Learning sutras versus internalised lessons
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I've been reading some of the discussions here lately, and have been wondering about people's views regarding the learning of sutra's. There seem to me to be different ways of learning the teachings. One is about learning and memorising sutra's, imprinting them until you have a full recollection of large numbers of these. That means you have a good grasp of the text and the structure of the lore.
However, it seems to me to be more important to actually put these things into practice, to actually fully absorb and commit to each important teaching that you come across. Doing this can actually take a while, sometimes I end up walking around with a sutra or teaching in my head for weeks until I've more or less internalised it. Sometimes much longer, coming back to topics over and over.
Often I end up forgetting the actual sutra names afterwards, it seems I have limited brain space or some part of me thinks it is not important to remember them as long as I retain the essence. After all I am not a monk, expected to transmit the dharma by quoting sutra's to the infidels 
Where do you put the emphasis in your practice? Do you explore the sutra's and learn them, or try to internalise them, or some other method?
Comments
Good question
We have the sangha for memory storage. So personally for me experience is fundamental. That is why I meditate. That is my suitor.
Also because of the nature of sutta, I feel teachings need interpreting for the present mindset and this is where I rely on Buddhist scholars, Sangha and bloggers. I also need to know what to ignore. Otherwise I might be seduced by the Sith Buddhists, blaggers and Mahayana upstarts ...
Dharma is a template for skilful, kind living and I would recommend it to infidels and heretics.
I guess I think that the good part about memorizing and reciting bits of information is that eventually the mechanical perfection gets boring and the question arises, "I wonder what it really means."
Say the word "banana" ten thousand times ... eventually hunger will set in, I imagine.
I guess it is a question of how you approach things, and what you want to be: a sage of Buddhist lore, or an actual embodiment of the teachings?
There was a beautiful story Osho once told about Hotei (also known as Budai), who was the laughing Buddha. It put me in mind of the tale told of Hotei that he brought awareness and energy to the villages he visited through his laughter. At the end of his story Osho said "If Buddha was the seed, then Hotei is the flowering on the same tree." I always thought that might be the essence of embodying the teaching.
The whole story
Don't get me wrong, I am happy we have the monks who actually know the sutra's, it is a valuable and necessary role, but I think for many lay people there may be a different approach to more intense spiritual development besides retreats or spending a few months as a monk.
Study and practice are interwoven. One is not higher than another. If you have seriously practiced then go back to a sutra you liked. I think you will see the teaching therein in a new and amazing way.
@kerome -- You might be interested in a book called "The Way of a Pilgrim", the tale (fiction or non-fiction unknown) of a simple Russian who gets a burr under his saddle about the biblical injunction to "pray without ceasing." How, he asked in a number of ways, could anyone possibly do that? He set out for answers, visiting one teacher after another, but none of them could do much more than wax theological. Finally, he met a man (starets) who instructed him to do the Jesus prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, a poor sinner") a number of times each day. As the days passed, the teacher added more and more repetitions of the prayer to the seeker's agenda. More and more and more and more and more and more ... over and over and over and over ... until ...
Well, you might enjoy the book.
Mantra recitation.... Reminds me of this story....
Incidentally, the above prayer quoted by @genkaku, is linked to, within the above article... ("Major Themes", the Jesus prayer).
I think the only Buddhist text I have learned by heart was the Heart Sutra, which I used to recite daily.
I've spent quite a of time studying and discussing the suttas in the Pali Canon, but mostly to get a "big picture" understanding, make connections, find themes, and eventually to work out which bits were most relevant to practice and insight.
I don't think there is a "right" way to approach this, but I do think it is valuable to spend a little time with the source material, rather than always relying on second-hand commentaries by various teachers.
I think that internalization is the only part that really counts. Like @SpinyNorman , the Heart Sutra is just about the only sutra I have actually memorized, and I think I tried to internalize it by main force for years. Now I don't try to internalize anything - I read a text, think about it, sit with it a little while, then put it aside. When I am ready, it seems to internalize itself, sometimes years later.
