The Buddha: A king who refused to rule a kingdom....

[upsetter]

...just because he was meant to be a king by merely incarnating into some kind of family-tree of so called rulers.

THAT is the real teaching of THE Buddha.

All his words are just peeing against the wind. Although...

...nothing wrong with pointing out what a proper dharma-path is all about.

[inavalan]

On a whim I googled: best buddha quotes:

Google's first result:
        "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world."

Interesting, isn't it?!

Then I found a comment about this quote being inaccurate:
    https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/we-are-what-we-think-all-that-we-are-arises-with-our-thoughts/

You may well instantly recognize these three sentences as the opening of the Dhammapada, and you may wonder what could possibly be wrong with them. Isn’t this just what the Buddha taught? Didn’t the Buddha teach that the world is an illusion? Didn’t the Buddha say things like “We become what we think?”

Well, let’s step back for a moment and look at what the first line of the Dhammapada actually says. In Pali that line is Manopubbaṅgamā dhammā manoseṭṭhā manomayā. I’d translate this as

“All experiences (dhammā) are preceded by mind (manopubbaṅgamā), having mind as their master (manoseṭṭhā) created by mind (manomayā).”

The only part of this translation likely to be contentious is the word dhamma, (dhammā is the nominative plural), which can have many meanings, including “condition,” “moral quality,” “law,” “practice,” or “teaching.” So rich in meaning is this word that its entry in the Pali Text Society’s dictionary runs to several pages. In this context dhamma doesn’t mean the Buddha’s teachings, but refers to mental factors. Dhammā in the context of these verses has variously been translated as “mental states,” “mental phenomena,” and simply as “phenomena.” I like the word “experiences” because it’s more, well, experiential.

Since the first two verses of the Dhammapada discuss how suffering (dukkha) arises from an impure mind and joy (sukha) from a pure mind, it makes sense to assume that dhammā here refers to those mental states, or to mental states more generally. The essential message is that the qualities of our mind determine whether or not we suffer. There’s nothing in the Pali original that mentions “thoughts” or “the world” at all, never mind that that we are what we think, or that our thoughts create the world.

This particular translation is from a well-loved version of the Dhammapada, by Thomas Byrom. According to his US publisher, Shambhala, Byrom was an Englishman who taught history and literature at Harvard, and Old English, Middle English, and Victorian and modern literature at Oxford. There’s no mention of his having taught or studied Pali, which may explain the poetic, but very non-literal nature of his Dhammapada. it may also explain why the publisher calls Byrom’s version a “rendering” rather than a translation.

Byrom’s religious affiliations seem to have colored his rendering of the Buddha’s words. He was a Hindu, of the non-dualist Advaita Vedanta persuasion, and spent the last years of his life in an ashram in California. Of course a Hindu can faithfully translate a Buddhist text or a Buddhist a Hindu text, but in this case it’s hard to conclude that Byrom, for whatever reason, was moved to present Buddhist teachings as if they were Hindu. Although the Dhammapada doesn’t say that we are what we think, or that we’re created by our thoughts, the Ashtavakragita, which Byrom translated (and perhaps didn’t just “render”) toward the end of his life, says “You are what you think” (1:11). Although the Dhammapada doesn’t say that the world is created by our thoughts, the Ashtavakragita says “All creation, streaming out of the Self, Is only the Self” (2:4), and “When the world arises in me, It is just an illusion” (2:9).

But didn’t the Buddha himself teach that the world is an illusion? I’m sure some Buddhists believe he did, and the existence of Hindu-Buddhist hybrid texts like Byrom’s Dhammapada is no doubt one reason they do. But while the Buddha said that we have delusion (moha) about the nature of the world, and that we have cognitive distortions (vipallasas) he did not say that the world was an illusion, or māyā — an important term in Hunduism, which is found in the Pali scriptures but only to mean something like “deceit,” “fraud,” “hypocrisy,” etc. He didn’t deny the existence of the world, although he did point out that we make gross errors of interpretation regarding the nature of the world, seeing permanence where there is only change, seeing sources of suffering as sources of joy, and believing there is a separate and permanent self when no such entity does or can exist.

