"The Buddha did not teach it..."

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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Dan74
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"The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by Dan74 »

Going over an old thread I saw this statement and the conclusion that therefore it is of no relevance. This logic appears to be quite common here and I'd like to query it in this thread, if I may.

Firstly, how can we be confident that every single teaching the Buddha gave has been recorded and passed down? I mean 45 years worth of teaching? Do we think we have it all??
Given that the earliest existing Pali document dates to about 1000 years after the Buddha's parinibbana, I think this is a big leap of faith.

Secondly, supposing that the Buddha really did not teach something (like the Ajahn Sumedho's Sound of Silence meditation for example). Does this mean it is irrelevant and of no use? This to me seems a big leap of logic. Surely we are a product of quite a different culture and quite a different conditioning to the audience the Buddha faced. Wouldn't it follow that some methods would be more appropriate today than they would've been 2500 years ago in India? A master may follow the Dhamma, attain liberation and elaborate the Buddha's teaching for his disciples in his (or her) own way appropriate to the culture and the audience.

Thoughts?
_/|\_
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James the Giant
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by James the Giant »

How much do you add though.
How far do you go?

Mahayana and the other modern varieties cater for those who like to add, but I prefer it old school.
Then,
saturated with joy,
you will put an end to suffering and stress.
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hermitwin
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by hermitwin »

You have a valid point.
we cant even be sure who said what a few seconds ago,
unless it was recorded on video or audio.
but even audio/video can be manipulated.

yet, the pali canon is the best available record of
buddha;s teachings that we have.
if you discard the pali canon, what are you left with?

ultimately, the proof of the pudding is in the practice
and the results.

but if you ask me, i always trust the pali canon more than
any teacher in this world.
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Ben
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by Ben »

Well said, Dan.
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

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in mountain clefts and chasms,
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gendun
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by gendun »

hermitwin wrote:You have a valid point.
we cant even be sure who said what a few seconds ago,
unless it was recorded on video or audio.
but even audio/video can be manipulated.

yet, the pali canon is the best available record of
buddha;s teachings that we have.
if you discard the pali canon, what are you left with?

ultimately, the proof of the pudding is in the practice
and the results.

but if you ask me, i always trust the pali canon more than
any teacher in this world.
Horses for courses surely ?
Personally I find The Pali Canon so geared to a particular time and culture so as to render it of little use...to me. I need the interpretative skills of a teacher to make it live...for me.
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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

Proving that the Buddha didn't teach something is harder than showing that he did, but there is one method you can use, as he taught to his foster mother, Mahapajapati Gotami:
“Those things, Gotamī, regarding which you know, ‘These things lead to dispassion, not to passion; to liberation, not to bondage; to relinquishment, not to accumulation; to having few wishes, not to having many wishes; to contentment, not to discontent; to seclusion, not to association; to arousing energy, not to laziness; to being easy to support, not to being hard to support,’ definitely, Gotamī, you can decide, ‘This is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teacher’s instruction.’”
Debating about what the Buddha taught or did not teach often leads to passion, not to dispassion.
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daverupa
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by daverupa »

The five Nikayas are a Pali Theravada product, with occasional variations in editions. Those five each have Agamas which were translated from related Prakrits into Chinese, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Gandharan, etc. (but in this case, each Theravada Nikaya corresponds to a different scholastic Agama - there is no complete collection for any other school).

The Abhidhammas vary in nearly every particular; the Vinayas compare more favorably but yet contain differences and many additions are unique to each reciter tradition; the Suttas compare most favorably, such that the vast majority of differences can be accounted for as a function of the technology of oral traditions.

So then, the basic shape of the content found in the Nikayas is this commonly transmitted material, and a useful heuristic is to see it as having experienced a diaspora at the hands of Asoka. The texts were probably open to massaging and a bit of editing after this point, but the fact that they do not mention such a key figure in Buddhist history seems to indicate that they were largely closed texts by that time.

So the upper limit is Asoka, and the lower limit is the Buddha's teaching career, a difference between c. 430 BCE and c. 270 BCE, or about 150 years. I can't recall where just now, but I've read that the culture depicted in the Nikayas seems to reflect that of about 300 BCE, which fits this chronology well and suggests a period of Nikaya compilation followed by a period of editorializing before finally being written down.

The widespread and cohesive similarities between these disparate texts strongly indicates a relatively faithful copy of a common base of material was successfully transmitted, a core which was composed over roughly 150 years.

(Beyond this, the base material can be the target of an inductive investigation, bolstered by comparative analyses, though such conclusions can only deal in likelihoods. Nevertheless, in my experience they can be quite revelatory.)
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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Mr Man
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by Mr Man »

Dan74, I would say the input of contemporary teachers in almost essential. I
Nyana
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by Nyana »

In addition to the input of well vetted contemporary teachers, I'd say that some awareness of the commentaries and treatises is also very useful in order to avoid unnecessary sidetracks and bogus interpretations.
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tiltbillings
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by tiltbillings »

Ñāṇa wrote:In addition to the input of well vetted contemporary teachers, I'd say that some awareness of the commentaries and treatises is also very useful in order to avoid unnecessary sidetracks and bogus interpretations.
Indeed.
>> 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
plwk
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by plwk »

But Dan... some people like to belong to the 'Original Buddah' club, why deprive them of membership? :mrgreen:
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mikenz66
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by mikenz66 »

I would make a distinction between "Dhamma" and "useful techniques".

To take a very simple example, there is no mention of counting breaths, as a method to help establish mindfulness. The same could be said of many other helpful advice from ancient (breath counting is in the commentaries) and modern teachers.

These techniques are not Dhamma, any more than stretching exercises are Dhamma, but they can be extremely helpful. Whether the Buddha specifically taught breath counting is no more relevant than whether or not he taught stretching exercises.

:anjali:
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cooran
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by cooran »

Well said, Mike!
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
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daverupa
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by daverupa »

My earlier post was in response to the OP's "firstly"; so, with respect to the "secondly":

mikenz66 makes a good point about the difference between the Dhamma and the various tools people employ to get at it - but some practices are off-base enough that I fail to have much confidence in them. For example, the vast majority of metta meditation instructions involve sending that feeling to a summoned image in the mind, which I don't think generates the sort of results that accrue when one does metta as a pervasive practice as described in the Nikayas.

This, it seems to me, matters a very great deal, and is an issue which pertains to anapanasati and jhana as well as the brahmaviharas.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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Re: "The Buddha did not teach it..."

Post by DNS »

Dan74 wrote: Firstly, how can we be confident that every single teaching the Buddha gave has been recorded and passed down? I mean 45 years worth of teaching? Do we think we have it all??
Maybe not, but there are roughly about 40 volumes to the Tipitaka.
Dan74 wrote:Given that the earliest existing Pali document dates to about 1000 years after the Buddha's parinibbana, I think this is a big leap of faith.
Not quite 1,000 years. The British Museum Scrolls and the Gandhara find are dated to about the first century BCE. If the parinibbana happened in 483 BCE that is 383 years after parinibbana to the first known written Pali Canon.

See Ven. Dhammika's most recent post: http://sdhammika.blogspot.com/2013/01/t ... -book.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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