robertk wrote:Dear ben and retro,
QUOTE from commentary to mulapariyaya:
The "uninstructed worldling" (p40 of Mulapariyaya) "needs to be taught, because he possesses neither learning(agama) nor achievement. For he who possesses neither the learning running counter to the activity of conceiving because he has neglected to study, question, and discriminate the aggregates (khandhas), elements, sense bases (ayatanas) truths, law of conditionality and foundations of mindfulness etc , '.
So the problem with the buddhist of today, IMHO, is that they want to rush in and experience reality, or more precisely What they "feel" reality is, without enough basis in right view. And right view is totattly dependent on sufficient, careful, and right study of the true Dhamma.
Without very firm right view one could go on a path of having profound experiences, see the most subtle levels of rupa or nama. But still be misperceving them.
Hi Robert,
This "needs to be taught" phrase smacks of conceit, and "the problem with the buddhist today" comment seems like stereotyping.
We don't (always/all of us) start from scratch.
As Professor Gombrich notes in
What the Buddha Thought:
I suggest...we tend to over-interpret what was meant at one level by awareness and concentration. This over-interpretation began, no doubt, with the professional monks who systematized the Buddha's teaching. I am not denying that in order to achieve Enlightenment, awareness and concentration have to be cultivated to a very high pitch. But what the Buddha was prescribing as mental training must initially have bee what we nowadays take for granted in an educated person, a basis for moral and intellectual understanding (p. 172).
Best,
Daniel