Nor did the Buddha teach the notion that we are what we think. He did say, “Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness,” although it’s clear from the context that he meant simply that indulging in certain kinds of thought — for example sensuous thought — the mind is shaped by that habit. If there was anything that the Buddha thought shaped us on a more profound level, if was not thought, but kamma, or intentional action, which he said we are “born of.”

I’m all for poetry, and Byrom’s Dhammapada is certainly poetic. But for a more poetic version that’s more faithful to the original, I’d suggest that by Gil Fronsdal, which makes no attempt to mold the Buddha’s teaching into a Hindu form.

    This article was originally published in Tricycle magazine.

Although the above author seems up in arms about the inaccurate translation, I'm not that convinced that his translation is substantially different from Byrom's; nor Fronsdal's.:

Byrom's:
    "We are what we think.
        All that we are arises with our thoughts.
            With our thoughts, we make the world."

the above author's:
    “All experiences (dhammā) are preceded by mind (manopubbaṅgamā),
        having mind as their master (manoseṭṭhā)
            created by mind (manomayā).”

Fronsdal's:
    "All experience is preceded by mind, 
        Led by mind, 
            Made by mind."


I don't know how true this is: "The Dhammapada is the most widely read Buddhist scripture in existence, enjoyed by both Buddhists and non-Buddhists. "

[inavalan]

Apr 11, 2021 22:42:47 GMT -5 inavalan said:

On a whim I googled: best buddha quotes:

Google's first result:
        "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world."

Interesting, isn't it?!

Then I found a comment about this quote being inaccurate:
    https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/we-are-what-we-think-all-that-we-are-arises-with-our-thoughts/

You may well instantly recognize these three sentences as the opening of the Dhammapada, and you may wonder what could possibly be wrong with them. Isn’t this just what the Buddha taught? Didn’t the Buddha teach that the world is an illusion? Didn’t the Buddha say things like “We become what we think?”

Well, let’s step back for a moment and look at what the first line of the Dhammapada actually says. In Pali that line is Manopubbaṅgamā dhammā manoseṭṭhā manomayā. I’d translate this as

“All experiences (dhammā) are preceded by mind (manopubbaṅgamā), having mind as their master (manoseṭṭhā) created by mind (manomayā).”

The only part of this translation likely to be contentious is the word dhamma, (dhammā is the nominative plural), which can have many meanings, including “condition,” “moral quality,” “law,” “practice,” or “teaching.” So rich in meaning is this word that its entry in the Pali Text Society’s dictionary runs to several pages. In this context dhamma doesn’t mean the Buddha’s teachings, but refers to mental factors. Dhammā in the context of these verses has variously been translated as “mental states,” “mental phenomena,” and simply as “phenomena.” I like the word “experiences” because it’s more, well, experiential.

Since the first two verses of the Dhammapada discuss how suffering (dukkha) arises from an impure mind and joy (sukha) from a pure mind, it makes sense to assume that dhammā here refers to those mental states, or to mental states more generally. The essential message is that the qualities of our mind determine whether or not we suffer. There’s nothing in the Pali original that mentions “thoughts” or “the world” at all, never mind that that we are what we think, or that our thoughts create the world.

This particular translation is from a well-loved version of the Dhammapada, by Thomas Byrom. According to his US publisher, Shambhala, Byrom was an Englishman who taught history and literature at Harvard, and Old English, Middle English, and Victorian and modern literature at Oxford. There’s no mention of his having taught or studied Pali, which may explain the poetic, but very non-literal nature of his Dhammapada. it may also explain why the publisher calls Byrom’s version a “rendering” rather than a translation.

