Trouble reconciling Pali/Sanskrit teachings

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Joel327
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Trouble reconciling Pali/Sanskrit teachings

Post by Joel327 »

Hello friends. Everything I say is going to sound divisive, ignorant and hopefully not offensive to anyones tradition. I am a follower/practitioner of the Pali traditions with some limited knowledge of the Sanskrit. I completely trust the Pali suttas but when ever I come across a more Mahayana flavored teaching that sounds practical or true I worry I may be falling into error or wrong view. For example- Some Zen teachings make complete sense but I can’t get past the Buddha nature aspects. The Pali does not teach a Buddha nature. When I try to reconcile these kind of differences in reading the Mahayana sutras I get confused. So are the Pali/Mahayana suttas/sutras compatible, completely different, or a gradual learning process?? Thanks friends
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Re: Trouble reconciling Pali/Sanskrit teachings

Post by Chenda »

Joel327 wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 12:55 am Hello friends. Everything I say is going to sound divisive, ignorant and hopefully not offensive to anyones tradition. I am a follower/practitioner of the Pali traditions with some limited knowledge of the Sanskrit. I completely trust the Pali suttas but when ever I come across a more Mahayana flavored teaching that sounds practical or true I worry I may be falling into error or wrong view. For example- Some Zen teachings make complete sense but I can’t get past the Buddha nature aspects. The Pali does not teach a Buddha nature. When I try to reconcile these kind of differences in reading the Mahayana sutras I get confused. So are the Pali/Mahayana suttas/sutras compatible, completely different, or a gradual learning process?? Thanks friends
That's why a tradition or being part of a school is important. You receive a framework to work with, not just trying to see what fits one's current understanding of the Dharma. You can't reconcile the Pali and Sanskrit without understanding the Mahayana understanding of the Buddha's teachings, i. e., the three turnings among other things, and it shouldn't be something you should be doing as well. If it was possible, the masters of the old far smarter and greater than we are would've already done so.
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Re: Trouble reconciling Pali/Sanskrit teachings

Post by Kai lord »

Joel327 wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 12:55 am The Pali does not teach a Buddha nature. When I try to reconcile these kind of differences in reading the Mahayana sutras I get confused. So are the Pali/Mahayana suttas/sutras compatible, completely different, or a gradual learning process?? Thanks friends
I don't see much of an issue. Buddha nature simply means everyone has that potential to become a Buddha. And as we can see, its rooted (but hidden) in Theravada as well.

In Theravada, Arahants are Paccekabuddha, so in Buddhist terms, they can be considered as one of the three main types of Buddhas along with Pratyekabuddhas and Sammā sambuddhas. And since Theravada believe that anyone can have the potential to become an Arahant or Paccekabuddha at least, they have indirectly hinting on "Buddha nature" within their own teachings without stating it explicitly.

So try not to be too caught with words or terminology and miss the raw meaning.
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Re: Trouble reconciling Pali/Sanskrit teachings

Post by PeterC »

Joel327 wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 12:55 am Hello friends. Everything I say is going to sound divisive, ignorant and hopefully not offensive to anyones tradition. I am a follower/practitioner of the Pali traditions with some limited knowledge of the Sanskrit. I completely trust the Pali suttas but when ever I come across a more Mahayana flavored teaching that sounds practical or true I worry I may be falling into error or wrong view. For example- Some Zen teachings make complete sense but I can’t get past the Buddha nature aspects. The Pali does not teach a Buddha nature. When I try to reconcile these kind of differences in reading the Mahayana sutras I get confused. So are the Pali/Mahayana suttas/sutras compatible, completely different, or a gradual learning process?? Thanks friends
Perfectly compatible from a Mahayana perspective. Incompatible from the perspective of the Pali canon. The Mahayana texts contain concepts that can be inferred but not directly found in the Hinayana/Theravada/neo-Mahavihara (whichever name you prefer) corpus. Shunyata (in the Mahayana form) does not appear in the Pali canon, but it can be inferred from the Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta, for example. There are also texts in the Pali canon that can be read consistent with the concept of tathagatagarbha, but again, not from the perspective of the Pali canon alone.

