Thanks for the contributions!
Rather than posting whole suttas or huge chunks of suttas, it would be better to give a summary and just link. Or just post the most important bit. otherwise on mobile the thread is difficult to navigate.
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I’d prefer if we didn’t. Those three things would each make good posts of their own.
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I guess the so-called Bhikkhu The Buddha directly talked to at that time were those who already realized The Dhamma. Not just any Bhikkhu.
The problem the word ‘Bhikkhu’ at that time is of different quality with the ‘Bhikkhu’ in their motives.
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Answered here: Suttas where the Buddha said we should or shouldn't spread the Dhamma - #3 by NgXinZhao Edit: Suttas where the Buddha said we should or shouldn't spread the Dhamma - #12 by Khemarato.bhikkhu This is better answer.
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I think whatever’s in the sutta, but can also include all the commentaries, basically all dhamma talks one can see now. Whatever helps people to become enlightened.
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No centralized system in theravada, but I think for the bigger monasteries with many branches, say like Pa-Auk, they have approved teachers. Could be that only those monastics who are stream winners and above willingly become abbots of monasteries to teach. Just guessing/speculating. There’s so many lay teachers out there who teach, maybe if one is skilled in discerning their teachings, one can judge them to be at least stream winners too, and they might not be always teaching under the banner of Buddhism.
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I just want to say that the suttas that says go spread the dhamma. It was mainly about dana and morality. As in the beginning deep Dhamma teaching was not the goal in society. Just to make society like society needs to be. The problem is that to depend on southern Buddhism for this question is not easy.
Other than that. Guru tradition is common in India from ancient times. Going to show interest was expected. If monks in suttas are not among other Buddhist monks teaching we can see the attitude outside that they are questioned first. Thats the guru tradition.
Often people will cite Brahma Sahampati’s invitation after the Great Awakening as evidence that an invitation is required, along with Ananda’s failure to extend an invitation re the Buddha’s lifespan. But these are more mythic than direct and their meaning is debatable.
Also debatable are the cases where a monk didn’t teach what wasn’t asked for and then later the Buddha said something about it (e.g. Sariputta and the dying Brahmin, or the silent Uposatta monks). Are these examples of how we should be restrained? Or is the Buddha’s gentle admonishment proof that teachings should have happened there? The stories are, in my opinion, intentionally ambiguous.
One thing I have noticed is that while the Buddha is quick to reprimand the monastics, he’s usually quite hesitant to reprimand a lay person, usually requiring a triple invitation before giving negative feedback.
The Buddha himself compared his approach to a farmer: of course a farmer spends most of his time tending to the fertile field and only spends a little time planting seeds in the dry field. So too the Buddha spends most of his time teaching those who are eager to learn, and spends only little time on those who are not. [citation needed… can’t find the sutta now 
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In DN 12 this is called blameworthy:
It’s just as if a man, neglecting his own field, were to imagine that another’s field should be weeded. I say that such a thing is an evil, greedy deed, for what can one person do for another? This is a teacher who is worthy of criticism
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Yes. I have no idea why people would draw that conclusion. Does anyone know if this is a belief held outside of the western sangha?
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Sn 4.24 has this line of poetry to Māra:
When I’m asked, I explain to them
Tesāhaṁ puṭṭho akkhāmi
Which is admittedly quite weak, but is sometimes held up as evidence
It’s not just the foreigners in the Ajahn Chah branch. The Thai disciples on the Luangta Mahabua side of the Thai Forest Tradition also teach this way. Living in Thailand, I see why. There are many monks here who stalk around for people to teach in a very creepy and unproductive way. Like the anti-intellectualism in the Thai Forest Tradition, it serves a particular function in the Thai context and may be taken too far out of that context.
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In my study I feel there was a disagreement in Sangha towards that text. So we don’t have all schools texts to understand what happened.
