Reply To: Understanding of Anicca

#50068
Lal
Keymaster

Pathfinder asked:What were the Buddha’s actual words? Is the sutta central one just a condensed one, or does the link Jittanato sent have additional commentaries, with words not from the Buddha himself?”

1. The problem is that you focused on one of the deepest/most complex suttas

  • I don’t think any of those translators understand the meaning of those verses the Buddha delivered to Ven. Bahiya.

2. Even in the case of many other suttas, “word-by-word” translations cannot provide the embedded meaning. Such suttas need to be explained in detail. 

3. There will come a time when there are no Ariyas (at or above the Sotapanna stage) who can explain Buddha’s teachings. That is the end of Buddha Gotama’s Buddha Sasana.

  • All the books of the Tipitaka will be there, but no one to explain them.
  • Then, the world must wait for another Buddha to be born to learn the teachings of a Buddha. 
  • That is why having a “kalyana mitta” to explain the fundamentals is a requirement to attain the Sotapanna stage: “Four Conditions for Attaining Sotāpanna Magga/Phala

4. People who visit this website have wide-varying backgrounds. I do not know each person’s background enough to recommend specific posts/sections. One needs to scan through various sections. The following sections discuss fundamental concepts:

5. Hopefully, this will also help clarify some of the questions you asked in other threads. 

  • Please select a few posts from those sections (or any other section) and start asking questions from them if things are not clear.  That is probably a good way to clarify issues. 
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