Suggestions, Comments and Feedback for the Study Group

Where we gather to focus on a single discourse or thematic collection from the Sutta Piṭaka (new selection every two weeks)
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Alobha
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Re: Suggestions, Comments and Feedback for the Study Group

Post by Alobha »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings,

Please post:

* Ideas on how to better operate the study group here
* Your interest in volunteering to lead an upcoming session
* Sutta or texts to study
* Any other comments and ideas

Metta,
Retro. :)
I suggest to take the content from here: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/befriending.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and make it a sticky with the title "Why read the Suttas?"
It would be a good way to give people new to the suttas a perspective on why reading them is worthwhile.
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mikenz66
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Re: Suggestions, Comments and Feedback for the Study Group

Post by mikenz66 »

Thanks for the helpful idea!

:anjali:
Mike
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retrofuturist
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Re: Suggestions, Comments and Feedback for the Study Group

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Mike,

Thanks for following up the above idea...

Maybe you can also add a link to: Reading faithfully

(p.s. I see it's added - thanks Mike)

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."
Chandaka
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Re: Suggestions, Comments and Feedback for the Study Group

Post by Chandaka »

I would like to see what everyone thinks about Dependent Origination. It would be nice if there was a thread dedicated to just that one topic.
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mikenz66
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Re: Suggestions, Comments and Feedback for the Study Group

Post by mikenz66 »

Hi Chandaka,

That's a great topic. Why don't you make a post in the General Theravada section with your thoughts, and others can add to it. This particular section is more oriented to examining particular suttas.

You might like to examine former threads, and perhaps refer back to them:
https://www.google.co.nz/webhp?sourceid ... n&start=10

:anjali:
Mike
Chandaka
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Re: Suggestions, Comments and Feedback for the Study Group

Post by Chandaka »

Thanks for the links mikenz66. It will take some time to read everything, :reading: but I think I have found quite a bit of help with some of it.

You have also shown me a better way to search for things on the site using google. I had no idea that could be done.

I am very new to understanding DO. I guess I was hoping to find a better way to meditate via a practical guide to utilizing DO.

I was listening to Bhikku Bodhi give a talk, and he said that on a practical level to just pay attention to the link between feeling and craving, because that is where the battle is fought. I guess I will figure it all out in time.

Peace!
User156079
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Re: Study Group Schedule

Post by User156079 »

want to join a study group,
pm me
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Kim OHara
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Re: Study Group Schedule

Post by Kim OHara »

Thanks, Mike. I missed the beginning of this project, but it's a good one.

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=345&start=20#p420589

:thanks:
Kim
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mikenz66
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Re: Study Group Schedule

Post by mikenz66 »

Thanks Kim. Plenty of opportunity to catch up with those suttas...

:heart:
Mike
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phil
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Re: Study Group Schedule

Post by phil »

mikenz66 wrote: Fri Sep 29, 2017 8:21 pm Thanks Kim. Plenty of opportunity to catch up with those suttas...

:heart:
Mike
Yes, thanks for all your work Mike.

I have been away so I miseed them as well.
If we find suttas whose threads are locked but which we would like to discuss further where do you think would be the best place, General Theravada discussion or Classical Theravada? I guess it depends on the nature of the question/comment.
Kammalakkhano , bhikkhave, bālo, kammalakkhano pandito, apadānasobhanī paññāti
(The fool is characterized by his/her actions/the wise one is characterized by his/her actions/Wisdom shines forth in behaviour.)
(AN 3.2 Lakkhana Sutta)
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mikenz66
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Re: Study Group Schedule

Post by mikenz66 »

Hi Phil,

General Theravada will tend to be most appropriate, as it allows for discussion of a variety of interpretations.

:heart:
Mike
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SDC
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Re: 📍 Nutriment (āhāra) Part One (Week of October 3, 2021)

Post by SDC »

ToVincent wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 2:35 pm
SDC wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:39 am
ToVincent wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 12:20 pm ...
Another great contribution. Thank you, ToVincent.
If the contribution is so great, why are you still formulating questions like these:
viewtopic.php?p=649138#p649138
(Maybe because you still don't check for parallels, for your quoted sutta's extracts - and above all, because you don't use a proper historical etymology).
Sorry to say! - and that applies to most, if not all of the people on this forum.
...
Please don't be sorry. What makes these studies interesting is how multiple people come together using different approaches. I find yours very valuable, but that does not mean I'm willing to adopt everything you say into my own perspective. I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

I rarely check parallels - mainly because there is a limit to how much time I can dedicate to these presentations each week, but also because I rely on the membership to bring in what they think is most significant. I am both curator and facilitator, but only to the extent that I get these suttas ready for posting and, at least attempt to pose thoughts and questions that are evocative and put the onus on members to take the suttas into their own experience. I opt to formulate discussion points that are often disruptive, disjointed, overly simplified and with as much subtext as I can fit, which give the reader a better chance to to look for a way to clarify and/or correct. Sometimes it works. Other times it doesn't. What I'm trying to avoid is presenting a complete and clean picture - that is impossible and pointless. Each member has their own position and the goal is to drop a sutta into that position and descend on it.

