ME01

Buddhist Doctrines of the Pāli Nikāyas: Analysis and Interpretation

ME 01 25-02-2011     (2:00 to 3:00)

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The course consists of a critical and comprehensive study of the Buddhist doctrines of the Pāli Nikāyas, in the light of the doctrinal elaborations in the Abhidhamma and the Pāli exegetical literature. It will be also take into consideration the question raised and the solutions offered by modern scholars on the interpretation of early Buddhist doctrines.

The diverse trends discernible in the early Buddhist discourses as to the nature of the world of sensory experience and the reasons that could be adduced in grasping their significance within the context of the religio-philosophical system of early Buddhism will form an integral part of this study. The course will be based on the primary sources and supplemented, here necessary, with the Abhihammic and commentarial expositions. It is the interests of this course to gain an ability to read the Pāli Suttas in the original.

By early Buddhism we mean that creed whose texts are preserved in the Pāli language and especially in the Vinaya and Nikāya sections of the Pāli Tipiṭaka. The following four Nikāya: Niganikāya, Majjhimanikāya, Samyuttanikāya and Anguttaranikāya. The chronological boundaries of this early Buddhism are necessarily based on the generally accepted dates for the compilation of Canonical Pāli Literature. Assuming that the ‘parinibbana of the Buddha’ occurred 486 B.C., One aspect of Early Buddhism when we says, with regard to the ability to
remember past lives, that the pāli Nikāya's are apparently not interested in accounting for this memory by a theory.

Translations of the oldest existing Buddhist writings are changing how scholars believe the religion developed. The practices of the path and the destination or goals of both religions can be different. Theravada Buddhism is relatively conservative, and generally closest to early Buddhism. Mahayana and Vajrayana appeared that later schools of Buddhism have developed a variety of other ritual and influenced by the existing religious cultures of India and China. Little differences can be found between later schools of Buddhism and Hinduism. There is a huge difference when comparing Hinduism to the teachings of the Buddha as recorded in the Pali Canon of the Theravada school of Buddhism.

The historical background out of which Buddhism arose and emphasizes the teachings of early Buddhism. By comparing the earliest Buddhist literature in both the Pāli Nikāyas and the Chinese Agamas, the author has established the common base of earliest Buddhism most free of sectarian rivalry. Topics such as epistemology, causality, existence, karma, ethics, and nirvana are discussed in detail. Buddha’s Life and early teaching gives the background to the development of Buddhism. As we cover the first few centuries after the death of the Buddha, we will encounter lot of words. Don’t be put off by these words or try too hard to learn them. While we need to use the correct terms, and this will give you a brief history, many practicing Buddhists today have little or no understanding of this evolution. And it’s really not that important in being a Buddhist other that from a historical point of view.

The commentaries had been preserved in India before Thera Mahinda came to Sri Lanka and that he brought whatever available materials, Tripiṭaka and Aṭṭhakathā, from India to Sri Lanka. So the beginning of commentarial tradition in Sri Lanka can go back to the time of Mahinda, that time is, the third century B.C. As we saw before, the texts that translated into Sīhala and again retranslated to pāli later are not one hundred percent identical with the present texts. In the history of the Pāli literature, we find reference only to very important and famous persons in the history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka such as Thera Mahinda, Devānampiyatissa and the King Ᾱśoka.

We find the word Aṭṭhakathā in the Pāli commentaries, it refers to the original commentaries that brought from India; anything added to it later in general is called Mahāaṭṭhakathā or Mūla-aṭṭhakathā ‘Mahāpaccariyā-aṭṭhakatha, Kurundī-aṭṭhakatha’ in the Pāli commentaries.
In the Bahuvedaniya Sutta of the Majjhimanikaya, when two disciples of the Buddha – a monk and a layman, had an argument on the nature of feeling, the Buddha told them that both of them were correct because they adopted equally effective approaches to the subject. It is on this occasion that the Buddha told Ananda, “pariyaya-desito ayam Ananda maya dhammo”. What this means is that the Dhamma has been presented in many different ways and in many different forms (aneka-pariyayena).There are different of feeling. In the Aṅguttara-nikāya commentary (Manorathapūraṇī) Buddhaghosa's wrote “sabbe khayavayam gatä ' tie vattum vattati.”

Khayavayam means degeneration and cessation, these are the natural way of the mind and its objects – this is khayavayam. Once the mind is practicing and experiencing this, it doesn’t have to go following up on or searching for anything else – it will be keeping abreast of things with mindfulness.

What is the correct way to practice? You must walk the middle path, which means keeping track of the various mental states of happiness and suffering. This is the correct way to practice, you maintain mindfulness. These four qualities in Pāli sound so soothing, so nice. They are Metta, Karuna, Mudita, Upekkha. So Metta is loving-kindness, friendliness. Karuna is
compassion. Mudita is sympathetic joy. And Upekkha is having a non-reactive, equanimous mind. So it shows that even practicing loving-kindness for a few minutes is really good. Once the mind is practicing and experiencing this.

This is the way things are. This applies to the practice of sila just the same. Practicing samadhi is the same. Keep practicing, calming the mind little by little. If you start thinking, it doesn’t matter; if you’re not thinking, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is to gain an understanding of the mind. Some people want to make the mind peaceful, but don’t know what true peace really is. They don’t know the peaceful mind. There are two kinds of peacefulness - one is the peace that comes through samadhi, the other is the peace that comes through panna.

by Ashin Indaka(Kyone Pyaw)