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Comparative studies on sutra [clears throat].
The question here is attitude and intellect as well as a sense of commitment or faith,
devotion, whatever you’d like to call, brought together,
that the various sutras and the teachings of Buddha in a written form
that we could understand as up-to-date situation rather than historical document as such.
And I think it is very interesting that for us to get into
our own everyday life situation at the same time,
that how we handle ourselves when we write letters to friends, our teacher,
our relatives, and ourselves, that there’s a sense of
that you’re involved with a area of communication in a very solid and very definite level.
You may be freaked out at the time or feels depressing or feel that there is
nothing much to say in terms of composing a letter to your friend or relative or whatever,
but nevertheless there's some sense of continuity takes place.
When we talk about sutra we are talking in terms of how Buddha communicated to us,
that the sutra could become up-to- date living situation
and the practical situation for everyone to work with.
That is enormous achievement; it’s fantastic;
and we might feel that we are intimidated by such enormous achievement;
but at the same time the sutra situation is also continued
in relating with how we relate to the teachings at the same time.
Sutra literally means confluence, junction; Tibetan word for sutra is "do" [doe],
which means junction, confluence.
Usually it is very descriptive in terms of how an experience is concerned,
that experience of openness and also experience of concern, concern to life situations,
sense of salvation, sense of attainment, enlightenment,
whatever we have concerned ourselves that brought us together
into the practicing of the teachings. Sense of concern.
So the junction here is that that the openness and a wide vision, aerial point of vision,
seeing things as, as it is, as it were, and seeing things as literally,
that meet with your particular demand in the sense of particular situation that you have,
either that you have a sense of confusion, sense of need for clarification,
whatever that you are experiencing currently, presently at that particular point.
So working together from that point of view, sense of openness from that point of view.
So, on a whole we could say that the purpose and meaning of sutra
is meeting point of vision and practicality,
which is saying prajna and upaya are working together
at this particular point as far as sutra is concerned.
That the certain particular sutra, in fact all of them, are compiled after the death of Buddha,
mahaparinirvana of the Buddha, by a council of disciples brought together and compiled them,
with certain particular record, and certain particular discussions; and they are oftening...
often named after the place and named after the situation and named after the people.
And for instance the alanka avatara sutra is named after the situation
where Buddha was in the country of the Lankas, Ceylon,
that that particular discourse that took place are named after that.
It is quite different from just naming the title of your book that you’re just about to publish;
you’ve got to send it to your publisher and you have to come up with a catchy title;
but it’s just simply named.
So quite similarly, we could have sutra called Boulder av...Boulder avatara sutra.
And sometimes the sutra is named after the
people who are involved in the basic conversation;
and named after that the discussion of the person who involved with a particular practice,
or particular study, such as the Angulimala Sutta,
that the Indian warrior, who had become suddenly extremely aggressive
that he’s been murdering everybody and his last person that he would like to ***
is his mother and the Buddha, which makes 2,000 people finally.
And he collects everybody’s thumbs as mala, which he wears around his neck.
So he tried to chase his mother and failing that, mother took refuge to the Buddha
and they... he then chased Buddha.
And they’re all discussions involved around about that aggression
with enormous insight that only a mother had.
As well as his aggression is, is problematic, so there was another example of sutra.
And then, another type of sutra that is the purely and simply relating with the subject matter,
that the topic is discussed and therefore sutra is named after that.
Such is like the Prajnaparamita hridaya is the Heart sutra as popularly known as.
And also the another type of sutra is that what sutra should be functioning,
what the sutra particularly been doing, what is the purpose with that particular sutra,
such as like the Vajracchedika Sutra, or Diamond Sutra as known popularly,
Diamond Cutting Sutra, which is based on the idea of cutting dualistic notion of the ego.
That is the purpose of the sutra, is to cut through.
So the basic point of sutra is from that way of experiencing a sense of
true perception within one’s self, that how you are relating to a teaching
and how you’re relating with your teacher at the same time.
The question here is how we could assimilate 108 volumes of sutras,
the discourses, the descriptions, of the Buddha’s teaching, in presently three languages,
maybe four. And all of those languages are written in oriental language,
either Sanskrit or Pali or Chinese, Japanese, whatever.
And the only sutras that’ve been translated into the English language that we have so far
is maybe two percent of the basic sutras, maybe less, actually;
8 (?) point of the 108 sutras being translated into the English language.
