WTF is the Dahmma
WTF is the Dhamma (you're probably more familiar with it as Dharma)
If you're Christian it's easy to tell what your religious text is. There's a book called "The Bible" and you're supposed to read it.
As a Buddhist we take refuge in the Dhamma. But I still don't know what that means 100%. The Dhamma, like the bible is the teachings of the Buddha, the words of the religion. But there's two problems with that.
First is that the Buddha's followers recognized from the moment he began speaking on his new 'middle way' that what he was saying was going to be important to people for years to come. So they vowed to preserve it, all of it. They memorised every sermon he ever gave and made him promise to repeat any sermon he ever gave when not around him. Then they set about repeating it to one another so they could all remember it. They even made sure to recite it in groups so that they knew it wouldn't get changed acientally year arfer year.
Like a religious game of telephone.
There's this thing called the tipitaka or The Pali Cannon. Pali being the language he spoke in. Essentially it contains every single sermon he spoke in 45 years. Ever word that came out of his mouth. Published in modern format it takes up 40 volumes, it's over 5 linear feet of bookshelf space and contains more than 20,000 words.
Jebus
Now there's a reason for this. One of the reasons there's so much to say is that the Buddha was very, very deliberate about tuning his speaches to the individual. So there's primarily 3 sections of the Tipitaka. Tipitaka is tip(three) taka (baskets) for the three vessels of knowledge the monks would pass from one another, the way a bucket crew passes water to extinguish a fire, in order to preserve the Dhamma.
One section is pretty much just for monks, people who wanted to lead a monastic life in order to help everyone else.
Another is for essentially the super smart. Intended for phylosiphers, drs, etc. It is apparently, haven't read a word of it, very esoteric and a bitch to understand. The longest section is for everyone else. Even it is broken up into levels depending on how deep you think you can handle it. From books like the Dhamapada which is like the easy readers guide to the Dhamma, it's tiny and really just has a bunch of short poems that say things like people who do evil deeds will feel evil hearafter. people who do good deeds will feel good hearafter.
So while there's a bazillion pages of of the Dhama even the monks aren't really required to know the whole thing.
ok, this really varies from Bhuddist school to Bhuddist school, the Tibetan monks for instance DAMN WELL expect the monks to know every word. Zen monks on the other hand could give a rat's bootie, they expect you to understand the meditation and thus yourself and thus the universe.
Buuuut it gets even wierder.
Because the stuff that's in the Pali Cannon is the really really traditional stuff that's the 'official' works for what's called Theravada Buddhism which is austensibly what was practiced from about the time of the Buddha, ~550bc, to the beginning of the common era (year 0.)
Around this time a bunch of Bhuddists looked at the bulk of Bhuddism and said "Wait a second, y'all are really getting way way to self involved, spending ALL your time in seclusion and not helping anyone but yourselves." Bhuddists have an obligation to end suffering. Not for themselves but for the whole world. At that time a few new books came about. Theoretically they are the words of the Buddha that were recorded while he was alive and hidden away for 500 years becuase we weren't ready to understand them at the time. (actual story unknown, I dont' have enough info currently to even speculate. They were guarded by dragons in another dimension for all I know.)
This was the birth of what's called Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism is a bit more palatable for most people and has a couple key points. It has a focus on something called a Bhodisatva. A Bhodisatva is a person who's taken a vow to not reach enlightenment on their own but to help deliver the entire world from suffering all together. The second is a good strong focus on meditation. Mahayana is the main form of Buddhism today and 99% of what we recognize is Mahayana, from Tibetan to zen.
I'm studying Zen, so now what do I do? Do I read the works of the Pali Cannon in an attempt to get 'back to basics?' Do I read the Mahayana texts since they're more applicable? Is it even better to just read the 25 million texts ABOUT Buddhism because they were written within two centuries of my birth and maybe in a language someone alive actually speaks?
It bakes my noodle.
If you're Christian it's easy to tell what your religious text is. There's a book called "The Bible" and you're supposed to read it.
As a Buddhist we take refuge in the Dhamma. But I still don't know what that means 100%. The Dhamma, like the bible is the teachings of the Buddha, the words of the religion. But there's two problems with that.
First is that the Buddha's followers recognized from the moment he began speaking on his new 'middle way' that what he was saying was going to be important to people for years to come. So they vowed to preserve it, all of it. They memorised every sermon he ever gave and made him promise to repeat any sermon he ever gave when not around him. Then they set about repeating it to one another so they could all remember it. They even made sure to recite it in groups so that they knew it wouldn't get changed acientally year arfer year.
Like a religious game of telephone.
There's this thing called the tipitaka or The Pali Cannon. Pali being the language he spoke in. Essentially it contains every single sermon he spoke in 45 years. Ever word that came out of his mouth. Published in modern format it takes up 40 volumes, it's over 5 linear feet of bookshelf space and contains more than 20,000 words.
Jebus
Now there's a reason for this. One of the reasons there's so much to say is that the Buddha was very, very deliberate about tuning his speaches to the individual. So there's primarily 3 sections of the Tipitaka. Tipitaka is tip(three) taka (baskets) for the three vessels of knowledge the monks would pass from one another, the way a bucket crew passes water to extinguish a fire, in order to preserve the Dhamma.
One section is pretty much just for monks, people who wanted to lead a monastic life in order to help everyone else.
Another is for essentially the super smart. Intended for phylosiphers, drs, etc. It is apparently, haven't read a word of it, very esoteric and a bitch to understand. The longest section is for everyone else. Even it is broken up into levels depending on how deep you think you can handle it. From books like the Dhamapada which is like the easy readers guide to the Dhamma, it's tiny and really just has a bunch of short poems that say things like people who do evil deeds will feel evil hearafter. people who do good deeds will feel good hearafter.
So while there's a bazillion pages of of the Dhama even the monks aren't really required to know the whole thing.
ok, this really varies from Bhuddist school to Bhuddist school, the Tibetan monks for instance DAMN WELL expect the monks to know every word. Zen monks on the other hand could give a rat's bootie, they expect you to understand the meditation and thus yourself and thus the universe.
Buuuut it gets even wierder.
Because the stuff that's in the Pali Cannon is the really really traditional stuff that's the 'official' works for what's called Theravada Buddhism which is austensibly what was practiced from about the time of the Buddha, ~550bc, to the beginning of the common era (year 0.)
Around this time a bunch of Bhuddists looked at the bulk of Bhuddism and said "Wait a second, y'all are really getting way way to self involved, spending ALL your time in seclusion and not helping anyone but yourselves." Bhuddists have an obligation to end suffering. Not for themselves but for the whole world. At that time a few new books came about. Theoretically they are the words of the Buddha that were recorded while he was alive and hidden away for 500 years becuase we weren't ready to understand them at the time. (actual story unknown, I dont' have enough info currently to even speculate. They were guarded by dragons in another dimension for all I know.)
This was the birth of what's called Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism is a bit more palatable for most people and has a couple key points. It has a focus on something called a Bhodisatva. A Bhodisatva is a person who's taken a vow to not reach enlightenment on their own but to help deliver the entire world from suffering all together. The second is a good strong focus on meditation. Mahayana is the main form of Buddhism today and 99% of what we recognize is Mahayana, from Tibetan to zen.
I'm studying Zen, so now what do I do? Do I read the works of the Pali Cannon in an attempt to get 'back to basics?' Do I read the Mahayana texts since they're more applicable? Is it even better to just read the 25 million texts ABOUT Buddhism because they were written within two centuries of my birth and maybe in a language someone alive actually speaks?
It bakes my noodle.
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