it. Remembering it, he penetrates the meaning of those dhammas. Penetrating the meaning, he comes to an agreement through pondering those dhammas. There being an agreement through pondering those dhammas, desire arises. With the arising of desire, he becomes willing. Willing, he contemplates (lit: âweighs,â âcomparesâ). Contemplating, he makes an exertion. Exerting himself, he both realizes the ultimate meaning of the truth with his body and sees by penetrating it with discernment.ââ-MN 95
In developing a practice an essential skill is coming to an agreement between the meaning of a sutta which is already understood, with new information from another sutta. In this way is built up a network of meaning between a cluster of suttas which form the nucleus of a particular stage of practice. So it is not necessary to understand all suttas, only those relevant. This is progress by understanding. One reason the Anapanasati and Satipatthana suttas are considered important is because they readily form a core with reference to the understanding of other suttas, and also have a practice orientation.
What happens in practice is very different, less ordered to how it is described in the suttas, nevertheless the underlying principles should be regularly seen, recognized and developed. Thatâs the function of mindfulness, to understand what is being thought at a particular time with reference to the meditation domain. To be aware of the meditation domain demands establishing some knowledge of the suttas.
I think of the Buddhas teachings as a âcurriculumâ in the method to attain Nibbana. Once the curriculum contains all of the necessary material, it is just a matter of repeating it for each new âstudentâ, who then has to train themselves to a level of competence, based on the materials provided.
SN56.31
At one time the Buddha was staying near KosambÄ« in a rosewood forest. Then the Buddha picked up a few rosewood leaves in his hand and addressed the mendicants: âWhat do you think, mendicants? Which is more: the few leaves in my hand, or those in the forest above me?â
âSir, the few leaves in your hand are a tiny amount. There are far more leaves in the forest above.â
âIn the same way, there is much more that I have directly known but have not explained to you. What I have explained is a tiny amount. And why havenât I explained it? Because itâs not beneficial or relevant to the fundamentals of the spiritual life. It doesnât lead to disillusionment, dispassion, cessation, peace, insight, awakening, and extinguishment. Thatâs why I havenât explained it.
And what have I explained? I have explained: âThis is sufferingâ ⊠âThis is the origin of sufferingâ ⊠âThis is the cessation of sufferingâ ⊠âThis is the practice that leads to the cessation of sufferingâ.
And why have I explained this? Because itâs beneficial and relevant to the fundamentals of the spiritual life. It leads to disillusionment, dispassion, cessation, peace, insight, awakening, and extinguishment. Thatâs why Iâve explained it.
Thatâs why you should practice meditation âŠâ
https://suttacentral.net/sn56.31/en/sujato
Rosewood: Dalbergia sissoo - Wikipedia
This is probably the tree also referred to when âheartwood and sapwoodâ is mentioned, such as MN 30.
It was actually at Dhamma Wheel.
In another [rebuttal] he quotes the Simsapa Sutta in an attempt to impugn the authority of the [First] Council. In this sutta the Buddha admits that he hasnât revealed all that he knows to the bhikkhus and so BhÄvaviveka concludes that itâs irrelevant if Mahayana sutras werenât recited at the Council. All it means is that Mahayana sutras are like the simsapa leaves on the trees rather than the ones the Buddha was holding in his hand. Unfortunately BhÄvaviveka seems to have shot himself in the foot with this particular argument, for to say that Mahayana sutras are like the leaves on the trees is tantamount to admitting that they are not of any soteriological importance â which is precisely what his opponents are claiming.
[âŠ]
So too, bhikkhus, the things I have directly known but have not taught you are numerous, while the things I have taught you are few. And why, bhikkhus, have I not taught those many things? Because they are unbeneficial, irrelevant to the fundamentals of the holy life, and do not lead to revulsion, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to NibbÄna.
Hmmm⊠at the risk of being skewered as a heretic, Iâm going to put the cat amongst the pigeons! 
Letâs compare the 866 hours of speaking time for the suttas with the record of Ajahn Chah. He spent a prolific amount of time giving Dhamma talks (sometimes night long!), most of which were recorded using modern equipment. His disciples have since collected all the available Ajahn Chah Dhamma talks and they run to 693 pages! 