Byrom’s religious affiliations seem to have colored his rendering of the Buddha’s words. He was a Hindu, of the non-dualist Advaita Vedanta persuasion, and spent the last years of his life in an ashram in California. Of course a Hindu can faithfully translate a Buddhist text or a Buddhist a Hindu text, but in this case it’s hard to conclude that Byrom, for whatever reason, was moved to present Buddhist teachings as if they were Hindu. Although the Dhammapada doesn’t say that we are what we think, or that we’re created by our thoughts, the Ashtavakragita, which Byrom translated (and perhaps didn’t just “render”) toward the end of his life, says “You are what you think” (1:11). Although the Dhammapada doesn’t say that the world is created by our thoughts, the Ashtavakragita says “All creation, streaming out of the Self, Is only the Self” (2:4), and “When the world arises in me, It is just an illusion” (2:9).

But didn’t the Buddha himself teach that the world is an illusion? I’m sure some Buddhists believe he did, and the existence of Hindu-Buddhist hybrid texts like Byrom’s Dhammapada is no doubt one reason they do. But while the Buddha said that we have delusion (moha) about the nature of the world, and that we have cognitive distortions (vipallasas) he did not say that the world was an illusion, or māyā — an important term in Hunduism, which is found in the Pali scriptures but only to mean something like “deceit,” “fraud,” “hypocrisy,” etc. He didn’t deny the existence of the world, although he did point out that we make gross errors of interpretation regarding the nature of the world, seeing permanence where there is only change, seeing sources of suffering as sources of joy, and believing there is a separate and permanent self when no such entity does or can exist.

Nor did the Buddha teach the notion that we are what we think. He did say, “Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness,” although it’s clear from the context that he meant simply that indulging in certain kinds of thought — for example sensuous thought — the mind is shaped by that habit. If there was anything that the Buddha thought shaped us on a more profound level, if was not thought, but kamma, or intentional action, which he said we are “born of.”

I’m all for poetry, and Byrom’s Dhammapada is certainly poetic. But for a more poetic version that’s more faithful to the original, I’d suggest that by Gil Fronsdal, which makes no attempt to mold the Buddha’s teaching into a Hindu form.

    This article was originally published in Tricycle magazine.

Although the above author seems up in arms about the inaccurate translation, I'm not that convinced that his translation is substantially different from Byrom's; nor Fronsdal's.:

Byrom's:
    "We are what we think.
        All that we are arises with our thoughts.
            With our thoughts, we make the world."

the above author's:
    “All experiences (dhammā) are preceded by mind (manopubbaṅgamā),
        having mind as their master (manoseṭṭhā)
            created by mind (manomayā).”

Fronsdal's:
    "All experience is preceded by mind, 
        Led by mind, 
            Made by mind."


I don't know how true this is: "The Dhammapada is the most widely read Buddhist scripture in existence, enjoyed by both Buddhists and non-Buddhists. "

Manopubbaṅgamā dhammā, 
    mano seṭṭhā, 
    manomayā.

Mind faced realities,
    (are) mind (made) scripts,
    (and) mind (made) illusions.

[inavalan]

Thich Nhat Hanh's "The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching": 

(NOTES: my underlines; quotes in blue; used red for emphasis; numbered end-notes #)

Chapter Four "Understanding the Buddha’s Teachings"

When we hear a Dharma talk or study a sutra, our only job is to remain open. Usually when we hear or read something new, we just compare it to our own ideas. If it is the same, we accept it and say that it is correct. If it is not, we say it is incorrect. In either case, we learn nothing. If we read or listen with an open mind and an open heart, the rain of the Dharma will penetrate the soil of our consciousness.1

The gentle spring rain permeates the soil of my soul.
A seed that has lain deeply in the earth for many years just smiles.2

While reading or listening, don’t work too hard. Be like the earth. When the rain comes, the earth only has to open herself up to the rain. Allow the rain of the Dharma to come in and penetrate the seeds that are buried deep in your consciousness. A teacher cannot give you the truth. The truth is already in you. You only need to open yourself — body, mind, and heart — so that his or her teachings will penetrate your own seeds of understanding and enlightenment. If you let the words enter you, the soil and the seeds will do the rest of the work.

