@euilibrium and whoever else is anti memorization:
why come to a thread asking about how to memorize suttas (not whether or not one should memorize them) and debate it? a personal crusade against memorization? motive? do you really believe you are helping people by speaking out against it? have you considered the extremely massive amount of support for this practice, going back to the buddha himself?
The Buddha wrote: "There are these five facts that one should reflect on often, whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained. Which five?
how are we to reflect without memorizing the information? if you don't remember what to reflect on you will not be able to follow his instructions. he instructs people to reflect on his teachings thousands of times in the suttas.
random bhikkhus throughout the pali canon wrote:Having heard it from the Blessed One, the monks will remember it.
this is a statement made by bhikkhus constantly in the pali canon. clearly they believe in memorizing the budddhas words and he, following their request with a dhamma talk and not saying "do not memorize my words!" clearly agrees with them.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:The Pali Cullavagga (V.33.1) records the Buddha as insisting that his listeners memorize his teachings...
The buddha wrote:...and also texts memorized a long time ago do not come into one's mind, not to speak of those not memorized.
so... not sure how we are to argue with the man himself. seriously what is this supposed to stand on??? you have no basis for arguing against memorization if you are speaking to theravadins who accept the pali canon as authoritative. if you're talking about some other school of buddhism i'm not sure, but this is a theravada forum and i'm talking about memorizing theravada scriptures so your arguments are utterly shattered and useless in this context.
not to mention you inadvertantly are memorizing sutta as it is! remembering any of the teachings is memorizing parts of suttas as that's where it all comes from. even if you don't remember a whole sutta you are still practicing memorization of sutta content. do you know the eightfold path? that's from a sutta, so you have memorized that part of a sutta more or less. without memorization there would be no buddhism. even if it was still on paper, if no one bothered to actually remember what they read on the paper it would not work for practice. if you don't remember meditation instructions or mindfulness techniques you cannot practice them. even if you learned buddhist techniques from someone else, you still memorized them to a degree, and their source is always suttas if you go back far enough, someone read the suttas or heard them and reworded the techniques within and taught them to you or passed them along until they got to you.
equilibrium as i said before, i'm willing to bet you're more zen than theravada, perhaps try posting a thread about whether or not memorization is a good idea on a zen forum? i'm willing to bet many will agree with your views. for contrast you could post the same on here and see what happens. who knows? maybe i'm wrong and everyone will agree with you on here as well? seriously, i'd love to see what people would say. no sarcasm, legitimate curiosity. and again, if your perspective is zen then great, zen is beautiful and if it works better without memorization then more power to it. zen is it's own thing and works in it's own ways, not dependent on anything i've quoted above or anything i'm memorizing or practicing. i'm merely pointing out that this is a theravada perspective based on the pali canon and that it therefore cannot be placed within the same logic one would apply to zen ideas about memorization or ideas from any other school for that matter. however if i'm wrong and you're 100% theravada, how do you back up your arguments using theravada ideas and resources? namely the pali canon? are there suttas that overtly discourage memorization of the suttas?
"Upajjhatthana Sutta: Subjects for Contemplation" (AN 5.57), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 3 July 2010,
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . Retrieved on 26 December 2012.
"Sallatha Sutta: The Arrow" (SN 36.6), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 30 June 2010,
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . Retrieved on 26 December 2012.
"The Dhammapada: A Translation", translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 29 August 2012,
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . Retrieved on 26 December 2012.