To what extent were early Buddhist suttas replaced in India?

I’m not sure what you’re referring to here.

You know, I really find this so hard to understand.

Imagine that you had someone who was a pastor or teacher in Christianity. And when you asked them about the Bible, they had never read it, had only the vaguest notion that it even existed or what it contains, and could do no more than quote something like “the meek shall inherit the earth”. It’s just unthinkable.

And yet that’s exactly where we are at with Buddhism. In fact it’s even worse than that. We don’t even have to consider teachers. Almost any practicing Christian has a reasonable working knowledge of the Bible, if only from listening to readings at Church. And this is still better than the knowledge that almost all Buddhist teachers, including monastics, have of the suttas.

I simply cannot understand how anyone would take seriously a teacher who had not even bothered with the most basic minimal requirement of familiarizing themselves with their Founder’s teachings. If you think Buddhism is so great, should you not think it’s worth your while to read what the Buddha had to say?

Not that that guarantees someone is a good teacher or practitioner; obviously there’s a lot more to it than that. But surely this should be an absolute minimum to be taken seriously.

13 Likes

In principle, yes. But Ajahn Brahm has many times quoted the saying that the eminence of a scientist is measured by the length of time they holds back their field. As it happens, there was a recent study that confirms that this is in fact what happens:

We study the extent to which eminent scientists shape the vitality of their fields by examining entry rates into the fields of 452 academic life scientists who pass away while at the peak of their scientific abilities. Key to our analyses is a novel way to delineate boundaries around scientific fields by appealing solely to intellectual linkages between scientists and their publications, rather than collaboration or co-citation patterns. Consistent with previous research, the flow of articles by collaborators into affected fields decreases precipitously after the death of a star scientist (relative to control fields). In contrast, we find that the flow of articles by non-collaborators increases by 8% on average. These additional contributions are disproportionately likely to be highly cited. They are also more likely to be authored by scientists who were not previously active in the deceased superstar’s field. Overall, these results suggest that outsiders are reluctant to challenge leadership within a field when the star is alive and that a number of barriers may constrain entry even after she is gone. Intellectual, social, and resource barriers all impede entry, with outsiders only entering subfields that offer a less hostile landscape for the support and acceptance of “foreign” ideas.

7 Likes

This is so true. Take evangelical Christians, for example. It is very normal for them to attend church at least twice a week, and also do activities like Bible study, both in church and in home study groups. When the preacher uses a Bible verse or passage, attendees often look it up in their own Bible to follow along. Many of these Bibles contain multi-colored highlights of text throughout, and pen-scribbled notes in their margins.

The situation in Buddhism is embarrassing by comparison.

2 Likes

Yes, it certainly is odd if to have teachers or scholars with no familiarity with the texts!

When I wrote that I was thinking of beginners who turn up to centres like Dhammaloka. They wouldn’t be required to go off and read a certain number of suttas before being offered some advice or meditation instruction.

1 Like

Yes, that’s what I meant by “Of course, reputation has an influence on how ideas develop”. But in the end, the things that Einstein, for example, was mistaken about are cast aside.

Yes, that’s what I meant. There are clearly various solutions to problems, and various orders to tackling the development required to fulfil the whole package, and this needs to be carefully worked through. It’s rather obvious that teachers have preferences, based on what worked for them and their students. If they are a good teacher, they will have enough breadth of knowledge to change the advice depending on the student.

Sakkapanha sutta (DN 21)

11 “From those gods, Lord, who were born before us in the realm of the Thirty-three, I have heard that whenever Tathāgatas arise in the world, Arahants, Sammā Sambuddhas, the heavenly hosts grow in number and the Asura hosts decrease. And that is true, Lord, I myself have realized it, for since the Tathāgata, the Arahant, Sammā Sambuddha, has appeared in the world, the heavenly hosts grew in number and Asura hosts decreased.

“Take this instance, Lord. There was, Lord, a daughter of the Sākyan clan in Kapilavatthu. Her name was Gopikā. She was devoted to the Buddha, the Dhamma and Saṇgha and was of accomplished virtue. Disgusted with the womanly nature, she cultivated the nature of a man, and at the breaking up of the body, after death, she rose to a happy state, to the heavenly world, to community with the gods of the Thirty-three, and obtained ‘sonship’ by us. And there they know him as ‘Gopaka, son of the gods; Gopaka, son of the gods.’

1 Like

Thanks, yes. Of course a sutta whose main setting involves a fairy entertaining the Buddha with a love song about the arahants must be a reliable witness! :sunglasses:

2 Likes

I’m not so sure. It’s a different kind of literature, but the Bible also has a lot of repetitions. The three synoptic Gospels, just for a start, share much material.

I did look at this a little while ago, and the whole Bible has around 800,000 words. The Pali Nikayas have around 1,000,000. The Vinayas and Chinese texts would probably bump that up to maybe 10,000,000.

Also, the Bible was gathered over a period of maybe 700 years, so for a direct comparison we should include the whole of the Pali Tripitaka and relevant parallels, and possibly some later material as well.