The transmission of the teachings of the Buddha can be divided into three streams: Source Buddhism, Many-Schools Buddhism, and Mahayana Buddhism. Source Buddhism includes all the teachings the Buddha gave during his lifetime. One hundred forty years after the Buddha’s Great Passing Away, the Sangha divided into two schools: Mahasanghika (literally “majority,” referring to those who wanted changes) and Sthaviravada (literally, “School of Elders,” referring to those who opposed the changes advocated by the Mahasanghikas). A hundred years after that, the Sthaviravada divided into two branches — Sarvastivada (“the School that Proclaims Everything Is”) and Vibhajyavada (“the School that Discriminates”). The Vibhajyavadins, supported by King Ashoka, flourished in the Ganges valley, while the Sarvastivadins went north to Kashmir.

For four hundred years during and after the Buddha’s lifetime, his teachings were transmitted only orally. After that, monks in the Tamrashatiya School (“those who wear copper-colored robes”) in Sri Lanka, a derivative of the Vibhajyavada School, began to think about writing the Buddha’s discourses on palm leaves, and it took another hundred years to begin. By that time, it is said that there was only one monk who had memorized the whole canon and that he was somewhat arrogant. The other monks had to persuade him to recite the discourses so they could write them down. When we hear this, we feel a little uneasy knowing that an arrogant monk may not have been the best vehicle to transmit the teachings of the Buddha.

Even during the Buddha’s lifetime, there were people such as the monk Arittha, who misunderstood the Buddha’s teachings and conveyed them incorrectly.3 It is also apparent that some of the monks who memorized the sutras over the centuries did not understand their deepest meaning, or at the very least, they forgot or changed some words. As a result, some of the Buddha’s teachings were distorted even before they were written down. Before the Buddha attained full realization of the path, for example, he had tried various methods to suppress his mind, and they did not work. In one discourse, he recounted:

I thought, Why don’t I grit my teeth, press my tongue against my palate, and use my mind to repress my mind? Then, as a wrestler might take hold of the head or the shoulders of someone weaker than he, and, in order to restrain and coerce that person, he has to hold him down constantly without letting go for a moment, so I gritted my teeth, pressed my tongue against my palate, and used my mind to suppress my mind. As I did this, I was bathed in sweat. Although I was not lacking in strength, although I maintained mindfulness and did not fall from mindfulness, my body and my mind were not at peace, and I was exhausted by these efforts. This practice caused other feelings of pain to arise in me besides the pain associated with the austerities, and I was not able to tame my mind.4

Obviously, the Buddha was telling us not to practice in this way. Yet this passage was later inserted into other discourses to convey exactly the opposite meaning:

Just as a wrestler takes hold of the head or the shoulders of someone weaker than himself, restrains and coerces that person, and holds him down constantly, not letting go for one moment, so a monk who meditates in order to stop all unwholesome thoughts of desire and aversion, when these thoughts continue to arise, should grit his teeth, press his tongue against his palate, and do his best to use his mind to beat down and defeat his mind.5

Often, we need to study several discourses and compare them in order to understand which is the true teaching of the Buddha. It is like stringing precious jewels together to make a necklace. If we see each sutra in light of the overall body of teachings, we will not be attached to any one teaching. With comparative study and looking deeply into the meaning of the texts, we can surmise what is a solid teaching that will help our practice and what is probably an incorrect transmission.

By the time the Buddha’s discourses were written down in Pali in Sri Lanka, there were eighteen or twenty schools, and each had its own recension of the Buddha’s teachings. These schools did not tear the teachings of the Buddha apart but were threads of a single garment. Two of these recensions exist today: the Tamrashatiya and Sarvastivada canons. Recorded at about the same time, the former was written down in Pali and the latter in Sanskrit and Prakrit. The sutras that were written down in Pali in Sri Lanka are known as the Southern transmission, or “Teachings of the Elders” (Theravada). The Sarvastivada texts, known as the Northern transmission, exist only in fragmented form. Fortunately, they were translated into Chinese and Tibetan, and many of these translations are still available. We have to remember that the Buddha did not speak Pali, Sanskrit, or Prakrit. He spoke a local dialect called Magadhi or Ardhamagadhi, and there is no record of the Buddha’s words in his own language.

