Book study leading to mastery

[Harmonious Emptiness]

This topic appears from time to time in posts on other topics but I haven't seen a topic dedicated to this question of book study in cultivation.

 

Below is a quote from page 11 of Master Nan-Huai-Chin's "Working Towards Enlightenment."

 

Note that Nan-Huai-Chin has been recognized as being Enlightened by a number of masters of the Buddhist tradition.

 

"Suppose people wanted to become buddhas - to study the Buddha Dharma. If they were to take these works listed above (about 25 Buddhist scriptures), and spend three to five years of effort reading and studying to enter deeply into them and put their contents into practice, this would definitely be enough. It would be best if everyone could awaken without departing from the scriptures and treatises. Some think that all that is necessary is to cultivate practice and do meditation work. They think that it is not necessary to read the scriptures and treatises. This is absolutely wrong. We must recognize that in doing meditation work, if we do not clearly understand the principles, if our views are not correct, then our meditation work will not be able to get on the right track. In other words, if our meditation work is not done well, it is just because we have not mastered the principles involved."

 

 

Yes? No?

 

 

[silent thunder]

Given the way it's stated... I lean to yes...

although nearly every fiber of my essence has a tendency to say... no absolutes.

[GrandmasterP]

No.

Scriptures, all of them in all religions are simply PR produced after whoever started out the original cultivation - died.

Nobody ever read their way to enlightenment or beyond it.

Two last dying words seldom heard...

1: I wish I'd spent more time at the office.

2: I really shoulda read more scriptures.

 

 

I love reading, sutras, cultivation books, novels, poetry, general stuff.

Love it.

I love to cultivate too.

Given a forced choice between the two I'd plump for cultivation every time.

Reading is second hand, author's brain to my brain.

Ultimately fictive.

Cultivation just 'is' and it is here, now and real.

Edited May 14, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Andrei]

 

There is a guy here at 1:16:00 who is talking about texts.

 

People take the texts but leave the context out, so texts are good but within the context they were written.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Andrei

[thelerner]

and spend three to five years of effort reading and studying to enter deeply into them and put their contents into practice, this would definitely be enough.

Putting their contents into (perfect/deep) practice seems to be the hard part. Not to mention deciding exactly which contents to put into practice. Its rare enough a single sacred book doesn't contradict itself, read 3 and you're bound to get contradicting advice. One Buddha, many forms of Buddhism.

 

Still, 3 to 5 years of study.. not a bad place to start. If that's your bag.

[Mark Foote]

I would guess that Nan-Huai-Chin makes two points:

 

1) anyone can experience what Gautama experienced

 

2) what is expressed in Gautama's teachings is a part of that experience

 

I'm not saying that someone unfamiliar with Gautama's teachings could not experience the same thing he did. I'm only saying that the experience that is in accord with his experience has right knowledge and right freedom in it.

 

So, that's a yes, but... (the Soto way as explained by Shunryu Suzuki-- "yes, but...").

[Harmonious Emptiness]

 

There is a guy here at 1:16:00 who is talking about texts.

 

People take the texts but leave the context out, so texts are good but within the context they were written.

You still need "practice, experience, meditation, and wisdom(which comes with the other three),"

 

I think if one were devoted to reading, meditating on, and making efforts to learn from/put into practice 25 Buddhist sutras, the spiritual context of each work will be illuminated by the others.

 

Putting their contents into (perfect/deep) practice seems to be the hard part. Not to mention deciding exactly which contents to put into practice. Its rare enough a single sacred book doesn't contradict itself, read 3 and you're bound to get contradicting advice. One Buddha, many forms of Buddhism.

 

Still, 3 to 5 years of study.. not a bad place to start. If that's your bag.

 

Maybe reading all of the sutras will show how they don't contradict.

 

I think one needs to find out how they work for one's self too

 

[....] I'm only saying that the experience that is in accord with his experience has right knowledge and right freedom in it.

 

So, that's a yes, but... (the Soto way as explained by Shunryu Suzuki-- "yes, but..."). [....]

 

I was just writing the above response when you posted, so, yes

 

[....]

Reading is second hand, author's brain to my brain.

Ultimately fictive.

Cultivation just 'is' and it is here, now and real.

 

doesn't negate following the paths trodden by others on our own journey to the Pure Land...

Edited May 15, 2014 by Harmonious Emptiness

[GrandmasterP]

Yes I agree.