At this point in my life, memorization, repetition, even discussion, seem often to interfere with the internalization process and even to generate a certain amount of confusion.
I have that too with some sutra's. It's like the mind is trying to find its own grip on things and doesn't want to be forced, and sometimes eventually a piece of writing will give up its deeper meaning on the first read and sometimes for me it takes 4-5-6 readings spaced out over weeks with plenty of cogitation in between.
I know that if I were to try and remember a lot of sutra's I'd probably end up doing something terrible to my brain. I used to have an excellent - near photographic - memory in my 20's, but by now it's nowhere near as 'absorbent'.
I've been in college half of my adult life (over ten years) and from the beginning of time study has always been then path to my spiritual development. I don't collect thousands of sutras and suttas knowing I can't possibly read them all, but I do put a lot of emphasis on reading and studying the Dharma. I do this not for memory but I found that when I can find application and how it relates to my daily life, study is not separate from meditation nor is it different from chanting. It starts to become second nature to just pick up one of the Buddha's discourses, read it, and just jot down things that happen in the past, things that I had trouble with and blessings I experienced in the present, and just in general but not strictly using the lessons to guide me for the future.
Studying the Buddha Dharma grounds me. So, I put a lot of emphasis on it. As for memorizing them, that is too doctrinal (if that's a word) for me. I'm spontaneous so I have notes, read as often as I can, and find grounding when I need to.
I've tried Zazen before and that worked well; so, I do that every so often. I don't meditate as much even though that's the core of The Buddha's teachings; so, I'm trying to brush up on that. The school I also practice from, The Buddha says we should "Read, recite, and preach" the sutra to help others to enlightenment. So basically, like he came to help others from suffering, with our Buddha-mind, we do the same.
Also, study helps me articulate The Dharma well and explaining my beliefs become easier since I am much into communication and having people understand what I'm saying without jumping to conclusions. So, it's very important.
I am not a big sutra person, but I do use whatever resources I can and it helps me to form a better big picture, as someone else mentioned. My teacher, my sangha, this group, books, online resources, sutras, videos, whatever. There are times I might read and read and read something and it is like reading another language. Then suddenly a teacher says someone on youtube, and it clicks, and I can go back to the sutra and relate it to what the teacher was talking about, even if they hadn't mentioned a sutra.
More than once I have had a vastly different understanding of something. Not that that means my understanding was wrong, but a teacher with an extended education and understanding of many sutras is going to have a much better idea of the context, the audience, and so on than I will.
Others are different. Some seem very focused on sutras, but that might be only what they share here because it is what they need help with and perhaps they aren't interested in the vastness of some of the discussion here that encompasses so much. If one is very focused on a tradition, they might not want to spend the time to read hundreds of posts by people from other traditions or no tradition, etc. When you have been here for a little while (I've been here like 4-5 years, not nearly as long as some of the others) you start to see patterns of stuff. There are discussions I never even open because I know where they are going to go, lol. I don't mind sutra study, but I'm not horribly scholarly about it. Which is interesting because I am that way about just about any other subject. I just find wording of religious texts (of any religion) to be difficult.
On a personal note, I think these two Zen sayings, sum it all up....
1) "Don't practice to become enlightened-Let your practice be the natural expression of your enlightenment !"
2) "Practice is not separate from Enlightenment-Enlightenment and Practice are one ! "
My Tibetan teacher often stresses the importance of putting into practice what's been taught, so it becomes part of you.....there are always plenty of opportunities to put Dharma practice into practice...
Academically one might become armed to the teeth with scriptures, ie, able to recite them off the cuff, however if they have no experiential understanding/knowledge this could make the scriptures not worth the neurons they are printed on...
"Practice makes Perfect and Perfect Practice makes Perfect Practice"
But as the ol' saying goes "Different strokes ( of the oar) for different folks (on the raft)"
Obviously, but in my experience people do generally read suttas/sutras for the insight they contain, and then apply it to their personal experience. That's the point.