By comparing the two extant sutra recensions, we can see which teachings must have preceded Buddhism’s dividing into schools. When the sutras of both transmissions are the same, we can conclude that what they say must have been there before the division. When the recensions are different, we can surmise that one or both might be incorrect. The Northern transmission preserved some discourses better, and the Southern transmission preserved others better. That is the advantage of having two transmissions to compare.

The third stream of the Buddha’s teaching, Mahayana Buddhism, arose in the first or second century B.C.E.6 In the centuries following the Buddha’s life, the practice of the Dharma had become the exclusive domain of monks and nuns, and laypeople were limited to supporting the ordained Sangha with food, shelter, clothing, and medicine. By the first century B.C.E., many monks and nuns seemed to be practicing only for themselves, and reaction was inevitable. The ideal put forth by the Mahayanists was that of the bodhisattva, who practiced and taught for the benefit of everyone.

These three streams complement one another. It was impossible for Source Buddhism to remember everything the Buddha had taught, so it was necessary for Many-Schools Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism to renew teachings that had been forgotten or overlooked. Like all traditions, Buddhism needs to renew itself regularly in order to stay alive and grow. The Buddha always found new ways to express his awakening. Since the Buddha’s lifetime, Buddhists have continued to open new Dharma doors to express and share the teachings begun in the Deer Park in Sarnath.

Please remember that a sutra or a Dharma talk is not insight in and of itself. It is a means of presenting insight, using words and concepts. When you use a map to get to Paris, once you have arrived, you can put the map away and enjoy being in Paris. If you spend all your time with your map, if you get caught by the words and notions presented by the Buddha, you’ll miss the reality. The Buddha said many times, “My teaching is like a finger pointing to the moon. Do not mistake the finger for the moon.”

In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, it is said, “If you explain the meaning of every word and phrase in the sutras, you slander the Buddhas of the three times — past, present, and future. But if you disregard even one word of the sutras, you risk speaking the words of Mara.”7 Sutras are essential guides for our practice, but we must read them carefully and use our own intelligence and the help of a teacher and a Sangha to understand the true meaning and put it into practice. After reading a sutra or any spiritual text, we should feel lighter, not heavier. Buddhist teachings are meant to awaken our true self, not merely to add to our storehouse of knowledge.

From time to time the Buddha refused to answer a question posed to him. The philosopher Vatsigotra asked, “Is there a self?” and the Buddha did not say anything. Vatsigotra persisted, “Do you mean there is no self?” but the Buddha still did not reply. Finally, Vatsigotra left. Ananda, the Buddha’s attendant, was puzzled. “Lord, you always teach that there is no self. Why did you not say so to Vatsigotra?” The Buddha told Ananda that he did not reply because Vatsigotra was looking for a theory, not a way to remove obstacles.8 On another occasion, the Buddha heard a group of disciples discussing whether or not he had said such and such, and he told them, “For forty-five years, I have not uttered a single word.” He did not want his disciples to be caught by words or notions, even his own.

When an archaeologist finds a statue that has been broken, he invites sculptors who specialize in restoration to study the art of that period and repair the statue. We must do the same. If we have an overall view of the teachings of the Buddha, when a piece is missing or has been added, we have to recognize it and repair the damage.

---------
1 According to Buddhist psychology, our consciousness is divided into eight parts, including mind consciousness (manovijñana) and store consciousness (alayavijñana). Store consciousness is described as a field in which every kind of seed can be planted — seeds of suffering, sorrow, fear, and anger, and seeds of happiness and hope. When these seeds sprout, they manifest in our mind consciousness, and when they do, they become stronger. See fig. 5 on here.