You took my quote out of its context.

That's always a drawback with the written word.

We each of us 'make meaning' as we read a text.

Made meanings vary according to reader.

Edited May 15, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[C T]

Scriptural work is indispensable for the serious aspirant, whichever path one takes. It is really not an 'either or' choice thing, its an inclusive thing. Exploring the word goes a long way to help unfixate the mind, to continuously lubricate & nourish the malleability and distillation of experience, the odd occasion sudden insights pleasantly seeping in to the conscious realms in mysterious ways, at the most unexpected moments even -- "Ah....", there, the present as is, just like the sages did before, and noted accordingly, as a source where reflections can be made, and confidence nurtured.

[Cheshire Cat]

Good to read, but it's essential not to believe

[Ish]

It depends who wrote the scripture

[GrandmasterP]

A human wrote it.

Generally a man and always with an agenda.

Hence it's never a good idea to outsource one's thinking to someone else's writings.

My posts for example.

Edited May 15, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[LAOLONG]

zazen and zen can be practiced without orthodox Buddhism .

[GrandmasterP]

Yep.

There's Zen Buddhism.

Then there's Zen.

There's even a Roman Catholic Zen sangha.

http://www.wildgoosesangha.org.uk/

Room for all sorts in Zen.

Edited May 15, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Aetherous]

zazen and zen can be practiced without orthodox Buddhism .

 

But will you attain enlightenment from that?

[GrandmasterP]

But will you attain enlightenment from that?

 

Mu

[thelerner]

But will you attain enlightenment from that?

From what I've read, yes. It does pretty well at that, maybe not for laymen, but for the hardcore and monks, its got a good reputation for leading to- its own definition of enlightenment.

Course few terms are as slippery as enlightenment.

[GrandmasterP]

Buddhism's a slippery term too.

And "orthodox' as a descriptor of anything at all is slipperier than oiled banana skins on an outdoor ice rink in the rain.

Not so sure that enlightenment or whatever follows that slippery concept necessarily depends on zen being Buddhist nor any other particular path as such.

Nor even on 'zen' per se.

'Isness' just 'is'.

Edited May 15, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Mark Foote]

 

zazen and zen can be practiced without orthodox Buddhism .

 

What practice are you referring to?

 

It's a difficulty, as far as I'm concerned, that folks assume that what is understood by zazen and what is understood by zen is a given.

 

Gautama studied under two masters prior to his own enlightenment; he experienced the state each of them had experienced and was invited by each of them to remain with them and teach what they taught, but he was unsatisfied with what they each had to offer and moved on. After his enlightenment, they were the first people he thought to contact, but he realized they had both passed away.

 

To me, this story says that a person can be a master of zazen and zen without a mastery comparable to Gautama's, and that there is a value in the historical record of the Pali Canon as a testimony to that fact.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

I see that GrandmasterP has just posted this over on favorite quotes:

 

 

 

"Tao has universal and eternal existence.

It has no need of any teacher to transmit it; what is transmitted by teachers is just the method by which one can personally experience this Tao."

( Anon.)

 

The unstated assumption here is that there is one level of mastery. I would rather say that there is an inherent tendency toward relaxation and coming to one's senses in human nature that anyone can experience, and descriptions that are made using the notion of a completed infinity ("Tao", "Zen") are subject to paradox and contradiction.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Mark Foote

[doc benway]

This topic appears from time to time in posts on other topics but I haven't seen a topic dedicated to this question of book study in cultivation.

 

Below is a quote from page 11 of Master Nan-Huai-Chin's "Working Towards Enlightenment."

 

Note that Nan-Huai-Chin has been recognized as being Enlightened by a number of masters of the Buddhist tradition.

 

"Suppose people wanted to become buddhas - to study the Buddha Dharma. If they were to take these works listed above (about 25 Buddhist scriptures), and spend three to five years of effort reading and studying to enter deeply into them and put their contents into practice, this would definitely be enough. It would be best if everyone could awaken without departing from the scriptures and treatises. Some think that all that is necessary is to cultivate practice and do meditation work. They think that it is not necessary to read the scriptures and treatises. This is absolutely wrong. We must recognize that in doing meditation work, if we do not clearly understand the principles, if our views are not correct, then our meditation work will not be able to get on the right track. In other words, if our meditation work is not done well, it is just because we have not mastered the principles involved."

 

 

Yes? No?

