Pali studies/Reading in the original

So I just ordered my first Pali textbook this weekend! I'm gonna try to pick up another, and some audio help, but I'm really excited to start crunching down on learning the language enough to read the suttas.

Do any of you know a little Pali, and further, what are your guys' experience with reading the texts in their original language? Waste of time? Liberating next-level insight? Somewhere in between?

Not an answer, but went to a local Theravada sangha this weekend for an all day meditation. Their library proudly holds the entire Pali canon in.... THAI. Does anyone in Brazil speak or read Thai? No. It was a gift I guess. If anyone wants to chip in to buy them an English one...

And as to answers, a friend sent me this quote a few days ago:

as buddha says (Dhammapada II.19-20):
"Those who
recite many scriptures but do not practice their teachings are like a
cowherd counting another’s cows. They do not share in the joys of the
spiritual life. But those who may know few scriptures but practice their
teachings, who overcome all lust, hatred, and delusion, live with a
pure mind in the highest wisdom. They stand without external supports
and share in the joys of the spiritual life".

I replied, but if you recite many scriptures you can then quote me things like the above, making a good impression.

I don't have any experience reading Pali or Sanskrit, so I'm interested to hear how it goes for you. I invite you to update the forum with any discoveries you find interesting.

I learned to read Koine Greek and biblical Hebrew during my first couple years of Bible College. Greek was much easier to learn, but both were fun. Having an understanding of the nuances of the original language really opens the reader into the world of the authors of these great texts... or at least gets one closer.

To do it right (in my opinion), it's important to pair the gramatical side of exegesis with the historical side. It isn't enough to simply read context out of the text, without any additional sources. So, if there are any texts available to that provide a window into the cultural landscape of the authors and/or the communities who preserved the text for hundreds of years (and thus, may have had a hand in shaping it), that's all worth reviewing as well.

Since you asked --

I think that unless you have a kind of scholarly passion for Buddhism/and or an ambition for some kind of religious leadership role (both fine things of course), I don't really see the point in learning how to read that stuff in Pali.

I think practice is mostly about becoming intimate with your actual life as it unfolds now, today - new. And this is something non-conceptual and non-verbal and not intellectual -- for the most part.

There is "Buddhism" and there is "practice." The former can aid in and point to the latter but they are ultimately two very different things.

I was admiring that scholarly passion this weekend, in the guy who was leading the little retreat I went on. He was clearly so passionate about Buddhism, and had done some deep study of the texts, and you could see him applying teaching methods he had learned. He was just a kid - in his late 20s maybe (anyone under 35 seems like a kid these days!).

I also had that thought, like you mentioned Mike, that Buddhism and practice are two different things. And I was sitting there watching him teach and thinking, some of this is so useful, because it points to things I can apply to my practice; and some of it is not, because it is about being a Buddhist. But I have been finding myself wanting to study this stuff again lately, after years of not really being interested in study much. A lot of the "scriptures" are lessons in how to practice, written by people who had deep practices, as teaching tools for others to learn to practice. Other stuff seems more about cultural forms - what kind of clothing to wear, and how many times to bow, and whether you eat this or that before or after this time of day...

But then again, those kind of rituals can help a person motivate and maintain a practice, so that's useful sometimes.

In any case, if I were a Buddhist with scholarly passion I would probably delve into reading texts in the original languages, too. Besides being interesting, it keeps alive an ancient knowledge, and that's good.

Mike, I respectfully disagree. As much as the work of the thing takes place primarily on the cushion, dharma practice (if you don't want to talk about Buddhism for now) would not have assumed the dizzying variety of forms and evolutions that it has if it were entirely a non-verbal, non-conceptual, non-intellectual practice. Right View is the first and foundational aspect of the eightfold path—you need to have some understanding of what's going on, you need to be able to recognize the patterns of behavior in your mind and in the world, to be able to direct your energy in the right direction.

