book or sutta club??

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retrofuturist
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,

The modern section seems to make sense to me because it aims to cover all Theravada perspectives, from Buddha to Buddhaghosa to Buddhadasa... just like 'real-life' Theravada circa 2009, rather than circa 509.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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jcsuperstar
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by jcsuperstar »

sounds good :hug:
สัพเพ สัตตา สุขีตา โหนตุ

the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
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DNS
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by DNS »

Sounds like an online Kalyana Mitta (spiritual friends) group. Some Dhamma centers have those where various topics or books are taken and discussed one at a time for more in-depth analysis. :twothumbsup:
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Dhammanando
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by Dhammanando »

Hi JC,
jcsuperstar wrote:we could ask Dhammanando to lead it. maybe he knows some sutta learning scheme or what not so we'd have an order to do them in. also he could help with pali terms.
Due to the very limited time at my disposal, I would prefer to stick to chiming in rather than leading discussions. If leading, I would feel obliged to be online every day and to reply to every question, which I don't anticipate will be possible in the coming months.

I do, however, have one suggestion for group study: Ñāṇamoli's Life of the Buddha. This would be a good complement to Bhikkhu Bodhi's In the Buddha's Words, consisting in like manner of passages from the Suttas, but with the first rather than the second refuge as its focus.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
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mikenz66
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by mikenz66 »

I'm not sure that the sequence matters too much, since people will come and go, but I'd go for some of the Suttas from the Majjhima Nikaya. They are a nice size to discuss, and there is a lot of information in the form of talks and writings that could be used as background.

There are Bhikkhu Bodhi's talks:
http://www.bodhimonastery.net/bm/about- ... ikaya.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
BSWA talks (Ajahns Brahm, Vayama, Brahmali, etc)
http://www.bswa.org/audio/podcast/DhammaTalks.rss.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Talks by Bhante Vimalaramsi
http://www.dhammasukha.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Pressing out Pure Honey, by Sharda Rogell
PDF here: http://www.dharma.org/bcbs/Pages/publications.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Shaila Catherine has been running courses on the MN. She's up to the last fifty here:
http://www.imsb.org/programs/MajjhimaNi ... tFifty.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A small group here has done the first two fifties (I only joined midway through the second) and I guess we'll start on her notes for the last fifty in a month or two.

All of the above use the Nanamoli/Bodhi translation. They all take rather different approaches.

My suggestion would be to just have someone compile a list of maybe 50 suttas from the MN in some sort of order and discuss one per week. The easiest way to compile a list would be to just use Bhikkhu Bodhi's ordering:
http://www.bodhimonastery.net/bm/images ... llabus.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Once we had a list assigning Suttas to weeks it would basically run itself... Anyone could "kick off" the next week.

Metta
Mike

EDIT: Of course using Nanamoli's book or In the Buddha's Words would also be fine... :reading:
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jcsuperstar
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by jcsuperstar »

well the good thing about the MN is that i have a copy, wait i mean that there are alreay other places online we can get inspiration... and various monks who we can read from on how to see these discourses.

i'd be fine with that.

EDIT: i dont care what order theyre in, so i sugesst that those who have some sort of preference about this speak up and it'll be you guys who pick the order.
สัพเพ สัตตา สุขีตา โหนตุ

the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
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retrofuturist
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings JC,

I think Mike's idea about following Bhikkhu Bodhi's program is a good one.

I'll start knock up something based on this.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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jcsuperstar
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by jcsuperstar »

im excited... kinda makes me feel like a dork... but i'm excited :geek:
สัพเพ สัตตา สุขีตา โหนตุ

the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
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retrofuturist
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,

Now open for business...

Dhamma Wheel Study Group
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewforum.php?f=25" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Please provide comments and feedback in this thread.

Thanks everyone for your ideas and input. :thumbsup:

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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jcsuperstar
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by jcsuperstar »

oh oh if theres a bodhi talk on it, can the link to that be put in the thread too?
สัพเพ สัตตา สุขีตา โหนตุ

the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Dhammanando wrote:Hi JC,
jcsuperstar wrote:we could ask Dhammanando to lead it. maybe he knows some sutta learning scheme or what not so we'd have an order to do them in. also he could help with pali terms.
Due to the very limited time at my disposal, I would prefer to stick to chiming in rather than leading discussions. If leading, I would feel obliged to be online every day and to reply to every question, which I don't anticipate will be possible in the coming months.

I do, however, have one suggestion for group study: Ñāṇamoli's Life of the Buddha. This would be a good complement to Bhikkhu Bodhi's In the Buddha's Words, consisting in like manner of passages from the Suttas, but with the first rather than the second refuge as its focus.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu
Too bad your idea was ignored Bhante. I had the impression that it was part of a Bhikkhu's job description to guide lay folk and our job to follow the Bhikkhu's lead.

It would help clear up a lot of odd notions folks have about the Dhamma if we spent time drawing close to Buddha, which study of his ife would do.

I did not find the biography online though - will have to buy the book, I reckon. I do have In the Buddha's Words though. Perhaps, if enough interested folk have that title, that can be studied also.

Bhikkhu Bodhi's outline of MN study will be helpful too, of course
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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DNS
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by DNS »

Bhante, like many other bhikkhus has many, many other duties that are off-line that we do not see, such as pastoral duties at his temple.

I am happy about the wealth of time that we do get with great monks like Bhante Dhammanando and the others who post here. We cannot expect the monks here to take on even more time than they already give us.
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by Cittasanto »

HI Bhente,
Maybe you know of a couple of very good sites which translates selected words thoroughly so if you are unavailable these can be looked at?
and do you know a link to the book By Nanamoli ? I have heard some good things about this book but keep forgetting about it!
WM
Manapa
Dhammanando wrote:Hi JC,
jcsuperstar wrote:we could ask Dhammanando to lead it. maybe he knows some sutta learning scheme or what not so we'd have an order to do them in. also he could help with pali terms.
Due to the very limited time at my disposal, I would prefer to stick to chiming in rather than leading discussions. If leading, I would feel obliged to be online every day and to reply to every question, which I don't anticipate will be possible in the coming months.

I do, however, have one suggestion for group study: Ñāṇamoli's Life of the Buddha. This would be a good complement to Bhikkhu Bodhi's In the Buddha's Words, consisting in like manner of passages from the Suttas, but with the first rather than the second refuge as its focus.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
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Dhammanando
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by Dhammanando »

Hi Manapa,
Manapa wrote:Maybe you know of a couple of very good sites which translates selected words thoroughly so if you are unavailable these can be looked at?
There is the PTS Dictionary, but I don't know the link. I'm sure someone here will know it. Other than that I'm not very familiar with what's available online and would be relevant to your question. When I want to ascertain a word's meaning I prefer to go to the primary sources — the Tipitaka and its commentaries.
and do you know a link to the book By Nanamoli ? I have heard some good things about this book but keep forgetting about it!
Yes, everyone should get a copy of it. Unfortunately, as far as I know it's not one of the books that the BPS has permitted to be placed online.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
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tiltbillings
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Re: book or sutta club??

Post by tiltbillings »

Pali Text Society's Pali Englih Dictionary:

http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/pali/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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