What you shouldn't do, however, is try to decide whether something is right, wrong, etc. on the basis of how you feel about it, whether it comports with a text or set of texts that you trust, etc. There's what the texts say, and as it's a huge corpus of texts assembled over a long period of time from oral sources, you shouldn't expect everything to be facially consistent. So you need to pick a tradition to practice in and practice according to its instructions: and if you want to know what a text is saying, you have to read it within the framework of its own tenet system.
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Re: Trouble reconciling Pali/Sanskrit teachings

Post by Zhen Li »

Firstly, Mahāyāna teachings (such as Zen) were not originally in Sanskrit, but in Prakrits, so it is not quite right for us to characterise it all as Sanskrit teachings. Eventually Sanskrit became accessible to a wider readership and became a lingua franca (The first half of Sheldon Pollock's book The Language of the Gods in the World of Men explains this process well) and then it became almost socially compulsory that Buddhists started writing in Sanskrit. Even non-Mahāyāna texts were extensively put into Sanskrit, such as the Āgamas—so pretty much everything that exists in Pāli today, would have had some kind of Sanskrit parallel at one point—these are lost due to the destruction of Buddhist libraries in India of course.
PeterC wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 4:30 am What you shouldn't do, however, is try to decide whether something is right, wrong, etc. on the basis of how you feel about it, whether it comports with a text or set of texts that you trust, etc. There's what the texts say, and as it's a huge corpus of texts assembled over a long period of time from oral sources, you shouldn't expect everything to be facially consistent. So you need to pick a tradition to practice in and practice according to its instructions: and if you want to know what a text is saying, you have to read it within the framework of its own tenet system.
:good:
This is a very good point. Feelings like worry are not accurate guides to understanding any Dharma teaching.
Joel327 wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 12:55 am Some Zen teachings make complete sense but I can’t get past the Buddha nature aspects. The Pali does not teach a Buddha nature. When I try to reconcile these kind of differences in reading the Mahayana sutras I get confused. So are the Pali/Mahayana suttas/sutras compatible, completely different, or a gradual learning process??
Even from the Mahāyāna perspective, one would not expect the Pali Nikāyas to teach Buddha Nature. It is definitely something which is revealed gradually for practitioners; people who have just been introduced to Buddhism and people whose natures are suited to the Śrāvaka tradition (e.g. Theravāda) should not be taught such things lest they develop wrong thoughts about them and accidentally slander the Dharma.

The teachings are backwards compatible in this order Nikāyas/Āgamas (e.g. Pali texts) —> Mahāyāna sūtras —> Vajrayāna Tantras. So, while the Nikāyas and Mahāyāna sūtras are compatible from the perspective of the Vajrayāna Tantras, the Mahāyāna sūtras and Vajrayāna tantras would not be compatible from the perspective of the Nikāyas (i.e. forwards compatible). This is simply because the premises needed to make the statements within those texts have not yet been laid out and would be unfounded.

The Dharma vehicles, thus, are entirely gradual and successive and one should not jump randomly form one to another but must have a systematic and gradual approach.

As PeterC said, if you want to understand any teaching, you need to spend time to fully understand it. If you feel more connection with Theravāda, it will not be of benefit for you to dip your feet in Zen. Focus on practicing Theravāda until you feel you are not satisfied with what it teaches, and then study what you feel suits your temperament most—but importantly, spend time to fully understand it and do not just sample or window-shop, take it seriously and treat it as sacred. To do otherwise will be to invite confusion and only highlight incompatibilities instead of the overarching and uniting networks of ideas that make up those systems of thought.
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Re: Trouble reconciling Pali/Sanskrit teachings