I am open to suggestions if members are finding this approach unhelpful.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
ToVincent
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Re: 📍 Nutriment (āhāra) Part One (Week of October 3, 2021)

Post by ToVincent »

SDC wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 3:28 pm ...
I really don't see why a complete and clean picture would be impossible and pointless — particularly pointless.
I would agree that a sketch might be deficient, as far as encompassing all the the subtleties of the general concepts. But why would that be pointless?
Particularly when a simple sketch (coupled with the right historical etymology, plus an understanding of the Indian philosophy of the time - like "calls" (hoti), "falling down" (pad/avakkanti), etc.), can make things a lot clearer.

And that does not address the issue of the lousy (historical) etymology that is served to us, by the pack of plagiarizing translators — one after the other - getting worst and worst.
Nobody will never understand a thing if they don't get the right meaning, that was used at the time of Buddha. Period.

Not to speak about the grammar, when I still hear bhikkhus on this forum still translating for instance, the past participle "bhūta" as "it is".
?!?!?!
Insight, from knowledge according to what is (yathābhūtañāṇadassana) — or Insight, from knowledge according to what have become.
That's a huge difference, isn't it?

And the all pack of translators and wannabes venerable "Ajahns" "bhikkhus" continue to use it - although you make them aware of it.

Wondering about their intentions.
Don't you?
.
.
In this world, there are many people acting and yearning for the Mara's world; some for the Brahma's world; and very few for the Unborn.
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SDC
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Re: 📍 Nutriment (āhāra) Part One (Week of October 3, 2021)

Post by SDC »

ToVincent wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 4:33 pm
SDC wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 3:28 pm ...
I really don't see why a complete and clean picture would be impossible and pointless — particularly pointless.
I would agree that a sketch might be deficient, as far as encompassing all the the subtleties of the general concepts. But why would that be pointless?
Particularly when a simple sketch (coupled with the right historical etymology, plus an understanding of the Indian philosophy of the time - like "calls" (hoti), "falling down" (pad/avakkanti), etc.), can make things a lot clearer.

And that does not address the issue of the lousy (historical) etymology that is served to us, by the pack of plagiarizing translators — one after the other - getting worst and worst.
Nobody will never understand a thing if they don't get the right meaning, that was used at the time of Buddha. Period.

Not to speak about the grammar, when I still hear bhikkhus on this forum still translating for instance, the past participle "bhuta" as "it is".
?!?!?!

Wondering about their intentions.
Don't you?
.
.
Pointless for me to present it that way here, but certainly not pointless to do so on their own. The work is private. Development is private. So even if I did have something very clean and complete, I would still muddy the waters on the back-end of it. Why? Because the reader is coming from their own direction and I don't want them to forget that. I want the study to include them. If it is clean and "finished", then it only includes me - I don't think it gives the reader a place to go.

But that is why I'm so happy to have you and anyone else who routinely participates. I want them to bring what I've put up for a discussion to a definitive point. I think it gives us a place to go in the study.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
ToVincent
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Re: 📍 Nutriment (āhāra) Part One (Week of October 3, 2021)

Post by ToVincent »

SDC wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 4:55 pm ...
I have no idea of what you mean.

What is pointless to me is when you define āhāra as only "nutriment", and that you don't add to it the second meaning of āhāra, which is "fetching" — in that case, fetching the nutriment.

What is pointless is to still translate vicikicchā as "doubt", when the real meaning of it is "deviant thinking" (with the cit/citta).
That's pointless. Because it does not explain at what level the deviant thinking is made.

Another instance of what I find pointless, is when every translators (plagiarizing one another endlessly), translate "hoti" in "imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti", as "that is"; when "hoti" comes from the root hū and not bhū. "Hoti" means "calls" — Warder explains it.
And a knowledge of Veda, and in this case the importance of the "call" in Véda, would make things definitely clearer.

What I found pointless is not to follow the processes described in the Suttas with parallels, and that are described in this simple sketch.
Processes that involve descents (pad/avakkanti) and feedbacks up ( paccaya, etc).
For this is what the suttas with parallels, or logically complemental suttas say.

Buddha didn't wait for people to interpret wrong meanings, wrong grammar, or a modern interpretation of a lousy knowledge of the philosophy of his time.
Did He?

Etc., etc.

What I also find pointless is the sophistry to cover that.

Sorry to be so frank and blunt.
That's the way "I am" — but it's not my real self.
.
.
In this world, there are many people acting and yearning for the Mara's world; some for the Brahma's world; and very few for the Unborn.
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