Thatâs way, way less than the number of suttas.
Perhaps the question should be âHow come the Buddhaâs disciples were able to record and pass onto us so many suttas?â
I will be eternally grateful for the untold number of monks who dedicated their lives, generation after generation, to memorizing and passing on the Teaching. If I know anything of Dhamma at all, it is because I stand on the shoulders of these giants. 
Thanks, that is helpful.
Thank you, Bhante. Because the parallel is completely untraced and untraceable until the event of some archaeological manuscript find, it becomes impossible to objectively establish whether Ven BhÄvaviveka is selectively (mis)quoting a legitimate ĆrÄvaka scripture or paraphrasing it in such a way as to introduce something not in the original. Ven BhÄvaviveka has the sutta as a dialogue between Ven Änanda and the Buddha I believe you said, which is unlike either the SarvÄstivÄdin or TheravÄdin versions of the sutta. It could be the ĆrÄvaka sutta of another non-Sthaviravada sect like the Mahasamghikas. That is of course a speculation and not a real argument. But the speculation would be that non-Sthaviravada sects might be expected to have more divergence in their scriptures when compared with TheravÄda than when TheravÄdin suttas are compared with SarvÄstivÄdin and Dharmaguptaka.
Ven BhÄvaviveka could be a bad paraphraser with an obvious agenda.
Do we know what text his quotation is found? The Sarvastivada version agrees in meaning with the Theravada but the wording is quite different, suggesting to me itâs not that old.
Since you read Chinese you might like to check the VijñÄnakÄya of the SarvÄstivÄdin Abhidharma Piáčaka. I understand from Lance Cousinsâ article, Person and Self, that in the debate on the pudgala the PudgalavÄdin makes an analogous use of the siáčsapa simile, centuries before BhÄvaviveka and (perhaps) quoting from the version in the SammitÄ«ya or VatsiputrÄ«ya canon.
L.S. Cousins:
Let us illustrate the VijñÄnakÄya debate with one example. The protagonists are the Personalist and the follower of the emptiness teaching (SuññatavÄda). We will call the latter the Voidist. The Personalist asks what is the object of loving-kindness. The Voidist replies that it is the five aggregates given the label of âbeingâ. The Personalist, not unreasonably, suggests that this is not in harmony with the suttas which recommend loving-kindness towards living beings rather than aggregates. The Voidist counters with reference to the six classes of consciousness. The object of visual consciousness is visual form. The cases of hearing, smelling, tasting and touching are similar. The object of mental consciousness is dhammas. In none of these cases would lovingkindness have a being as its object.
It follows therefore that the Personalist must affirm a seventh class of consciousness [i.e., one that can cognize a *pudgala* ]. The Voidist then argues that this is equivalent to accusing the Buddha of ignorance.
The Personalist replies that the Buddha certainly knew it, even if he didnât proclaim it. The Voidist counters with the well-known saying that the Buddha did not have the âclosed fistâ of a teacher who holds back some of his teachings from his advanced disciples. The Personalist replies with the equally well-known simile which compares the leaves on a single siáčsapÄ tree with those on the trees of the forest to illustrate the difference between the teachings which the Buddha actually taught and those which he knew but did not teach. However, the Voidist gets the last word by pointing out that the truths which the Buddha knew but did not proclaim were precisely those which were not conducive to following the path to enlightenment. If therefore the pudgala exists, it is not conducive to the path!
Thereâs a couple different places we can find this simile interpreted in Chinese sources. It comes up in the Mahayana ParinirvÄáča Sutra (T374-5) and also in a text called the SarvĂąstivÄda Vinaya VibhÄáčŁÄ (T1440). Neither of them bring up this point about what the Buddha didnât teach wasnât conducive, but unfortunately, they donât quote the sutra verbatim, so that we canât see what they were reading in their canons. In fact, in T1440 (at 504a05), the author claims that the Buddha didnât teach everything because sentient beings couldnât accept everything.
I decided today to translate SA 404 so we can see it in English. It has that same caveat that rules out the validity of what the Buddha knew but didnât teach as is found in the Pali version. So, I can see why Sarvastivadins could make these arguments.