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Joel327 wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 12:55 amSo are the Pali/Mahayana suttas/sutras compatible, completely different, or a gradual learning process??
The sutras are quite compatible, things get complicated when it comes to texts that interpret those scriptures, i.e. mainly commentaries and treatises.
If you want to compare doctrines and practices, it's better to start with an accepted summary treatise that's based on major treatises that are based on the entire canon. Even easier if one begins with introductory teachings by contemporary teachers who are knowledgeable about their tradition. But if you want to see the whole picture, that takes studying at least those texts that are the primary sources of a specific community. Naturally, that much studying may take a couple of years or decades.
There are quite a few good introductory works available, just some examples: The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh; Daring Steps by Ringu Tulku; The Core Teachings by Hsing Yun; The Essence of Buddhism by Traleg Kyabgon; The Way to Buddhahood by Yin-shun.
For bringing together some Theravada and Mahayana: Compassion and Emptiness in Early Buddhist Meditation by Bhikkhu Analayo; Small Boat, Great Mountain by Amaro Bhikkhu.
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
Anders
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Re: Trouble reconciling Pali/Sanskrit teachings

Post by Anders »

It depends on your lens of interpretation.

In Mahayana optics, everything is perfectly backwards compatible with mainstream buddhist ('hinayana') sutras. But perhaps this is best showcased by attempting a historical analysis of its developments and how each wave or layer of 'new' teaching was developed as implied by the previous teachings that were now simply being extrapolated according to the circumstances of the time they appeared.

Theravada is not really the best frame of comparison - Historically, they were on the fringes of Indian Buddhism, being a minor school mostly limited to sri lanka (and a cantankerous one at that - their take on the evolution of the early buddhist schools is basically 'all the other schools were wrong and schismatic'). Mahayana sutras and authors were more in dialogue with Sarvastivada, Mahasanghika, Sautrantikas, Vibhajyavāda and Pudgalavada.

Theravada is often understood as simply 'pre-mahayana' Buddhism. But in Indian Buddhism when there were many such pre-mahayana schools, Theravada is more accurately understood as a school defined by its adherence to the Atthakatha, Visuddhimagga, Kathāvatthu and the Theravadin Abhidhamma. Many had their own Abidhammas different from the Theravadin one. And all had their own commentaries, canons, vinaya etc.

In modern times, we are perhaps seeing a splitting of the Theravada into different schools. The traditional Mahaviharas who adhere to the Atthakatha, Visuddhimagga, Kathāvatthu and Abhidhamma. Traditions like the Kammathana (thai forest) tradition which politely ignores these in favour of takes grounded in the suttas that are often quite Mahayana friendly (takes on Nibbana by the likes of Ajahn Amaro and Thannisaro, as well as Luangta Maha Boowa's take on Citta, are all quite reminiscent of Buddhanature). And a more radical modern 'back to the roots' movement that aggresively rejects the traditional Theravadin framework to 'rediscover' Buddhism in light of only the sutras (not unlike how the sautrantikas split from the Sarvastivada 1700 years ago).

Making these distinctions is important in order to realise that Theravada has its own lens of interpretation on the pali suttas. In fact, many of the tenets associated with Mahayana Buddhism today actually originated, or were at any rate found, in Indian pre-mahayana Buddhist schools.

Emptiness for example - when Nagarjuna wrote the mulamadhyamakarikas, he referenced only pre-mahayana sutras to demonstrate his arguments - It's basically a conversion treatise for non-mahayana Buddhists. And his thoughts are at any rate echoed in the non-mahayana Tattvasiddhi-Śāstra by Harivarman. Several of these non-mahayana schools also had bodhisattva pitakas.

The point being - Pre-mahayana Buddhism was far from a monolithic entity. Theravada, as an accident of history, just happens to be the one surviving school. But a lot of tenets that are considered 'Mahayana' today were actually inherited from the pre-mahayana Buddhist schools of mainland India, extrapolated from non-Mahayana sutras, just as the Mahavihara orthodox tenets were.
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Re: Trouble reconciling Pali/Sanskrit teachings

Post by Giovanni »

