Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Thich Nhat Hanh's critique of scripture based practice
Jeffrey
Veteran
in Philosophy
"Insight can’t be found in sutras, commentaries, verbal expression, or —isms. Liberation and awakened understanding can’t be found by devoting ourselves to the study of the Buddhist scriptures. This is like trying to find fresh water in dry bones. Returning to the present moment, using our clear mind which exists right here and now, we can be in touch with liberation and enlightenment, as well as with the Buddha and the patriarchs as living realities right in this moment."
- Thich Nhat Hanh, “Simply Stop”
- Thich Nhat Hanh, “Simply Stop”
2
Comments
To me, the 3 biggest components for Buddhist practice, or any practice for that matter, are: 1.) Knoweldge (whether through scripture or experience), 2.) Compassion and 3.) Meditation.
Just my 2 cents. Now I'm broke.
" the only book worth reading is the human heart".
All this means is that you don't gain Panna(wisdom) through reading the suttas, but through practice.
That's not to say that the suttas are not important, because they are, however don't expect to get anywhere on the path towards the deathless by just being a Scholar of Buddhist texts.
Study and practice both go together on the path.
I forget in which koan it is where the mind 'drops away' but then 'dropping away' must also be dropped too! And so this is true not only of the sutras but of any Buddhist practice. They point the way only.
With unintended irony, here's a passage from the Vimalakirti Sutra (translated here by Burton Watson): But none of this contradicts what Thich Nhat Hanh says, either. Insight cannot be found in sutras or any writings at all. At best, they are aids, which may be of greater or lesser use, depending on the person, depending on the situation.
To use a musical analogy: If you want to be a classical pianist, knowing music theory is important to know and understand--it helps in interpretation and performance to understand why a composition is composed the way it is--there is a logical, but creative, structure. Music theory has its use. However, you can study music theory till you are blue in the face--it won't make you a Glenn Gould or a Rubenstein!
Number Six: Has it ever occurred to you that you are just as much a prisoner as I am?
Number Two: Oh my dear chap, of course--I know too much. We're both lifers. Number Two: I am definitely an optimist. That's why it doesn't matter "who" Number One is. It doesn't matter which "side" runs the Village.
Number Six: It's run by one side or the other.
Number Two: Oh certainly, but both sides are becoming identical. What in fact has been created is an international community--perfect blueprint for world order. When the sides facing each other suddenly realize that they're looking into a mirror, they will see that "this" is the pattern for the future.
Number Six: The whole Earth as the Village?
Number Two: That is my hope. What's yours?
Number Six: I'd like to be the first man on the moon.
And now back to the plum Village
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Prisoner
Then bake! Yum!
If you want to be released from suffering, and have no idea how, you read the suttas.
Then practise! Yum!
Thich Nhat Hanh is right, studying cookbooks is pointless, futile, if you don't do any cooking.
But cookbooks help you to make amazing meals you could never have done or thought of alone.
Some think being a Buddhist consists of nothing more than parroting a few quotes and spouting incomprehensible jargon to show off their superior knowledge.
The heart should be your ultimate guide.
And of course TNH has written a number of commentaries on the suttas and sutras, which suggests he feels they are important and relevant.
Why should that be, I wonder.
Like everyone stated, (sole reliance on) sutras without practice will get you nowhere. However, insight through practice without sutras, is possible.
I think it is close to impossible to read and retain the thousands of sutras - so even with a subset (even just a few basics - even just the 4NT and 8FP), insight can be attained.
It's what you emanate from the inside, rather than absorb externally, right?
Now, how many of you would not have practised anything like the Buddha's Dharma, if you had not read any books or scriptures? Hands up kids, how many?
There, I think that's settled; To follow the path requires personal practise, AND some kind of study. Or lacking a scripture or book, even better that you have a teacher who knows.
Enough of this 100% malarkey.
Once we learn how to see reality as it is, why study the method further?
