Reading Sutras

Tips on Reading Sutras

Sutras (Pali: suttas) are small verses, or long discourses. In Buddhist teachings they tend to be extended discourses. You may ask

"Should I desire to read into Buddhist canon?

If you desire to be greatly helped along life, why yes. But try to go for the better and most reliable works as you do, as the canon is vast, varied, repetitive, and in part made up, in that words are put in the mouth of Buddha. Many such texts are around, and some may even contain good points, as long as one does not swallow it all, indiscriminately, against Buddha's fixed counsel. [Link].

What follows, pertains to studying parts of the teachings of anyone, also Guru Dev (Shankaracharya Brahmananda).

Guru Dev.

Mind if the teachings are held to be a primary source or not, and by whom. Try to chew on them a little to note the tastes that develop. Good and staunch teachings may assist you throughout life if you regulate your life in conformity to basic ideas of some of them. Yet how does one decide which spiritual paths and truths are worth following and which are not? It depends on your circumstances also. The Kalama Sutra of Buddhism hopefully sheds light on this probable dilemma.

Hope to get assised by learning tall teachings about how to go for developing skills and graceous qualities through meditation. Get a counter-weight to news and plots of today; learn a little verse each day if you like, and repeat often. A nifty recording device might truly help if you go for learning the basics with very little effort. It helps toward living skillfully as a layperson and so on.

They are a body of teachings about right conduct, or Dharma. As you reflect you may discover from reading one sutra [SN 4.1] that your practice should be to avoid all desires. But from another reading another [SN 51.15], you learn that desire itself is a necessary factor of the path. Buddha appears to mean there are different kinds of desire, and that some things are actually worth desiring – notably nirvana and Buddhist living.

Buddha's teachings appear in countless variations throughout the ancient Pali Canon. He tells of the "middle way"; the "wheel" of the Dharma (Right Conduct etc). We have come to appreciate how he organizes his material in clear and memorable discourses where he uses similes, imagery, dialogue style and so on, encouraging to proceed.

Sutras offer handy advice – and in the Sigalovada Sutra he offers a concise "instruction manual" for how laypeople can live happy and fulfilling lives. It helps to know who your real friends are, how children and parents can live happily together [DN 31], how to safeguard your material possessions [AN 4.255], what sorts of things are and are not worth talking about [AN 10.69], how to cope with grief [AN 5.49], and much else. They offer handy advice on how to find happiness, no matter what your life-situation may be, no matter what you call yourself, "Buddhist" or something else, and you get tips on how to meditate [e.g., MN 118, DN 22].

Maybe you have already tasted the pleasure that comes to the fore in a concentrated mind [AN 5.28]. Seeing your own personal experiences described and put into a wider scenario inspires confidence, and you get a feel of how things are going within yourself. It can take time.

For learning breath meditation, see the Anapanasati sutra; for practice of mindfulness, see the Maha-satipatthana Sutra.

When you study Buddhist sutras, there is no such thing as a "definitive" translation. Buddha spoke of dukkha (suffering, stress etc) and nirvana (great happiness, not really dying out), concepts that have been filtered by translators and coloured by many of them. One translator equates dukkha with "suffering" and nirvana with "unbinding". Others find "stress" and "quenching" more to the point, and so on. Mastery of Sanskrit and Pali is not required to live out Buddhism, but it helps against misleading and slanted notions and biases of translators.

As for Buddha's teachings, when you truly understand what he teaches, and what lies in on all levels, maybe you have become a Buddha yourself. That would be good. And maybe you need to dig a little deeper.

Further, there is no way to prove that a sutra contains the actual words uttered by Buddha. Anyway, try to receive the teaching as it appears to be. Maybe reading different translations help, maybe not. It depends on the translations too. And do not forget yourself in the matter. In trying to relate to Gautama Buddha's main teachings you can put an unhelpful verse aside temporarily, at least for the moment, and maybe come back to it next week, next month, next year, and so on. By the way, a good sutra is one that inspires you to stop reading it and practice it instead. An ounce of correct application in an upright life may outweigh having many tons of books.

Many sutras offer lessons with relevance on several levels and with a relevance that can be applied in a wider range of settings. And Buddha says he practices what he teaches". As for the many repetitions and stock phrases that teem in the discourses, you may put "Refrain" and "Repetition" (:|:) and similar notes from the realm of song writing in the margin to help yourself. As with (other) songs, the refrains in the sutras can contain nice variations too.

If you are free to discuss a sutra with a friend or two, it is nice. It may speed up the understanding of the sutra, deepen the insight into it, or help seeing different sides to the topic under discussion in it.

To reduce the chance of faulty and wrong understanding, you may turn to a Pali-English dictionary and look up central terms in it, and find out of the building blocks (components) that go together to form words in Pali, much as in English. And it may be possible to study what different translators and commentators say about the sutra. You may also enjoy reading excellent introductions and endnotes that offer refreshing and unique perspectives. But basically, give the sutra an incubation period inside your own belly, so to speak. Let it ripen inside yourself, being aligned with your own hard-won life experiences thus. In the long run the sutra may tell of yoor everyday world and how to live in it. That would be nice, or what?

Mastication, impregnation, incubation, birth, grooming and ripening of a particularly valuable life lesson takes time. It needs fostering, like a healthy baby that is born. Allow much time to ruminate in an over-all pleasurable setting if you can. If not, make do with what you have and may get at at any time.

The Buddha tailored his teachings to meet the particular needs of his audience. Therefore consider the context of a sutra and what his original audience might be, before wanting to apply his words to your own life situation. For example, you are not asked to abandon healthy sex if you are not a monk or nun.

Having some sense of a teacher's maturation level is better than knowing of his or her formal credentials, but let both serve you as you seek to assess various modern teachings. You need to assess how appropriate this and that teacher, scholar, and teaching is for you.

As you explore the vast loom of Buddha-aligned teachings, do not forget to ask the liberating: "What does this have to offer me?" And why? Buddha says:

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person will not be found: You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

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