homework

How to Read Buddha’s Sermons

Our text consists largely of sermons attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. These sermons were not written down during his lifetime, nor for several hundred years after his lifetime. But because writing was much less prevalent in the ancient world than today, most people were able to remember and recite long oral passages. And since Siddhartha lived and preached for close to 40 years after his Enlightenment, he recited similar sermons repeatedly to some of his followers who traveled with him. After his death his close follower Ananda recited the sermons to other monks to memorize. So the sermons we are reading very likely reflect Siddhartha’s ideas and even phrasing relatively well.

Here are four things to know before you read these sermons:

1. Most of the sermons are in the voice of Siddhartha, The Buddha, particularly those that begin with the reference to his audience “Monks,”. Some others are from the perspective of Ananda and provide a sermon given by Siddhartha or recount a conversation with him; these usually begin “Thus I have heard”. A few sermons do not seem to stem from Siddhartha but instead recount conversations that some other Enlightened monks, referred to with the title “Venerable”, had with other people, but these very likely reflect Siddhartha’s specific teachings.

2. The original language, Pali, is similar to but distinct from the other main ancient language of India, Sanskrit, and both have been used in Buddhism. Buddhist names and terms that are left untranslated thus appear differently. Note that the following terms mean the same thing, one term as used in our book and the other as you might have seen it elsewhere:

a. Nibbana, Nirvana

b. Siddhattha Gotama, Siddhartha Gautama

c. Dhamma, Dharma

There will be a few others that should be obvious. When in doubt, google the term and include the words “Pali Sanskrit”

3. Siddhartha, is referred to using different terms in the sermons. Some of these terms will also refer to other individuals in other contexts, but when you read the sermons you should assume that the individual referred to is Siddhartha:

Arahant, Bodhisatta, Tathagata, The Blessed One, The Enlightened One

4. The original sermons were extremely repetitive in order to facilitate comprehension and memory of the ideas. Generally different specific terms would be changed while the remainder of the paragraph remains the same. In our edition the translator uses ellipses [ . . . ] in place of the repetition in order to save space.

Here is a short invented example of this sort of thing:

“There are four Beatles. Paul was a Beatle. Without Paul there would have been no group The Beatles. The Beatles included Paul.

“There are four Beatles. Ringo was a Beatle. Without Ringo there would have been no group The Beatles. The Beatles included Ringo.

“There are four Beatles. George was a Beatle. Without George there would have been no group The Beatles. The Beatles included George.

“There are four Beatles. John was a Beatle. Without John there would have been no group The Beatles. The Beatles included John.”

This would appear in the style of our translator roughly this way:

“There are four Beatles. Paul . . . Ringo . . . George . . . John was a Beatle. Without Paul there would have been no group The Beatles. The Beatles included Paul”

The result is still repetitive but much less than the original!