But if we’re just to consider the “words of the founder”, then we should compare the suttas with the Gospels. Much of the Gospels is narrative, or repetition, or late (including basically the whole of John). If we take only those things that have a reasonable chance of being the actual words of Jesus, even using a sympathetic standard, there’s only a few pages.

1 Like

BTW has the feature of automatic link generation for sutta name abbreviations stopped working? DN 21 doesn’t turn into a link

I never found the suttas boring but instead too dense at times.

And changing this was, in my case, a matter of attitude and guidance.

In terms of attitude, I eventually realized the suttas should be ,before all, approached with the deepest gratitude.

We should all consider how valuable they are and how thankful we should feel for those who dedicated their lives to keep an as accurate as possible record of what was said by the Buddha 25 centuries ago.

History tells us that first they were kept through an oral tradition, then they were reformulated in a reconstructed language (Pali) and manually put on very fragile and degradable palm leaves (and eventually on rock slabs). And nowadays we are extremely lucky and have them available at hand in SuttaCentral! :slight_smile:

In terms of guidance, we should pick very carefully a clear route for our studies (and practice).

Not necessarily you need a person to point you the direction. If one is to start with the Dhamma­cakkap­pa­vat­ta­na Sutta for example, he/she will have a fairly good map for the journey: the four noble truths!

But the secret is to keep an inquisitive and dedicated mind, and go from a sutta to another until a satisfactory theoretical framework for one’s practice has become evident.

In my case it took nearly 10 years of exposure to different traditions and masters of Buddhism to finally make sense and gain enough confidence on the practical framework of the Path (pariyatti)!

And the click only came after I went back to the basics (i.e. the Noble Eightfold Path) found in the suttas and put them to test in a self retreat.

The suttas that allowed for the “click” where the MN117 , the SN12.23 and the AN10.2.

Sorry for the off-topic answer to the thread.

(maybe it would not be a bad idea to start a thread to allow for people to share the suttas that inspire them in their studies and practice of Dhamma!?)

2 Likes

Not at all off-topic, and a good contribution. These matters are all related in some way to the original question.

If someone would like to make another thread for suttas that inspire them, then I’m sure that would be interesting too.

Thanks for the heads up, looks like its busted for some reason. @blake can you fix this? Ta.

Looks like it got busted with the latest update due to some plugin API changes

I will add two entries and this time it will be for some Theravada monks (not for all of them of course):

-17. The Buddha taught not-self not no-self
Not-Self allows investigation to occur again and again.
No-Self blocks this investigation to occur. It becomes a view/belief.
-18. In the Suttas the 1st Jhana has four components not five (no Ekkagata).
Piti is not joy but physical rapture (see the simile of the ball of soap).
Vitakka means thinking
Vicara means examining
Sukkha means happiness/joy

Passing from Jhana 1 to Jhana 2 is done as described in the Suttas by letting go of thinking and examining.
From Jhana 2 to Jhana 3 by letting go of Piti
From Jhana 3 to Jhana 4 by letting go of Sukkha
So there is no need to go back out of whatever Jhana you are in back to Access Concentration to “slide” into whatever Jhana you like to be.

Other non-Sutta-Jhanas appear in the Abhidhamma and Visudimagga centuries after the Buddha.

May I correct this by “to rely on yourself and the Dhamma”
I’m inspired by what the Buddha achieved and the path he showed me but I cannot take refuge in a dead person.
I cannot take refuge in the Ariya Sangha because they do not tell me who is Ariya and who is not. So I’m not taking anymore the risk to believe what teachers are saying without double checking with the Suttas (the repetitive ones, not the single ones).
The Buddha in his wisdom knew that we will face issues with Buddha/Sangha refuge, so he said “take refuge in yourself then in the Dhamma”.

3 Likes

well done :slight_smile:

Luminous mind (also, “brightly shining mind,” “brightly shining citta”) (Pali, pabhassara citta) is a term attributed to the Buddha in the Nikayas. The mind is said to be “luminous” whether or not it is tainted by mental defilements.

The statement is given no direct doctrinal explanation in the Pali discourses, but later Buddhist schools explained it using various concepts developed by them. The Theravada school identifies the “luminous mind” with the bhavanga, a concept first proposed in the Theravada Abhidhamma. The later schools of the Mahayana identify it with both the Mahayana concepts of bodhicitta and tathagatagarbha.
chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com

The Bodhisattva path is contained in the Jataka tales, which are included in the Pali canon. The Bodhisattva path is also based on the Buddha’s decision to teach others after attaining Buddhahood, rather than living as a hermit.

The Bodhisattva path is simply the belief that the purpose of attaining enlightenment is to then lead all other beings to enlightenment, rather than seeking enlightenment simply for oneself.

If dependent origination is true, then my attainment of enlightenment is mutually dependent on the attainment of all other beings.

Could you elaborate?

What in dependent arising/origination makes that statement true?

If all things are mutually interdependent, that includes enlightenment. The attainment of one being is for the attainment of all beings.