And where are these people who learn sutta/sutras just as an academic exercise? I don't know any. Straw-man?
Yes, I think it is best approached as a natural process of learning, a cycle of theory and practice. Often stuff comes up in the course of practice, and I will make a connection with something in a text I remember, I might then reread that bit of text and get what it really means, then that new understanding is ploughed back into practice, and so it goes on.
I think it is partly a question of personal taste, and partly a question of tradition, for example Theravadans do tend to discuss suttas! Some people are content to stick with what a particular teacher says, and don't study the source material.
If I want help with a sutta I will generally ask over at Dhamma Wheel, or talk to a member of my local sangha who is well versed in the Pali Canon. And of course I can refer to commentaries by contemporary Theravadan teachers, though opinions vary widely on some topics ( another good reason for referring back to the source material ).
I have collected some suttas from dhammapada, they are not more than 30. Those are enough for me to take help to live life whenever I need. Although all are not remembered at once but meaning was in my mind. I read those suttas at regular interval of times and this way some of them are remembered naturally.
This is an artificial dichotomy, and these things are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they are often complementary.
Where do we get our Buddhist teachings from? From contemporary Buddhist teachers and from Buddhist texts, and again these are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.
In some cases there seems to be an undercurrent of inverted snobbery regarding Buddhist texts, like it is somehow not cool to read the source material. I don't get this at all.
In the OP I was more thinking of certain monks forced to memorise scriptures at speed, without necessarily paying attention to the extent to which they were internalising the teachings. Perhaps there are also lay people who follow this style of learning.
In either case I'd be fairly certain that people learning sutra's have a range of capabilities and styles. Not every sutra is equally easy to comprehend, and it is very likely that some people will try to learn one, find it impenetrable, set it aside, learn another, and so on, until they know the text of a range of sutra's, some of which they comprehend and some not.
Personally I like the modern more accessible teachers like Thich Nhat Hanh and Ajahn Brahm, alongside the sutra's for direct-from-the-source learning on certain topics.
I know many people who don't practise what they 'preach' @SpinyNorman ... I would surmise that there are probably many academic Buddhists who profess great interest in the Teachings but fall desperately short of putting Actions to the Words. For example, who among us, can say we stick to it like limpets, 24/7? No, neither can I.
All learning is an Academic Exercise. Implementation is harder and certainly not consistent for anyone....
I don't know any "academic Buddhists". Perhaps you mean "armchair Buddhists", people who talk about it but don't really practice? Yes, there are certainly a few of those, but most of the people I've come across do try to apply theory to practice, not always successfully of course. As I said earlier in the thread, I don't think there is a "right" approach.
Yes, I like Ajahn Brahm's style. Bhikkhu Bodhi is also good on the suttas, but a bit "dry". I was part of an Interbeing sangha for some years, so I'm also familiar with TNH's approach. It is interesting to compare how different teachers interpret and explain things.
I did work through the suttas methodically at one stage, it was hard work but fascinating to understand how they fit together. These days I refer to the texts which seem most relevant to practice, and texts that come up in discussions. There is always something new to learn!
No, I don't mean 'armchair Buddhists'.... I know certainly of one, personally, who can probably recite chapter and verse, and knows many suttas, texts and teachings inside out. His implementation falls far short of anything I would expect of any devoted student.
Ok, yes, that is just one. but if I know one, I'm sure others exist. In fact, the disparity between his knowledge of the teachings and texts, and his behaviour, attitude and general self-expression, is really so wide, is quite astonishing. I find it disappointing....
I read the sutta or sutra over as many times as it takes to get a feel for the context and feel as if I have a basic understanding.
Then I try to put it into my own words and compare my understanding to others such as popular monks and people here.
There's another Zen saying brought to us by Yamoaka Tesshu;
"Zen is like soap. First you wash with it, and then you wash off the soap."