Joel327 wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 12:55 am Hello friends. Everything I say is going to sound divisive, ignorant and hopefully not offensive to anyones tradition. I am a follower/practitioner of the Pali traditions with some limited knowledge of the Sanskrit. I completely trust the Pali suttas but when ever I come across a more Mahayana flavored teaching that sounds practical or true I worry I may be falling into error or wrong view. For example- Some Zen teachings make complete sense but I can’t get past the Buddha nature aspects. The Pali does not teach a Buddha nature. When I try to reconcile these kind of differences in reading the Mahayana sutras I get confused. So are the Pali/Mahayana suttas/sutras compatible, completely different, or a gradual learning process?? Thanks friends
In my opinion this is only a problem if you find the idea of one underlying Buddhism to be very attractive. If you let go of that idea and think instead in terms of your own karmic streams and your own personality then it becomes what works for you.
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Re: Trouble reconciling Pali/Sanskrit teachings

Post by Caoimhghín »

There are a few hints that tell us that the "Sanskrit" tradition of Buddhism is actually a "Sanskritized" tradition, hence the current term "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit." Sometimes Buddhist texts are in a "pure" pseudo-Brahmanical Sanskrit. Sometimes they are in Prākrit with a "surface-level Sanskrit flavour," i.e. "correcting" things like simplified consonant clusters to a pseudo-Vedic form. "Satta" becomes "sattva" and "śakta." This has the effect of ruining a lot of the pedagogical wordplay in the literature, which then must be re-explained if the original has not been completely forgotten.

Take the exegesis of dependent origination from the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa (hereafter "Wisdom Treatise" to avoid constant cut-and-paste of diacritics) as translated by Venerable Migme Chodron:
From saṃskāra there arises a defiled mind, initial cause of the [present] existence. Because it is aware in the way that a calf is aware of its mother, it is called vijñāna, consciousness.
The Wisdom Treatise makes a pun on the etymology of vijñāna, comparing it with a "vatsa" (vaccha in some Prākrits, Pāli included) or a "calf." This wordplay is only natural if the "j" in "vijñāna" has become more like the "ch" in "vaccha." So we have a possibility of something like "*vach(n)ana" or "*vich(n)ana" for "consciousness," a very odd form of the word AFAIK. I'm not an expert in Middle Indic Prakrits, however, and this is all just guesswork. IMO however, my amateurishness aside, I think that this is one cogent example that shows us that the linguistic history of these texts is a lot more complicated that how some present them.

And this treatise might not even be translated from the same Prākrit as that which underlies the oldest of Mahāyāna scriptures.

Also, look at this from the Mahāvibhāṣa as translated by (I think) Ven Dhammajoti (apologies if this attribution is incorrect):
As it is the cessation of defilements, it is called nirvana. As it is the extinction of the triple fires, it is called nirvana. As it is the tranquility of three characteristics, it is called nirvana. As there is separation from bad odor, it is called nirvana. As there is separation from destinies, it is called nirvana. Vana means forest and nir means escape. As it is the escape from the forest of the aggregates, it is called nirvana. Vana means weaving and nir means negation. As there is no weaving, it is called nirvana. In a way that one with thread can easily be woven while one without that cannot be woven, in that way one with action and defilements can easily be woven into life and death while an asaiksa who is without any action and defilements cannot be woven into life and death. That is why it is called nirvana. Vana means new birth and nir means negation. As there is no more new birth, it is called nirvana. Vana means bondage and nir means separation. As it is separation from bondage, it is called nirvana. Vana means all discomforts of life and death and nir means passing beyond. As it passes beyond all discomforts of life and death, it is called nirvana.
All of these words, cessation of the defilements ("nivāraṇa"), etc., all used to sound either completely identical to or very like the word "nirvāṇa." But none of them used to be in Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, it is mostly likely that these terms are actually more dissimilar than in the original Prākrit.
Then, the monks uttered this gāthā:

These bodies are like foam.
Them being frail, who can rejoice in them?
The Buddha attained the vajra-body.
Still, it becomes inconstant and ruined.
The many Buddhas are vajra-entities.
All are also subject to inconstancy.
Quickly ended, like melting snow --
how could things be different?

The Buddha passed into parinirvāṇa afterward.
(T1.27b10 Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra DĀ 2)
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Re: Trouble reconciling Pali/Sanskrit teachings

Post by Kai lord »

Anders wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 10:49 am .