2 From Thich Nhat Hanh, “Cuckoo Telephone,” in Call Me By My True Names, p. 176.

3 Arittha Sutta (Discourse on Knowing the Better Way to Catch a Snake), Majjhima Nikaya 22. See Thich Nhat Hanh, Thundering Silence: Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Catch a Snake (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1993), pp. 47–49.

4 Mahasaccaka Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 36.

5 Vitakka Santhana Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 20. This same passage was inserted into a Sarvastivada version of the Buddha’s discourse on mindfulness, Nian Chu Jing, Madhyama Agama 26, Taisho Revised Tripitaka.

6 See Thich Nhat Hanh, Cultivating the Mind of Love: The Practice of Looking Deeply in the Mahayana Buddhist Tradition (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1996).

7 Mara: the Tempter, the Evil One, the Killer, the opposite of the Buddha nature in each person. Sometimes personalized as a deity.

8 Samyutta Nikaya XIV, 10.

[inavalan]

"Discourse on Knowing the Better Way to Catch a Snake"  translated by Thich Nhat Hanh

from the Arittha Sutra (Madhyama Agama 220) in Pali,
and the Alagaddupama Sutta, (Majjhima Nikaya 22) in Chinese.

[...]
“Bhikshus, that is the Way of the Tathagata and those who have attained liberation. Indra, Prajapati, Brahma, and the other gods in their entourage, however hard they look, cannot find any trace or basis for the consciousness of a Tathagata. The Tathagata is a noble fount of freshness and coolness. There is no great heat and no sorrow in this state. When recluses and brahmans hear me say this, they may slander me, saying that I do not speak the truth, that the monk Gautama proposes a theory of nihilism and teaches absolute nonexistence, while in fact living beings do exist. Bhikshus, the Tathagata has never taught the things they say. In truth, the Tathagata teaches only the ending of suffering in order to attain the state of non-fear. If the Tathagata is blamed, criticized, defamed, or beaten, he does not care. He does not become angry, walk away in hatred, or do anything in revenge. If someone blames, criticizes, defames, or beats the Tathagata, how does he react? The Tathagata thinks, ‘If someone respects, honors, or makes offerings to a Tathagata, the Tathagata would not on that account feel pleased. He would think only that someone is doing this because the Tathagata has attained the fruits of awakening and transformation.’ ”
[...]

[inavalan]

Jan 29, 2016 16:23:51 GMT -5 upsetter said:

...just because he was meant to be a king by merely incarnating into some kind of family-tree of so called rulers.

THAT is the real teaching of THE Buddha.

All his words are just peeing against the wind. Although...

...nothing wrong with pointing out what a proper dharma-path is all about.

Interesting to observe that Siddhārtha Gautama, later a.k.a. the Buddha, didn't choose to materially help others, although as a king he had the means to do that, but instead he chose to practice and teach others not to get attached to anything in this life, not to get angry (see above).

He didn't preach a Utopia like the "Heaven on Earth". Is there any religion that preaches that? I think that that is more of a Marx / New Age kind of thinking.

[inavalan]

I didn't know the story.

How the Buddha gained enlightenment

[inavalan]

Apr 13, 2021 22:58:29 GMT -5 inavalan said:

"Discourse on Knowing the Better Way to Catch a Snake"  translated by Thich Nhat Hanh

from the Arittha Sutra (Madhyama Agama 220) in Pali,
and the Alagaddupama Sutta, (Majjhima Nikaya 22) in Chinese.