So as long as Right View is a factor of the path, I think that understanding the language of the scriptures has value too. And Right View is a perfect example—why do we call it Right View? With many of these concepts, it's very very difficult to acquire a nuanced understanding of what it is we're talking about, what their implications are, just from a direct parse of the English translations. 'Right View'—right as in, what, correct? Orthodox? Perfect? Infinite?

So we come to understand Right View is a term of art, which stands for a whole constellation of meanings and valencies. Just like 'suffering' isn't really suffering. It might as well be stress, or unsatisfactoriness, or Weltschmerz.

In other words, we get to a point where if we want to understand the concepts (and I contend that everybody should want to understand the concepts, to one degree or another, as an essential element of samma ditthi), the translations we deal with start to show their limitations. We run up against the edges of the English language—that's when I think it's value for any practitioner, not just an academic, to understand how the words work in the foundational texts. I think it is very useful, as long as one considers these questions with the reason as well as the Sitzfleisch, to be able to think about a concept like dukkha on its own terms, rather than having to think of it as suffering-except-also-something-different-from-suffering.

That's what I'm looking forward to, anyway. I also love language, and I think Pali is a beautiful language worth learning on its own terms. Finally I am very interested in the poetry in the Pali Canon, and—more as an artist than a practitioner, surely—I see no way to understand and appreciate the verse forms in the Canon without understanding the rules and construction of Pali poetry in the original.

PS: Allow me to acknowledge in advance that my argument rests on the validity of the eightfold path, and thus falls into the bucket of 'Buddhism' and not 'Practice'. But if one wishes to make that particular distinction, where something becomes Buddhism by holding certain things as true about the very nature of practice—ie, that fulfillment of the whole of the eightfold path is necessary for good practice and good results—then your argument that that which is Buddhism and not Practice is irrelevant only holds if you really contend that Buddhism itself is inferior to some other, presumably more stripped-down Practice.

In other words, you can argue that learning Pali might be culturally Buddhist but it is in no ways conducive to practice. But you can't say the same about concern with Right View, or a focus on all aspects of the eightfold path, without arguing that many forms of Buddhism itself actually have it fundamentally wrong about what constitutes good practice at all.

Zach -

Great reply.

I wonder if this small exchange really clearly shows the distinction between our two approaches as well as reveals that I am not really a Buddhist after all. Really, I'm just a person who wants intimacy with life and I'll use whatever I can find to help me with that and Buddhist teachings are some of my favorite helpers. But I think that is it as far as me and Buddhism goes - if I had to choose I'd rather be a Christian.

My recent forary into the local zen group has been, basically, a disaster in that I just don't feel comfortable there and am completely reluctant to just jump in a join in. Nice people, though.

You are a Buddhist and -- correct me if I am wrong -- I think that you feel comfortable being part of Mr. Korda's sangha there in NY. That being the case, yes, the entire "eight-fold path" should be important and relevant to you.

Well, I would certainly hesitate to draw any distinctions from this particular discussion about who's a real Buddhist and who isn't—especially when our culture, very blessedly I think, has been so reluctant heretofore about demanding bonafides and rooting out heresy. I guess there's a larger discussion—or maybe debate—possible about what elements of the traditional, or full-fledged Buddhist practice would be considered superfluous or outdated or, as they say, cultural accretions in this newly leveled meditation market; and, for that matter, about the what it is that those of us who took the refuges, bought the t-shirt, drank the kool aid find crucial about embracing the totality of practice.

I didn't mean to make this a debate about who is a "real Buddhist" or not. Can't a person just be a Buddhist because they say they are?

Maybe there is a debate out there on all that that I didn't know about.

I think that your point was that if we are talking about "Buddhism," about really jumping in and having faith in the totality of the Buddhist teachings, then concepts ARE important. Thus, to me, concepts are not so important but to a serious Buddhist, they might be?

I'm probably getting in over my head here.

I'm not sure I'd consider any of the elements of traditional full-fledged Buddhist practice superfluous or outdated, myself. There is an immense beauty in traditional practice. I guess I'd see it more like this:

Dharma, or the Truth of things, is simply what it is.