 

My experience and study say YES - if the goal is spiritual development on the Buddhist path, one needs to incorporate both study and practice. The study is critical for developing the proper view and context. It is what informs and guides the practice. The practice is essential to gain certainty through direct contact and confidence through results. It breathes life into theory. View without experience is unstable and subject to degradation. Direct experience without context leads to confusion and difficulty with integration. Same thing applies to Daoist cultivation. I've had a change of perspective on this due to direct personal experience.

 

Martial arts are an entirely different matter - theory is of limited value - practice is king.

[Cheshire Cat]

Gautama studied under two masters prior to his own enlightenment; he experienced the state each of them had experienced and was invited by each of them to remain with them and teach what they taught, but he was unsatisfied with what they each had to offer and moved on. After his enlightenment, they were the first people he thought to contact, but he realized they had both passed away.

 

Yes, he learned from living masters with some sort of realization: he didn't study a "canon of text".

 

Today, we are told to study dead words and to believe miraculous stories that depict a world full of bodhisattvas eager to help people to fulfill some vows taken somewhere in the past eon.

The real world is not like that: haven't seen yet a bodhisattva appearing in Burkina Fasu to save people from sufferings.

[子泰]

I think this AT LEAST applies to those who are cultivating the buddhadharma

 

"For an illiterate, the Master was quite intelligent. He answered, “You awaken to the Way from within your mind. You can’t just sit there. You have to understand the principles of the Buddhadharma and be enlightened to them. The enlightenment is ‘understanding’ and the sitting is ‘practice.’ Practicing without understanding is stupid; understanding without practice is nothing but intellectual zen.”

 

An excerpt from ven. master hsuan hua's commentary on the platform sutra.

[Spotless]

Regarding reading "esoteric" and not so esoteric metaphysical and classical eastern practice related books and some western writers and a few spectacular writers from Greece and elsewhere:

 

I have found reading profoundly helpful at times and I do not think most of them had an "agenda" in some sidewinder sense of the word. Their agenda is to teach or elucidate what they have seen, the vista from which they speak.

 

People write from their center and few people have more than two centers from which they typically function, this changes a bit as one expands but generally the expansion still leaves the "body person" with some proclivities and the tendency to a couple of particular centers still lingers. I bring this up because some very high writing will simply not be your cup of tea while at the same time it's just what another needs to make great strides.

 

Once I was scouring Moes Books in Berkeley California, I was on the second or third story sitting on the floor going through books and it just was not happening, then a 4 wheeled dolly full of books was rolled right next to me. I looked over and it appeared to be an estate sales gold mine of old esoteric books from a person with very high taste - I believe I spent well over $100 on the used books and they are all with me today. (That was when $100 was a small fortune)

 

I remember seeing thought forms and really wanting to know all about them - more than the great stuff by Leadbeater, but I knew of no teacher to talk to about that stuff. I happened to grab a Rudolph Steiner book and opened it to nearly the end of the book - it was some very fine information on thought forms - what are the odds of that?

 

The Theosophical Society has many great books, lectures and panphlets - mostly free from The Project Gutenberg now.

Annie Bessant is excellent.

 

Practice is great but I needed to find some things in writings first. I took to philosophy and devoured it until I hit Plato and then I had somehow reached into another world, Socrates effected me.

 

I was brought up Catholic and it was not satisfactory for me - for me it presented to many obstacles to reason - faith did not appeal to me. I also did my research and this is not a religion that works so well with research, but many do not,

 

The eastern clarity and continuity took hold of me and over a period of only a few years I could not sit with my hands under my legs.

I decides to give it a full fledged try. That is what took me too practice.

 

My make-up is such that I need a real reason to do certain things like sit still and meditate, stretch my body while holding my breath, do head stands, fasting, behave myself and all sort of other things starting in my early mid teens. Reading got me there, not speaking to my parents or the nuns or priests or my friends.

 

The texts will find you when your teachers can't help you if your are of the type where a text will help.

For some a dance will help, or a ritual or a hymn or some chanting (these do next to nothing for me but they are certainly valid)

 

At times a well crafted beer is best (certainly no argument from some on these boards),

Edited May 16, 2014 by Spotless

[GrandmasterP]

Pass on the beer ( we're teetotal) but +1 on reading.

What a joy to come to a new book and how much simple pleasure from the well crafted written word.

I'd not be without a book or two 'on the go'.

Edited May 16, 2014 by GrandmasterP