CHAPTER FOUR

Understanding the Buddha’s Teachings

When we hear a Dharma talk or study a sutra, our only job is to remain open. Usually when we hear or read something new, we just compare it to our own ideas. If it is the same, we accept it and say that it is correct. If it is not, we say it is incorrect. In either case, we learn nothing. If we read or listen with an open mind and an open heart, the rain of the Dharma will penetrate the soil of our consciousness.¹

The gentle spring rain permeates the soil of my soul.

A seed that has lain deeply in the earth for many years just smiles.²

While reading or listening, don’t work too hard. Be like the earth. When the rain comes, the earth only has to open herself up to the rain. Allow the rain of the Dharma to come in and penetrate the seeds that are buried deep in your consciousness. A teacher cannot give you the truth. The truth is already in you. You only need to open yourself — body, mind, and heart — so that his or her teachings will penetrate your own seeds of understanding and enlightenment. If you let the words enter you, the soil and the seeds will do the rest of the work.

The transmission of the teachings of the Buddha can be divided into three streams: Source Buddhism, Many-Schools Buddhism, and Mahayana Buddhism. Source Buddhism includes all the teachings the Buddha gave during his lifetime. One hundred forty years after the Buddha’s Great Passing Away, the Sangha divided into two schools: Mahasanghika (literally “majority,” referring to those who wanted changes) and Sthaviravada (literally, “School of Elders,” referring to those who opposed the changes advocated by the Mahasanghikas). A hundred years after that, the Sthaviravada divided into two branches — Sarvastivada (“the School that Proclaims Everything Is”) and Vibhajyavada (“the School that Discriminates”). The Vibhajyavadins, supported by King Ashoka, flourished in the Ganges valley, while the Sarvastivadins went north to Kashmir.

For four hundred years during and after the Buddha’s lifetime, his teachings were transmitted only orally. After that, monks in the Tamrashatiya School (“those who wear coppercolored robes”) in Sri Lanka, a derivative of the Vibhajyavada School, began to think about writing the Buddha’s discourses on palm leaves, and it took another hundred years to begin. By that time, it is said that there was only one monk who had memorized the whole canon and that he was somewhat arrogant. The other monks had to persuade him to recite the discourses so they could write them down. When we hear this, we feel a little uneasy knowing that an arrogant monk may not have been the best vehicle to transmit the teachings of the Buddha.

Even during the Buddha’s lifetime, there were people such as the monk Arittha, who misunderstood the Buddha’s teachings and conveyed them incorrectly.³ It is also apparent that some of the monks who memorized the sutras over the centuries did not understand their deepest meaning, or at the very least, they forgot or changed some words. As a result, some of the Buddha’s teachings were distorted even before they were written down. Before the Buddha attained full realization of the path, for example, he had tried various methods to suppress his mind, and they did not work. In one discourse, he recounted:

I thought, Why don’t I grit my teeth, press my tongue against my palate, and use my mind to repress my mind? Then, as a wrestler might take hold of the head or the shoulders of someone weaker than he, and, in order to restrain and coerce that person, he has to hold him down constantly without letting go for a moment, so I gritted my teeth, pressed my tongue against my palate, and used my mind to suppress my mind. As I did this, I was bathed in sweat. Although I was not lacking in strength, although I maintained mindfulness and did not fall from mindfulness, my body and my mind were not at peace, and I was exhausted by the striving, even though the painful feelings that arose in my body were not able to overwhelm my mind.⁴

Obviously, the Buddha was telling us not to practice in this way. Yet this passage was later inserted into other discourses to convey exactly the opposite meaning:

Just as a wrestler takes hold of the head or the shoulders of someone weaker than himself, restrains and coerces that person, and holds him down constantly, not letting go for one moment, so a monk who meditates in order to stop all unwholesome thoughts of desire and aversion, when these thoughts continue to arise, should grit his teeth, press his tongue against his palate, and do his best to use his mind to beat down and defeat his mind.⁵

There are other instances where teachings of the Buddha have been inserted in the wrong place. For instance the teaching of the Twelve Links of Conditioned Genesis (to be discussed in chapter 27) have been inserted in many sutras where they do not belong to explain the cycle of birth and death, when in fact the sutras are about the transcendence of birth and death. They have been wrongly inserted in the Katyayanagotra Sutra, or the Discourse on the Middle Way.

Often, we need to study several discourses and compare them in order to understand which is the true teaching of the Buddha. It is like stringing precious jewels together to make a necklace. If we see each sutra in light of the overall body of teachings, we will not be attached to any one teaching. With comparative study and looking deeply into the meaning of the texts, we can surmise what is a solid teaching that will help our practice and what is probably an incorrect transmission.

