The Benefits & Drawbacks of Pali

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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Alex123
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by Alex123 »

tiltbillings wrote:Is not learning part of practice?
If you can do that, great. Some people might not.
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tiltbillings
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by tiltbillings »

Alex123 wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:Is not learning part of practice?
If you can do that, great. Some people might not.
And you are one of the "might nots?"
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Alex123
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by Alex123 »

tiltbillings wrote:
Alex123 wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:Is not learning part of practice?
If you can do that, great. Some people might not.
And you are one of the "might nots?"
I am not perfect. It would be difficult for me to seriously study pali and practice at the same time. If you can do it, Tilt, I am happy for you. Not everybody has time, energy, skill, etc.


I do know a bunch of key words, and can sometimes get the gist of paragraph in pali. I also have translation programs to check when I need to.
But as for serious study...
SamKR
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by SamKR »

Pali should not be hard for me to learn because my first language is close to Sanskrit and Pali. But currently I do not find enough motivation, as a layman, to master Pali except just knowing a few key words relevant to practice. When necessity arises I can depend on Pali scholars, thanks to them. I plan to learn more in the the future though.
If someone finds learning Pali useful and enjoyable, that's very good, not just OK and definitely not a waste of effort.
danieLion
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by danieLion »

In which sutta(s) does the Buddha instruct us to learn Pali?
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tiltbillings
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by tiltbillings »

danieLion wrote:In which sutta(s) does the Buddha instruct us to learn Pali?
if you do not want to learn Pali, then don't. Do keep in mind, however, that someone had to learn Pali in order for you to read the suttas, and in that you are captive to their skill and understanding.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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tiltbillings
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by tiltbillings »

Alex123 wrote:

I do know a bunch of key words, and can sometimes get the gist of paragraph in pali. I also have translation programs to check when I need to.
But as for serious study...
Pali is a highly inflected and idiomatic language, and simply "know[ing] a bunch of key words" without the accompanying grammar will not really give you much, if any, insight into what is being said by a "bunch of words."

Simply, you people who do not want to learn the language, then don't. Use the translations of those who have put in the effort to get at what the texts say.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
binocular
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by binocular »

danieLion wrote:A little Pali can be useful, but knowing Pali well is not necessary to practice dhamma or mindfulness and is usually a waste of effort. It's generally better to use that energy on examining direct experience.
I think the topic of this thread essentially has to do with an issue that has already surfaced with some other religions, notably in Christianity, when Protestantism split from Catholicism and established translations of the Bible in the various native languages and teaching it in those languages as well (and then later in Catholicism itself, when teaching in the people's native language became the norm). Namely, should there be an official language of the religion, or not. In some religions, such an official language is well-established: in Judaism, it's Hebrew; in Islam, it's Arabic; in Catholicism, it used to be Latin (and Greek). Ideally, the members of those religions are expected to be at least familiar with that official language of the religion, regardless of what their secular language may be.

I'd say the OP's perspective is typical for a native speaker of English, in relation to the fact that a vast amount of Dhamma resources are in English.

Yet for someone whose native language is not English, but who is perusing resources in English, it may be quite normal and seen as necessary to learn Pali (along with an amount of abstract knowledge about grammar as such, depending on how different one's native language is to Pali).
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
binocular
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by binocular »

danieLion wrote:and as Wittgenstein taught us, "The meaning of a word is its use in the language" (the language being the one the current speakers are using).
That goes only for ideal native speakers of a language; and, to some extent, for those foreigners who are relatively fluent in it.
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
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Sekha
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by Sekha »

tiltbillings wrote:if you do not want to learn Pali, then don't. Do keep in mind, however, that someone had to learn Pali in order for you to read the suttas, and in that you are captive to their skill and understanding.
yeah. But we are never captive of anyone's skills and understanding when it comes to actual practice - once we have understood what the practice is, that is. Some people would righteously consider that they should better be "captive" of the understanding of someone they trust in order to progress faster in practice, rather than spending their time studying Pali language and making very slow progress in Dhamma. In the end, it all depends on what one values the most: intellectual understanding of Pali texts or understanding of the reality as it is by direct experience: :smile:
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danieLion
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by danieLion »

tiltbillings wrote:
danieLion wrote:In which sutta(s) does the Buddha instruct us to learn Pali?
if you do not want to learn Pali, then don't. Do keep in mind, however, that someone had to learn Pali in order for you to read the suttas, and in that you are captive to their skill and understanding.
I never said I didn't want to learn Pali. I'm learning Pali (yes, even the grammar). I'm grateful to the translators and use them to help me learn Pali. That doesn't make it any less of a problem.

Plus, this doesn't answer my question. In which sutta(s) does the Buddha instruct us to learn Pali?
Kindly,
dL
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mikenz66
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by mikenz66 »

binocular wrote: I'd say the OP's perspective is typical for a native speaker of English, in relation to the fact that a vast amount of Dhamma resources are in English.
I agree that it's an English-language-centric view, but I doubt whether those resources are really "vast" compared with the resources available in Thai, Burmese, Sinhalese, etc...

Thai readers, for example, can read the entire Tipitika (Sutta, Vinaya, Abhidhamma) here: http://www.bhodhiyana.org/tipitaka_library.html, not to mention the teachings of modern Thai teachers, of which we only have bits and pieces in English... The same would apply in Burma and Sri Lanka.
binocular wrote: Yet for someone whose native language is not English, but who is perusing resources in English, it may be quite normal and seen as necessary to learn Pali (along with an amount of abstract knowledge about grammar as such, depending on how different one's native language is to Pali).
This is an excellent point. Obviously for someone whose native language is quite close to Pali (such as the Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan monks that I know) this is a no-brainer. But I imagine that a number of European people would find it more profitable to wrestle with Pali structure and idiom than with the sheer randomness of English.

An enormous hole that non-pali readers have is access to the Theravada Commentaries. A few complete Sutta commentaries are available, but mostly it is just the particular excerpts selected by translators.

:anjali:
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tiltbillings
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by tiltbillings »

danieLion wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:
danieLion wrote:In which sutta(s) does the Buddha instruct us to learn Pali?
if you do not want to learn Pali, then don't. Do keep in mind, however, that someone had to learn Pali in order for you to read the suttas, and in that you are captive to their skill and understanding.
I never said I didn't want to learn Pali. I'm learning Pali (yes, even the grammar). I'm grateful to the translators and use them to help me learn Pali. That doesn't make it any less of a problem.

Plus, this doesn't answer my question. In which sutta(s) does the Buddha instruct us to learn Pali?
Kindly,
dL
You know the answer to that question.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
danieLion
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by danieLion »

dL wrote:Plus, this doesn't answer my question. In which sutta(s) does the Buddha instruct us to learn Pali?
Kindly,
dL
tiltbillings wrote:You know the answer to that question.
Which goes to the problematic aspect.
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PadmaPhala
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Re: The Problem With Pali

Post by PadmaPhala »

...is that it is no buddhist hybrid samskrita.
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