And to be honest, if it's more than a good 2 paragraphs long, I don't read it all. Why? Because I find it more profound, more applicable, more meaningful to speak of the principles, teachings and ideals of Buddhism (or ANY spiritual path or philosophy), in our own current everyday language, because we are living in the current everyday world as it is now.
Now that's only me...
I'm not saying the suttas and other scriptures are 'useless' or whatever, only that for me, they are The Basics (the Precepts, the 8 Fold Path, & the 4 Noble Truths) all dressed up in their Sunday-Go-To-Church Best... but the reality is, one can be a 'good Buddhist' without the shiny shoes and embellishing extras.
Another way to put it, would be like trying to teach an American French Cooking, but only using the French language, when in reality, teaching them French cooking in English will do the job a thousand times better.
Edited to add: Ha! Just noticed the other cooking/cookbook analogies mentioned above... Is everyone as hungry as I am right now? LOL
Maybe one in a million could do that, but the rest of us need a little guidance.
"The nun Wu Jincang asked the Sixth Patriach Huineng, "I have studied the Mahaparinirvana sutra for many years, yet there are many areas i do not quite understand. Please enlighten me."
The patriach responded, "I am illiterate. Please read out the characters to me and perhaps I will be able to explain the meaning."
Said the nun, "You cannot even recognize the characters. How are you able then to understand the meaning?"
"Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?"
http://www.myrkothum.com/the-meaning-of-the-finger-pointing-to-the-moon/
"misguided" is often subjective and open to interpretation, isn't it?
However, I've found them invaluable. You don't need to read them. After all, dhamma exists beyond language and food existed before anyone ever wrote a cookbook. But I often find that people unfamiliar with the suttas end up hitting problems in their practice that are easily clarified by just going back to the source material. Basic misunderstanding (to the point of misapprehending the entire goal of the Buddha's teaching), misapplications, or simple deficits in knowledge account for much unnecessary heartache in this path.
An example: I used to read a certain popular Zen blog. The reason I stopped was that every day, there would be arguments in the comments to the blog entries about what such and such a word (e.g., mindfulness or renunciation or loving=kindness, etc.) meant or what its purpose was in Buddhism. The thing is: the author of this blog (and many of his followers) didn't care all that much for reading scriptures... and yet almost all of the arguments would have been cleared up simply if someone had bothered to go and read the source texts. It's all laid out there pretty clearly. The philosophy of the Buddha of the Pali canon is pretty internally consistent, detailed, and straightforward. There is no need for people to lose time arguing in circles, waffling about in mires of confusion, or endlessly splitting hairs as was happening on that blog.
"Monk, there is the case where a monk studies the Dhamma: dialogues, narratives of mixed prose and verse, explanations, verses, spontaneous exclamations, quotations, birth stories, amazing events, question & answer sessions.[1] He spends the day in Dhamma-study. He neglects seclusion. He doesn't commit himself to internal tranquillity of awareness. This is called a monk who is keen on study, not one who dwells in the Dhamma.
"Then there is the case where a monk studies the Dhamma: dialogues, narratives of mixed prose and verse, explanations, verses, spontaneous exclamations, quotations, birth stories, amazing events, question & answer sessions. He doesn't spend the day in Dhamma-study. He doesn't neglect seclusion. He commits himself to internal tranquillity of awareness. This is called a monk who dwells in the Dhamma.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.073.than.html
I leave the suttas to the scholars and clergy, much like I would leave the Bible and Torah in their lengthy entirety to the scholars and clergy, but would take their teachings in classes or lesson form if I wanted to learn about them.
I went to Catholic school, (back in the day) and in those years in Catholic school, never once did I read directly from the Bible. We read from workbooks, and mimeographed sheets (damn, I'm OLD) and listened to lectures about what the Bible said and what it had to teach... I didn't actually read a real Bible myself until I was out of Catholic school.
So yes, one can learn all one needs to learn to be a practicing Buddhist without actually wading through the suttas/sutras themselves. Will they ever be a Buddhist monk or nun? No, most likely not, but that's not everyone's goal...
One man's 'misguided adventure' is another man's ultimate Journey.