SDC wrote:
I take the cook sutta in the same way I take our favorite, AN 11.9. There are signs/indications of the king’s preference based on how he treats the various dishes; what he grabs for and what he clearly enjoys.
Your reference to Sandha warms my heart. I see your point, my difficulty: nimitta is used in an entirely different context, with DO.
To pick up a sign via eye, ear, tongue is like piercing these organs with a hot iron spike, Buddha admonishes, saying it is better to sleep than allow this.
So this is where I am coming from? I try to retrieve this info. as a meditation tool many times.
In the cook sutta "pick up the sign" is used in a different context, a bit like "pick the hint" of what is required for successful meditation.
You wrote
A good cook takes notice of these signs so that he can then only cook what the king enjoys at the time he wants to enjoy them. A bad cook does not pay attention during the meal; he doesn’t pick up on the signs of the king’s preference.
True, this implies constant attention to a given mood, and adjusting meditation likewise.
You wrote
In AN 11.9 Sandha sutta, the thoroughbred horse doesn’t just focus on the hay in front of him - for the thoroughbred the presence of his food is a sign - it makes him think about what his master will ask of him after he is fed.
The food as a nimitta, is not quite how I approached Sandha, but I see your point.
To me the food came across as an obsession to the wild colt (obsessed by the sensory world), an incurable disease. Excerpt ...The wild one:
just meditates "Fodder, fodder!, So too Sandha, a person who is like a wild colt, when gone to the forest ....dwells with a mind obsessed and oppressed by sensual lust.
As regards the thoroughbred's meditation, the ending impressions of the sutta is very evocative.
"Not even the gods know how he meditates".
It refers to the wise mediitator.
You wrote
You make many good points, but based on how I’ve come to understand these suttas, I am unable to see how they could be later corruptions. But you are absolutely right, so much of what came later in commentary makes it very hard to find these subtle treatments found in these suttas.
I will look for the publication by A. Wynne, you will understand my approach a bit better after reading
that.
By later corruptions, I meant some things are inventions of sutta compilers, which has to be true, given that suttas were compiled by using
brief fragments of Buddha's teachings floating around.
Not every word in the Nikaya is Buddha's. MN 111 is an entirely phony fabrication.
It constantly amazes me, that in spite of the corruption, the Buddha comes into focus via the Pali Nikaya, when earnestly sought.
The contradictions in the suttas comes across to me
as a struggle that went on between those compilers that understood the Buddha via DO and those that understood Buddha via upanishadic leanings.
If you read about fights that went on in Nalanda among prominent buddhist scholars around the 5th century, it will bring home to you what Thanissaro meant by the "Committee of the Mind" The variegated abhidhammic ideas are fascinating.
Somewhere in the literature, it is said
"Those who see Paticca samuppada sees the Buddha/Dhamma" You wrote
I am grateful we are able to pick at them together.
The joy is mine and mine alone.
Now when i struggle to find a meditation method based on a mood, be it Brahmaviharas, or a spike stabbing a sense organ, or Buddha's advice to Rahula.. like "these thoughts are not mine" "these intentions are not mine" past present or future,
or the method to empty the mind using SN 47.42, i think of you, and how you brought me the cook sutta. Long live this DW study group!
With love