Theravada is not really the best frame of comparison - Historically, they were on the fringes of Indian Buddhism, being a minor school mostly limited to sri lanka (and a cantankerous one at that - their take on the evolution of the early buddhist schools is basically 'all the other schools were wrong and schismatic'). Mahayana sutras and authors were more in dialogue with Sarvastivada, Mahasanghika, Sautrantikas, Vibhajyavāda and Pudgalavada.

Theravada is often understood as simply 'pre-mahayana' Buddhism. But in Indian Buddhism when there were many such pre-mahayana schools, Theravada is more accurately understood as a school defined by its adherence to the Atthakatha, Visuddhimagga, Kathāvatthu and the Theravadin Abhidhamma. Many had their own Abidhammas different from the Theravadin one. And all had their own commentaries, canons, vinaya etc.
Since we are on the evolution of Buddhist thoughts and Philosophy topic, I am very much inclined to place Thervada between Sarvastivada and Sautrantikas in the order of tenet development.

Sautrantikas and Theravada, although did criticize each other, share much similarities like rejecting arahat regression, rejecting the existence of past and future dharmas, focusing on the present, a mindstream (bhavanga) that is largely a continuum of thought moments, etc.

The major differences lie in how both schools treat nirvana, bija, bardo, particles and sub moments found in each thought moment

For Theravada, each thought moment can be further divided into arising, duration and ceasing whereas the Sautrantikas just used two sub moments of arising and ceasing and do away with the duration.

For the atoms, Sautrantikas followed sarvastivada in inserting partless particles which is ironically closer to what we learned in modern particle physics.

For the Thervadins, they see each atom as a congregation of different elements combining together, unable to separate any component from the rest.

At any rate before I digress further, hopefully more scholarly works will be put in this area as it will help to answer many important questions and provide more clarify in understanding the evolution of different buddhism schools.
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Re: Trouble reconciling Pali/Sanskrit teachings

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Joel327 wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 12:55 amI can’t get past the Buddha nature aspects. The Pali does not teach a Buddha nature. When I try to reconcile these kind of differences in reading the Mahayana sutras I get confused. So are the Pali/Mahayana suttas/sutras compatible, completely different, or a gradual learning process?? Thanks friends
I don’t think the two are incompatible.
It boils down to whether you think that when the kleshas are overcome, what remains is a Buddha.

It’s sort of like a lump of stone becoming a Buddha statue.
If the stone does not have the potential to be cut to make a statue (like it’s too crumbly or too hard or whatever) then no matter how much you work at it, you will never make a statue out of it.
Similarly, if beings did not have the potential to avoid samsaric rebirth, no amount of sitting meditation or discipline or removing kleshas or whatever would matter. Buddha’s teaching the dharma would be pointless.

At the same time, there’s no inherent “Buddha shape” hiding inside a block of stone. It’s not like discovering a fossil, where if you remove the hardened mud from around the petrified (calcified?) skeleton, that you find the dinosaur that was already there. You have to cut a stone into the shape you desire.

So, if someone (Theravada, Mahayana, it doesn’t matter) thinks of Buddha-nature (tathagatagharba) in this way, it’s not quite accurate, because tathagatagharba isn’t a “thing” as such. But if one regards the mind’s original nature as being like the clear and unobstructed quality , of a clear glass window hidden by grime and dust (not the glass itself, but the quality) this is more accurate.

Perhaps the question is whether sentient beings are burdened with some Buddhist version of “original sin” meaning that since we are born clinging and grasping, that samsara is our “original nature”. I’ve never read any Pali suttas expressing that belief. Perhaps you could mention what is in the Theravada teachings (if there is) which might suggest this. What is the point of conflict for you?
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Re: Trouble reconciling Pali/Sanskrit teachings

Post by DNS »

Mahayana and Theravada are both very big. There are differences in doctrines within Mahayana schools and also within Theravada. If one wants, it's not that hard to focus on the similarities, not the differences and practice a sort-of pan-buddhism, non-sectarian buddhism.

9 points unifying Theravada & Mahayana.
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