[...]
“Bhikshus, that is the Way of the Tathagata and those who have attained liberation. Indra, Prajapati, Brahma, and the other gods in their entourage, however hard they look, cannot find any trace or basis for the consciousness of a Tathagata. The Tathagata is a noble fount of freshness and coolness. There is no great heat and no sorrow in this state. When recluses and brahmans hear me say this, they may slander me, saying that I do not speak the truth, that the monk Gautama proposes a theory of nihilism and teaches absolute nonexistence, while in fact living beings do exist. Bhikshus, the Tathagata has never taught the things they say. In truth, the Tathagata teaches only the ending of suffering in order to attain the state of non-fear. If the Tathagata is blamed, criticized, defamed, or beaten, he does not care. He does not become angry, walk away in hatred, or do anything in revenge. If someone blames, criticizes, defames, or beats the Tathagata, how does he react? The Tathagata thinks, ‘If someone respects, honors, or makes offerings to a Tathagata, the Tathagata would not on that account feel pleased. He would think only that someone is doing this because the Tathagata has attained the fruits of awakening and transformation.’ ”
[...]

With all due respect, I believe that the big guy got it vice-versa ... He allegedly said:

    "In truth, the Tathagata teaches only the ending of suffering in order to attain the state of non-fear."

Fear originates suffering, only after that they avalanche into more and more fear and suffering.

[zendancer]

Apr 16, 2021 14:48:14 GMT -5 inavalan said:

I didn't know the story.

How the Buddha gained enlightenment

That's a rather strange rendition of the story. The usual story claims that the Buddha spent six years searching for answers to three existential questions. He left his wife and child and position as a prince of the Sakya kingdom and became a sannyasin. Along the way he tried different strategies based on different teachers he met, but eventually gave up and left them all behind. He had learned to meditate, and at some point sat down under a pipul tree and vowed to stay there until he understood what he wanted to understand. On the morning of December 8 he looked up and saw the planet Venus in the sky, and suddenly had a huge CC. He spent a few days trying to decide if it was possible to communicate what he had realized, but decided that he needed to try. Etc. etc. That's the common story, but there's a lot more detail concerning who he met and what he tried before giving up and deciding to meditate under the tree. There's also a lot more detail about what happened afterward and almost none of it matches this particular rendition.

[inavalan]

This sounds like an interesting book:




"Reading the Buddha's Discourses in Pali: A Practical Guide to the Language of the Ancient Buddhist Canon" (2020), by Bhikkhu Bodhi

    Renowned scholar-monk and bestselling translator Bhikkhu Bodhi’s definitive, practical guide on how to read ancient Buddhist texts in the original language.     Bhikkhu Bodhi’s sophisticated and practical instructions on how to read the Pali of the Buddha’s discourses will acquaint students of Early Buddhism with the language and idiom of these sacred texts.

Here the renowned English translator of the Pali Canon opens a window into key suttas from the Sa?yutta Nikaya, giving a literal translation of each sentence followed by a more natural English rendering, then explaining the grammatical forms involved. In this way, students can determine the meaning of each word and phrase and gain an intimate familiarity with the distinctive style of the Pali suttas—with the words, and world, of the earliest Buddhist texts. Ven.

Bodhi’s meticulously selected anthology of suttas provides a systematic overview of the Buddha’s teachings, mirroring the four noble truths, the most concise formulation of the Buddha’s guide to liberation. Reading the Buddha’s Discourses in Pali shares with readers not only exceptional language instruction but also a nuanced study of the substance, style, and method of the early Buddhist discourses.

Download link: b-ok.cc/book/12058084/a75b3a


Why read Pāli? link

    PĀLI IS THE LANGUAGE of the collection of texts regarded by the Theravāda Buddhist tradition as authoritative buddhavacana, “Word of the Buddha.” This collection is commonly called the Pāli Canon, or the Pāli Tipiṭaka. The latter expression means “Three Baskets” or “Three Collections” (of Buddhist teachings) — namely, the Sutta Piṭaka (the collection of discourses), the Vinaya Piṭaka (the collection of monastic discipline), and the Abhidhamma Piṭaka (the collection of doctrinal treatises). Pāli falls within the broad category of Middle Indo-Aryan languages. It is descended from Vedic Sanskrit but shows the influence of other, more regional languages used in northern India.

...