alan wrote:Why do you revere the suttas, DanieLion?
1) They're books. I'm bookish and nerdy.
2) They're ancient, religious texts, the study of which (along with the study of religion) has occupied my attention for years.
3) Because of 2, I've noticed how they outshine other religious texts in terms of sheer bulk (although they might have some Eastern rivals) but more importantly in their accompanying history of handlers making good faith gestures to preserve them as close to the "original" as possible.
4) They aid me in keeping on the path, and are top-notch contemplative aids.
5) Despite the unnecessary excess, I believe they contain the Buddha's "core" teachings.
6) The continuing scholarship on them excites me.
7) They are a living tradition of which I can participate in.
8) They give me a starting point for my investigation of the silly things people constantly say about the Buddha and Buddhism.
9) I usually get a good feeling just from reading them.
"You stop me, obviously with a demand for a personal explanation. 'How is it, you write, 'that you reject with such immitigable scorn the very foundation-stones of Buddhism, and yet refer disciples enthusiastically to the technique of some of its subtlest super-structures?'
I laff."
-Aleister Crowley,
Magick Without Tears,
Chapter XXVII: Structure of Mind Based on that of Body (Haeckel and Bertrand Russell)"Questions of reality are too important to be left to the scientists."
-Paul Feyerbend,
The Tyranny of Science, p. 51 (Polity: 2012).