By the time the Buddha’s discourses were written down in Pali in Sri Lanka, there were eighteen or twenty schools, and each had its own recension of the Buddha’s teachings. These schools did not tear the teachings of the Buddha apart but were threads of a single garment. A number of these recensions exist today. The Pali canon contains the recension that originated with the Tamrashatiya school, and the Chinese and Tibetan canons contain recensions from a number of other schools, Sarvastivada being most prominent. The Sarvastivada and the Tamrashatiya recensions were written down at about the same time. The former was written down in Pali and the latter in Sanskrit. Other schools used other Indian languages and Prakrit. The sutras that were written down in Pali in Sri Lanka are known as the Southern transmission (also known as Mahaviharavasin tradition). The Sarvastivada texts, known as the Northern transmission, exist in Sanskrit only in fragmented form. Fortunately, they were translated into Chinese and Tibetan, and many of these translations are still available. We have to remember that the Buddha did not speak Pali, Sanskrit, or Prakrit. It is surmised that he spoke a language close to Pali and some think this was Ardhamagadhi, and there is no record of the Buddha’s words in his own language.

By comparing the equivalent sutras in the Pali and Chinese canons, we can see which teachings must have preceded Buddhism’s dividing into schools. When the sutras in both canons are the same, we can conclude that what they say must have been there before the division. When the recensions are different, we can surmise that one or both might be incorrect. The Northern transmission preserved some discourses better, and the Southern transmission preserved others better. That is the advantage of having two transmissions to compare.

The third stream of the Buddha’s teaching, Mahayana Buddhism, arose in the first or second century B.C.E.⁶ During the time of Schools’ Buddhism, there were some monks who started to live a life completely divorced from the rest of the society. The laypeople were concerned only with making offerings and supporting the monks.

That is why at that time there arose among Buddhist lay, as well as monastic, practitioners the idea of popularizing Buddhism. From this sprouted the Mahayana way of thinking. It was a movement aimed at developing the deep sources of Buddhist thought and reviving the tremendous energy of bodhicitta (the mind of love) and bringing Buddhism back into contact with life. This was the Mahayanizing movement of Buddhism.

These three streams complement one another. It was impossible for Source Buddhism to remember everything the Buddha had taught, so it was necessary for Schools’ Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism to renew teachings that had been forgotten or overlooked. Like all traditions, Buddhism needs to renew itself regularly in order to stay alive and grow. The Buddha always found new ways to express his awakening. Since the Buddha’s lifetime, Buddhists have continued to open new Dharma doors to express and share the teachings begun in the Deer Park in Sarnath.

Please remember that a sutra or a Dharma talk is not insight in and of itself. It is a means of presenting insight, using words and concepts. When you use a map to get to Paris, once you have arrived, you can put the map away and enjoy being in Paris. If you spend all your time with your map, if you get caught by the words and notions presented by the Buddha, you’ll miss the reality. The Buddha said many times, “My teaching is like a finger pointing to the moon. Do not mistake the finger for the moon.”

In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, it is said, “If you explain the meaning of every word and phrase in the sutras, you slander the Buddhas of the three times — past, present, and future. But if you disregard even one word of the sutras, you risk speaking the words of Mara.”⁷ Sutras are essential guides for our practice, but we must read them carefully and use our own intelligence and the help of a teacher and a Sangha to understand the true meaning and put it into practice. After reading a sutra or any spiritual text, we should feel lighter, not heavier. Buddhist teachings are meant to awaken our true self, not merely to add to our storehouse of knowledge.

From time to time the Buddha refused to answer a question posed to him. The philosopher Vatsigotra asked, “Is there a self?” and the Buddha did not say anything. Vatsigotra persisted, “Do you mean there is no self?” but the Buddha still did not reply. Finally, Vatsigotra left. Ananda, the Buddha’s attendant, was puzzled. “Lord, you always teach that there is no self. Why did you not say so to Vatsigotra?” The Buddha told Ananda that he did not reply because Vatsigotra was looking for a theory, not a way to remove obstacles.⁸ On another occasion, the Buddha heard a group of disciples discussing whether or not he had said such and such, and he told them, “For forty-five years, I have not uttered a single word.” He did not want his disciples to be caught by words or notions, even his own.

When an archaeologist finds a statue that has been broken, he invites sculptors who specialize in restoration to study the art of that period and repair the statue. We must do the same. If we have an overall view of the teachings of the Buddha, when a piece is missing or has been added, we have to recognize it and repair the damage.