Here is what a Gandhari text use
ājñāya mahābrahmāṇaś ca yāvatāṃ vi[d]i … … + + + + /// ///
Page 159
I just found this first time. Brahma Sahampati mentioned in the Copper plates of Helagupta by the unknown Buddhist patron around after 1 CE.
https://p303.zlibcdn.com/dtoken/e557e22ea2df3fb8b94b5fd03536b888
Plate nr 1 mentioned Dharmaguptaka. That’s why I believe Theravada current text comes from Thailand region. I saw one a Sinhala pali text it seems probably Sri Lanka used to have another version. Probably now lost.
King Senavarma inscriptions also mention Sahampati also datable @ 1 CE
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Yuck.
Yes, that really feels like grasping at straws.
Here is the citation if anyone needs: Mahavagga
I think you are taking this out of context. When Arahant Puṇṇa did her teaching to the Brahmin, she was merely sharing the Dhamma that she had learned. And it was to great effect. That’s my understanding.
It does bring up this passage in the Sallekhasutta Sutta:
16.1Truly, Cunda, if you’re sinking down in the mud you can’t pull out someone else who is also sinking down in the mud. 16.2But if you’re not sinking down in the mud you can pull out someone else who is sinking down in the mud. 16.3Truly, if you’re not tamed, trained, and extinguished you can’t tame, train, and extinguish someone else. 16.4But if you’re tamed, trained, and extinguished you can tame, train, and extinguish someone else.
The understanding of this passage that I prefer is that if you are sharing the Buddha’s teachings with someone, then it is the Buddha, in this case, who is pulling people out of the mud.
This would, in fact, be a good guide for those who believe that simply being a certain number of years in robes authorizes you to teach, and to teach from your own experience.
Otherwise, if one understands this passage in an extreme way it would lead to no one teaching unless they were arahants. But the Buddha never once said this directly. And in fact if that were the requirement, simply teaching would imply that you were enlightened, thereby leading to other problems.
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Indeed.
We don’t need arahants to teach Sunday dhamma school for kids and teenagers.
My view is that there’s a certain level of organically formed hierarchy based on kamma and other conditionings.
People can come into Buddhism via many means. They might come into contact directly with enlightened masters and know it and stick to them directly. Or they might come into contact with more of the beginners who got the initial super excitement of the dhamma and eager to share all around. Or anywhere in between.
As we learn the dhamma, we don’t totally close off the possibility of introducing it to newcomers. Even if they are just friends and families, or simply the fellow spiritual friends in the Buddhist community. We might be able to bring them to our level of practice, by which they meet another higher level people who brings them higher, until they meet with enlightened ones who can enlighten them via personal guidance from experience.
Or we ourselves go through this transition. Maybe after may rounds, then we realize that the first teacher we are with are already enlightened and we just didn’t had enough kamma or knowledge to realize it yet.
I imagine this like web of roots of a tree. Each root branch brings up water to the centre of the trunk. So at each level, there’s certain dhammas which are more simplified, becomes more clear.
Eg. From Buddhism for beginners books to sutta studies, and further on.
Some levels I had been through before ordaining:
- Vesak Buddhist, just go for parade float.
- Student at Sunday dhamma school from primary class onwards.
- Reading the dhamma on my own.
- Joining university Buddhist society. Dhamma camps.
- Become management committee of the university Buddhist society.
- Explore many temples, organizations etc.
- Organize youth events.
- Gone for many many retreats, become retreat junkie. Including 3 times temporary novice, 2 times in Mahayana.
- Work in a Buddhist temple (Mahayana)
- Stay in monastery for months.
- Actively participating in Buddhist forums.
- Got a bachelor’s in Buddhism from Buddhist and Pali college of Singapore.
- Done sharing/dhamma talks as the speaker for many events. (Remember as a lay person)
It’s not always vertical levels, there’s a lot of horizontal levels, so it can be more of spiritual shopping and materialism and not getting to the goal if one doesn’t have a strong sense of wanting to end suffering.