Then around that on all sides are ways of understanding it, which are the diversity of human traditions that engage with Truth, from Tibetan Buddhism to Sufism to Pragmatic Dharma to Christian Mysticism and on and on (each with all its variations, sub-schools, reactionary spin-off groups, etc). Each path has its own beauty and appeal and metaphors and methods. Every one of those approaches can potentially be useful. Some will be more clear and useful to some people than others. Some particular variants may be deeper or more shallow, more or less time tested, harder or easier for certain people to understand, and so on. Some may even be quite poorly thought out or less effective or less proven than others.

If I'm being too "it's all good" here, feel free to say so. I'm just thinking out loud.

I guess what I'm saying is this:

1. I feel as confident as one really CAN feel about these things, without being dogmatic, that engaging, at least to some extent, with every element of the eightfold path is necessary to ensure that a dharma practice (and BOY does that term need defining) will proceed along healthy and productive lines. 2. I really, really hope that there is a way to express that sentiment without implying that any practitioner who does consider themselves a follower of the Buddha is wrong, insincere, or in contravenience with any orthodoxy or authenticity or exclusive definition thereof.

Real buddhists sit on zafus with kapok stuffing. Buckwheat hulls are heresy. That's all I know for sure.

Zach, I think by and large the eightfold path is not particular to Buddhism, or it can be seen as not so, should one care to go there or not be hung up on it. What aspects of it require one be a Buddhist?

Just for example (cutting and pasting from a website):

Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical
and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which
means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion,
and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop
compassion.

All of these are simply - to me - ways of enacting the qualities of enlightenment. One exercises this attention to grasping and aversion, seeking equanimity; one develops compassion. Because releasing of grasping and aversion is a quality of the awakened mind, and compassion is a quality of awakening.

So it's not something Buddhist, but simply a way of enacting Truth, so as to encourage the recognition of Truth.

The others, at a glance, seem to me also ways to help sustain and cultivate a practice which will encourage the recognition of Truth.

And we really do need a more non-denominational word for Dharma, which includes non-Buddhist practices.

Real buddhists sit on zafus with kapok stuffing. Buckwheat hulls are heresy. That's all I know for sure.

-shargrol

See, this is exactly why I started this topic: because our brother shargrol, being so keen-sighted, and so full of wisdom and radiant discernment, is using funny words like 'zafu'. But what does 'zafu' mean? Only by studying Pali can I know for sure.

Ona, I have no views on what aspects of the eightfold path require one to be a Buddhist—though if I did, I might point to Right View being the requirement for a couple basic points of doctrine, which is as close as you can get to that sort of thing—my assertion was just the reverse, that being a Buddhist requires one to follow the eightfold path.

@cruxdestruct - I'm a language geek, and yes, I've been playing with Pali. It's a fun language, a bit like my native German in many ways, with all those prefixes altering the meaning of the root words, and the case system. Well, the two are very distantly related, after all.

I used Ven. Narada Thera's pali primer. Very compact - every word is significant! It's a free download on the internet, and the answers to the exercises can be found online, too.

We could exchange notes, or do exercises together via mail, if you like. Message me if you're interested.

As to my experience of reading old texts in Pali - I only tried to decipher the metta sutta so far (apart from the 1-sentence exercises in Ven. Narada's textbook). It's a poetic text, and that makes it a bit harder in some ways than prose. No next-level insight break-throughs there, but still: The result was a really slow reading of the text, reflecting on almost every word. That alone is strong practice (The Christians have something called "lectio divina" - holy reading - which is similar).

@Ona - that was pali in thai script you saw at the temple. Pali has no script of its own. The burmese use their script, as do the Sri lankans and Cambodians, and so do we westerners (adding a few accents to make more letters).

Cheers,
Florian

Fascinating, Florian. Thanks for clarifying!

Here's my favourite Pali site: http://pali.pratyeka.org/