Is listening to recording sutras purifying/merit gaining?

zsc

I'm not near a sangha right now, maybe later this week, but I do have some sutra recordings. Is listening to these recordings purifying of bad karma in the same sense as chanting with a community is? Thanks.

vinlyn

If you want to believe in the purifying of bad karma, then I would think any relatively passive activity would not qualify.

RebeccaS

Oh! I have a question about these, maybe you can help me out rather than me start a new thread?

I don't like most of the sutras. They don't sound nice to me. Some are really cool, there's this cool lotus sutra which is totally insane - just chanting, no music or anything - and it's like, crazy fast. But most of the other ones, they just bug me. I'm more of a rock and roll fan I guess.

Is this a problem? Should I just listen to them anyway? And like the OP asked, does this purify karma? Like, is that the principle?

vinlyn

^^ Are these in English, or are you listening/chanting something in Pali? I'm not a big fan of those at all. To me, personally, I have to read the sutta and think about it to be meaningful.

Perhaps this is based in my early Catholic training, but just as I never felt saying 10 Our Fathers and 10 Hail Marys never really did anything, that's the way I personally feel about chanting, at least in terms of purification. To me, if you're going to earn merit (if that's even possible), you've got to do something compassionate. And the idea that you can give merit to another person...hogwash.

But that's just me.

genkaku

I think anything that will strengthen your attention to your chosen practice can't hurt. It might be better to find some small chant and then chant it, but listening has its uses as well.

Whether you will gain anything from this is open to question ... if you gained something in Buddhism, you'd be stuck trying to un-gain it, which sounds counter-productive to me.

But just chanting or just listening ... maybe it's a good idea.

vinlyn

I agree, but that question was about listening to recording sutras being purifying/merit gaining.

Gui

In certain things such as this, I think it's all what you decide to believe that makes it work or not.

Cloud

Hearing the Dharma is beneficial, but only so much as it affects change toward liberation (turning delusion into wisdom). Reading something over and over again (or hearing it) is rather pointless if it's not being processed and understood, leading to insights based on an investigation of the message being conveyed.

It would be like chanting without fully understanding what the chant means. Chanting only works when the mind associates it with the message it contains, the teachings it represents in full. Simply saying things, or simply listening to things, doesn't by itself accrue any merit.

genkaku

Chanting only works when the mind associates it with the message it contains, the teachings it represents in full.

@Cloud -- In practice, I'm not sure that this is entirely true. To chant with a strong focus on chanting -- with attention -- supports and enhances the ability to focus the mind, to be present.

For example, I can and do chant "The Heart Sutra" in Japanese, although I don't speak the language. I have some idea of what the words mean and I can certainly look it up, but the importance for me arises from the doing and less significantly from the intellectual knowing.

Of course, I have made mistakes in the past and this may be one of them.

Sabre

Just know that you have to do the work, the suttas won't do it for you. Neither will something else. We are the owners of our own karma. All karma is produced and removed inside the mind. If you just go and listen to suttas with the idea there will be some external force or quality to change your karma, you are mistaken.

If you understand this, then well, listening to suttas (or dhamma talks), contemplating them, reflecting on them, can be liberating indeed.

RebeccaS

@genkaku I felt that way, too, but I was like, if I'm going to try this I should probably have some idea what I'm saying.

Have you ever seen the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry David got a mantra and it turned out that it meant "fuck me"? He ended up saying fuck me like, thousands of times. It's pretty funny, anyway. But I was worried I was going to be sat there saying I'm the king of cheese or something.

So I get the point of having some knowledge of what you're saying. For me, it also makes the whole thing make more sense to me... But I'm not sure it has to be that way for everyone.

Cloud

@gekaku, I'm just not sure. It may well be effective on strengthening concentration, but if there isn't also the understanding of such things as not-self and impermanence and the cause of suffering, the mind won't be directed toward seeing these things. It might just happen to see them (people do awaken seemingly spontaneously, even non-Buddhists), but it would seem more effective if you know what you're looking for in the first place.

Sile

In the Sutra of Golden Light, Buddha Shakyamuni lists the benefits of contact:

Those who hear this sutra,
Those who cause others to hear it,
Those who rejoice upon hearing it
And make offerings to it,
For tens of millions of eons
Shall be venerated by gods and nagas,
Humans and kinnaras,
Asuras and yakshas.

According to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, "...reciting just a few lines of the Sutra of Golden Light creates more merit than making ... immeasurable offerings to the Buddha."

In every situation I've been in where listening to or reciting sutras (and mantras) is discussed or taught, great emphasis has been placed on the importance of understanding what one is hearing/reciting.

Personally I've found that if you are going to listen to mantras/sutras/teachings repeatedly, either for merit, or to accustom yourself to the language, or to try and start picking up on the manings of dharma words and phrases, etc., it's good to choose a recording you truly find pleasing. Find a teacher or singer whose voice is very appealing; if even that starts to wear on you, personally I advise switching to another teaching so you don't develop an exasperated feeling when hearing that teaching again And remind yourself repeatedly that you're not doing this to be on "autopilot," i.e. just spin a disk which accumulates merit for you, but rather for some deeper purpose (the reasons listed above, or as others have mentioned, a way to focus the mind on something worthwhile).

zsc

If you want to believe in the purifying of bad karma, then I would think any relatively passive activity would not qualify.

I didn't mean to imply that listening to the sutras would be passive. I would be listening to them with as much attention as I would in a temple.

For more on ways to purify bad karma, see Thubten Chobron's "Buddhism for Beginners" or his website. The jist of it is when we act unskillfully, we need to set ourselves on the right path, and reminding ourselves through the sutras can do that, along with taking refuge or meditating. This is what I mean by purifying bad karma, since bad behavior can really set up some bad causes.

zsc

Oops I meant Chodron.