I listed so many activities above to show that there’s so many people and so many teachers who are putting in so many efforts to help spread the dhamma. Door-to-door spreading is not needed at all. And it’s not realistic to expect everyone I met as a lay person was enlightened if they are in position to teach, or even just as a senior to guide the newcomers.
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so Bhante, what is someone who teach the wrong dhamma, a that that he did not & never realize, a dhamma of his own build delusion?
… it seems very logical … the mud especially … people in quick sands need help outside there, not from someone who sunks too or a help from a silly heroes who prefer their own faster death to uselessly help other 
Well, that same sutta (DN 12) says:
for one of wrong view, Lohicca, I tell you, there is one of two destinations: either hell or the animal realm.
↔ 
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… you are funny indeed, Bhante …
There is one saying that I remember ie.: If you teach the wrong truth, your pupil will straight go to hell, & for those who teach the wrong truth will spend his life a deeper & longer stay in the hell itself
As I said in the OP, I’d like the discussion to focus on finding suttas and not so much about opinions. And, as you said, your comment has nothing to do with the topic.
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Since it seems that nobody actually read DN 12… Permit me to quote at length here, as the entire sutta is about the Buddha refuting the very view that Buddhists shouldn’t proselytize:
[Some monks teach something the King doesn’t like, and so the King thinks to himself: “These Buddhists should keep their opinions to themselves.” Then:]
the Blessed One said to him, “Is it true, Lohicca, that an evil viewpoint to this effect has arisen to you: ‘Suppose that a brahman or contemplative were to arrive at a skillful doctrine. Having arrived at a skillful doctrine, he should not declare it to anyone else, for what can one person do for another? It would be just the same as if, having cut through an old bond, one were to make another new bond. I say that such a thing is an evil, greedy deed, for what can one person do for another?’?”
“Yes, Master Gotama.”
“What do you think, Lohicca? Don’t you reign over Salavatika?”
“Yes, Master Gotama.”
“Now, suppose someone were to say, ‘The brahman Lohicca reigns over Salavatika. He alone should consume the fruits & revenues of Salavatika, and not share them with others.’ Would someone speaking in this way be a creator of obstacles for your subjects, or would he not?”
“He would be a creator of obstacles, Master Gotama.”
“And, being a creator of obstacles, would he be sympathetic for their welfare or not?”
“He would not be sympathetic for their welfare, Master Gotama.”
“And in one not sympathetic for their welfare, would his mind be established in good will for them, or in animosity?”
“In animosity, Master Gotama.”
“When the mind is established in animosity, is there wrong view or right view?”
“Wrong view, Master Gotama.”
Also a great sutta RE the Mahayana and Sravakayana: neither should disparage the other, lest they become a “creator of obstacles.”
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“Caratha bhikkhave Carikam
Bahujanahitaya bahujana sukhaya lokanukampaya
Atthaya, hitaya, sukhaya
Devamanussanam”.
“O Monks! Move around everywhere for the well-being of everyone,
for the happiness of everyone, showering compassion on the entire world;
for the good, for the welfare, for the happiness of divine and human”.
Vinaya pitaka I.23.
Also, Buddha preached to Angulimala who was coming to kill his own mother, as a result of being deluded by his teacher.
Therefore, it is obviously should be a noble a practice of Buddhist monks and nuns to talk Dhamma, involved in Discussions, whether invited or not.
On the other hand interactions with the society of such nature; the freedom/dedication/opportunity is not only unlimited to Buddhist monks and nuns, but also to musicians, popstars, philosophers, politicians, movie makers, etc. in today’s world.
Human beings accept what they want.
Thank you very much for that approach, Venerable!
If I may ask you, what would you say about that topic? Sharing the Dhamma and problems with teachers
What I mean in it is a kind of “invitation to the Buddhism teaching” and pointing to better-trained teachers.