In many suttas, when it comes to meditation and Jhāna, the sutta says that a person who has virtue and sense restraint goes to meditate, sits cross-legged, establishes mindfulness, abandons the hindrances and enters into the Jhānas. That's about it. There are no further details given as to how the meditation actually progresses, details on how hindrances are abandoned and so on. Now anyone who has meditated, or has attended a retreat or regularly visits meditation sessions at their local monastery will know what meditators have tons of questions and issues when it comes to meditation and, in reply, the monk or nuns gives further explanations and elaborations in order to clarify and help said people with their meditation. There is no doubt in my mind that when the Buddha instructed the monks and nuns in meditation, what he taught them was substantially more detailed than what we find briefly stated in the suttas. They would be so because many of the monks and nuns would need instructing. Some had probably never even meditated before, just like today when people come to Buddhism. With this in mind then I don't think we can simply rely upon the suttas when it comes to how to meditate. Suttas are the bare bones of the matter. They have to be fleshed out, for most people. This is why we seek instructions from monks and nuns also, which is a practice that goes back to the earliest days. For the longest of times when lay people or novices went to visit monks and nuns they had no real knowledge of suttas and so on. They sought instruction from the monk or nun. The monk or nun would then recite a sutta to them regarding meditation, but this would then be expanded upon in line with the monk or nuns own experiences. This carried on a tradition where a master would instruct their pupils, going back all the way to the Buddha himself. Suttas IMO are the beginning of the instruction, not the middle and end of it too. This then is why tradition is important IMO. It is through wisdom and understanding passed down the ages that we truly come to understand the suttas, rather than relying upon the suttas alone.retrofuturist wrote: ↑Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:34 am Greetings,
Yes they do.
What they don't provide is "practical instructions" to achieve things the Buddha did not teach.
Metta,
Paul.
Apart from meditation, the Venerable also gives a good example as to how suttas do not contain everything. When the Buddha awakened he first taught his former 5 companions the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. Later he taught them the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, at the end of which they all became arahants. Now a simple reading would have it that by simply hearing those two discourses they all became Arahants and that was it, but elsewhere he said that whilst he instructed 2 of the ascetics the other 3 went from alms and vice versa meaning the instruction went on for days. The Venerable points out that we know absolutely nothing about the details of what the Buddha was teaching them during those days. All we know from the sutta is that it had to do with the middle way, 4NT and emptiness. That's all the sutta tells us, but we know the Buddha taught them in greater detail than what we find in the suttas themselves. Suttas then aren't supposed to contain everything there is to know about the Dhamma. The job of a sutta is to capture the essential meaning, the bare bones of the matter. The job then of the Sangha, and so tradition, is to give us the meatier details. Try living off bones and you will starve in the Dhamma. Live off bones with meat and you will flourish in the Dhamma.
The above two aren't the only examples either. There are others. In the Maluṅkyaputta sutta it is said that in order to awaken we must practice sense restraint. In the seen, only the seen etc. We are told this means being mindful and not grasping the pleasing sign in sense experience, but that's it. What this actually means practically speaking we aren't told. We do however find some further advice in the commentaries. The same with the formless attainment of Nothingness. How exactly that is achieved we aren't really told in the suttas. Anyone basing themselves solely on the suttas would be reduced to guesswork regarding it. The Kasiṇa are the same. The suttas do not tell us what the Kasiṇa actually are, nor how to practice them nor how they relate to the path as a whole. If someone were to go solely on the suttas, they wouldn't have a clue as to what Kasiṇa are or how they are relevant.
With all this then in mind, whilst suttas and their parallels are important so is tradition and the additional information it offers. I should add that by tradition I don't necessarily restrict myself to Theravāda here either.