/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19910843]

If most parts of the Pali canon are supposed to be the teachings of the Buddha, how were they memorized?

If a group of people listen to a lecture, it's hard to imagine that all of them can remember it perfectly, word-for-word. Even immediately after the lecture is finished there may be massive inconsistencies between what each listener thought they heard, even if they all made an effort to rectify it.

I can understand how something like the Dhammapada could be memorized word-for-word using mnemonic devices, since it is so lyrical and rhythmic. But how could those long sermons from the Buddha be memorized?

[Anonymous No.19910960]

It’s a leap of faith. I’d ask why do we need everything exactly preserved? This isn’t the Bible. There is a basic essence to the truth of the Buddha’s teachings that one can understand. That’s all.

[Anonymous No.19910973]

>>19910843
>>19910960
I don't get what you're saying. I thought the same goes for the bible and Plato memory-wise.

[Anonymous No.19910989]

>>19910843
Same way The Odyssey was remembered: poetics, songs... Every sutta ends with a poetry. Besides, these were oral tradition societies, remembering discourses was a full time job.

[Anonymous No.19911027]

>>19910843
There's a lot of repetitions and lists.

[Anonymous No.19911076]

>>19910843
The Vedas and Upanishads were transmitted orally at certain points by people who didn't even understand the language, they just learned the chants in blocks. Entire canons of mythology and folklore come from oral tradition. They had a variety of ways of conditioning individuals or groups to remember important cultural tales, often schools. But just imagine everything you know and can remember---a lot of it's just fragmentary or seemingly mundane shit like passwords. Imagine you did the job your father did, herding sheep or some shit, never travelling more than 20km from the village where you were born and would die, with the same 500 people give or take some dying some being born, you'd have the capacity to store a lot of coherent knowledge and a massive impetus to because it was not only your religion and culture but your only entertainment. Also in some oral tradition it's accepted that these transmissions are altered somewhat by various people along the way, but some are rigorously trained to remeber things exactly. https://youtu.be/qPcasmn0cRU

[Anonymous No.19911092]

Have you not read the pali canon?
It’s repetitive as fuck, there’s probably features in the original pali which would help memorise it as well
Do you not realise how oral traditions work?

[Anonymous No.19911218]

>interested in Vajrayana
>but not very enthusiastic about the Bodhisattva vow as my main concern (and the main concern of Buddhism as I understand it) is to get out of Samsara
What should I do? Visualization and very "vivid" practices like in Vajrayana also work much better for me than the somewhat dry practices of Theravada but apparently my goal is completely incompatible with Mahayana paths.

[Anonymous No.19911591]

>>19910973
>Plato
plato invented all of socrates dialogues, maybe something like that happened in "socrates" times, but there's no way that the conversation happened in such a forced and convenient way
>>19910843
>it's hard to imagine that all of them can remember it perfectly
did you read the pali canon? there's no way in hell buddha talked like that to actual human beings, most of the discourses are build in a mnemotechnical structure, designed to be remembered, probably buddha used some kind of system of categorisation that later was adapted to the mnemotechnical discourses we know today

[Anonymous No.19911638]

>>19910843

[Anonymous No.19911812]

>>19910960
Source for that pic?

[Anonymous No.19911863]

>>19910843
if you think about it his sermons have a lot of rhytm into it too... which is why he repeats himself often and seems almost verbose at times

[Anonymous No.19912129]

>>19910843
They have a stenographer on standby.

[Anonymous No.19912138]

>>19911218
yeah but none of what the manahynists and vajrayanists do is about ending suffering with the buddha's method, which is the only goal of buddhism

[Anonymous No.19912155]

>>19912138
That's not true

[Anonymous No.19912205]

>>19910843

[Anonymous No.19912763]

>>19911218
Bump
Why are there so few Buddhism posters on /lit/ now?

[Anonymous No.19913045]

>>19912763
Idk but Buddhism threads are the most hilarious clown shows on /lit/

[Anonymous No.19913051]

>>19913045
How's that? I don't see Guenonfag anymore

[Anonymous No.19913062]

Read Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy

[Anonymous No.19913083]

You only need the lotus sutra, the pali canon is not important anymore for enlightenment

[Anonymous No.19913088]

>>19913045
The few times I look it has people asking how to meditate and endless circular discussions about provenance. It eventually devolves into a Hindu/Buddhist bitch fight.

[Anonymous No.19913096]

>>19913051
see
>>19913088 + sectarian bitch fights

[Anonymous No.19913105]

>>19913096
>sectarian bitch fights
Yeah that's dumb. All good buddhist posters disregard that shit though.

[Anonymous No.19913147]

>>19911218
Read the Rhinoceros Sutra. It contrasts the Lotus Sutra well.

[Anonymous No.19913189]

>>19913147
I have. But to "be a rhinoceros" seems overall incompatible with the Vajrayana path, wouldn't you say?

[Anonymous No.19913208]

>>19911638
will this expand my brain? I need to learn a new language and sadness has eroded my brain