And so far as the understanding of the sutra is concerned,
that we have made a relationship with that, very precisely and very definitely, that the...
the main sutras are Prajnaparamita Sutra,
and the some of the Theravadin traditions of the nikayas have been translated
and particularly meditation manuals of sutras,
such as like the Satipatthana Sutta and the sutras like that be translated into the English language
with the commentaries and so forth, that we in the West feel extremely stupid,
to say the least that not having enough open understanding to Buddhism, Buddha dharma;
that we have just fragmented those 108 volumes;
just fragmented a few chapters in the one big volume, has been translated.
And how on earth we going to learn the rest of it? And how are we going to translate them?
How we going to learn the languages?
It’s feels very bad and doesn’t feel particularly hopeful that we can’t do the whole thing.
At least one person couldn’t do that and you need a hundred great masters
who are maybe involved with each volume, thoroughly and fully,
but each volume contains lots of sutras at the same time;
so maybe we need thousand great masters, gurus, exponents,
who are specialized on one particular sutra of their particular volume,
can only show us the way [clears his throat],
tell us what the Buddha had said the rest of his life.
That we have no ideas about that; and in the western language as is learned.
As far as translations is concerned, that trying to collect or learn sutras
without being a linguistic scholar seems to be absolutely hopeless.
And ironically it’s terrible.
In fact it is impossible to understand what the Buddha had said
and we don’t even have a notion of when Nirvana,
it’s one simple word that’s been over and over and over used by all kinds of people,
but we really don’t know what nirvana is all about. What does mean nirvana? Tell us.
Well, it, it m- m- means freedom, salvation, sure; [laughter] but what else means?
What does mean freedom? What does mean salvation?
Well, everything’s going to be okay. [laughter]
We don’t have to go through the hassle of life any more.
That we begin to feel that we’re just barely touching on the one little corner,
very tiny weeny little corner of fragmented or even that little piece of sand,
which created a part of gigantic stupa which is beyond our imagination,
but really just approaching the whole thing from miniature insect’s point of view,
not having any comprehension of anything at all, none whatsoever,
that what the Buddha had said, what he taught.
Not that we are stupidly paralyzed, but we don’t have opportunities and resources, materials,
that, that the lot of books got lost and a lot of books haven’t translated;
so we have no hope from that point of view. And what we are, been discussing so far
throughout the Path Class, so called Path Class, is concerned,
we been just trying to study one corner of that particular statue, or stupa.
Maybe you've be studying the foundations
and maybe we have been mowing the lawn,
lawn of that particular ground where the statue is to be built.
Maybe we haven’t touched the actual statue at all, actual stupa at all.
Yet we feel that we’re doing something here and we feel pretty good, we’re learning and,
and things being meaningful and inspiring and so forth.
So how we going to handle that situation of
if you want to understand the real meaning of comparative sutra
that we’ve got to dive into a enormous ocean
that’s much bigger than any ocean on earth;
which we can’t even imagine what it would be like,
because we only have seen the ocean on earth?
We think it’s fantastically big, gigantic, enormous, that we can sail across,
that we can throw nuclear tests on all kinds of places,
and we begin to feel that our ocean that what we have is enormous, gigantic;
but from that point of view and the teachings of Buddha is concerned,
that particular ocean we have on earth is the puddle,
the water that they collected in the cow’s foot print.
As far as the basic sutra is concerned, that is,
trying to bring together that junction of intellect, experience, and skillful actions together.
That the teachings of Buddha are not particularly sensational,
for that matter not particular uplifting; but it is so frightening at the same time;
because it doesn’t give us any room to operate our own little tricks that we have.
And once you begin to hear the teachings of Buddha
that you feel that you’ve become belittled; that his point of view is so enormous, gigantic,
that things what we’re trying to operate in our own little humble spiritual scenes,
what weird little things what we do in the insy-winsy little style,
that we feel that we’ve been bewildered, that our little projects automatically collapse.
And so finally we could say that teachings of Buddha is sky, sky falling on our head.
That enormous approach, enormous mind, that’s operating in a greater style,
and a greater understanding, that we do our little trip here, our little trip there,
becomes somewhat meaningless, trivial, and an adolescent situation;
that the point of enlightenment and the teachings of Buddha at this point
is to make us to inspire to grow up in that level,
grow up in that level of greater thinking, enlightened situation.
At the same time, if you try to design that great whatever it is, that we’re back to square one,
and we are back to our little world.
So I hope tonight I’ve able to put you off, enough,
so that you don’t seek for enlightenment; give in, give up, whatever.
Well, time for discussions. [laughter]