Reply To: How do I practice dhamma for stream-entry in this life itself?

#52911
Christian
Participant

At the time of Buddha, there were types of writing around the world:

  • Clay tablets (Mesopotamia)
  • Stone inscriptions (Egypt, Greece)
  • Turtle shells and bones (China)
  • Papyrus scrolls (Egypt)
  • Pottery and ceramics (Various civilizations)
  • Bark paper (Mesoamerica)
  • Wooden tablets
  • Animal skins
  • Leaves (in tropical regions)

There are two ways to make a logical conclusion or argument based on what we have:

Whether Buddha didn’t want transmissions in textual form for various reasons (having Ananda with ultra memory or people memorizing as part of Dhamma training, monks obviously could not engage in such things as production materials) for practical reasons.

or having living Ariya is more beneficial for one understanding and Path. (or just both)

In my personal opinion, both are good, second is better for the arguments I provided above – even if we base on simple logic and life experience we would conclude that. Studying just from the books/suttas or sites may not be enough if someone can’t get pointed out in his “field of vision”. Usually, when you study materials, textbooks, or anything you are put into a very narrow field of understanding that you need to conclude a lot on your own and “teach yourself” so to speak to develop understanding. Having someone else can point out your misunderstanding or ignorance on the topic that you may not be aware of using different examples and can show you different angles of thinking that textual forms don’t have on that level or you may not see them. As I said in my understanding both are good but the second is better, I can not say with 100% that someone will not attain Sotapanna reading the right texts but I very highly doubt it. If you give textbooks to people who can’t read, speak, or write to develop those skills or understanding of mathematics who never really knew the concept of numbers or even know just basics – how many of those people will get to the point of understanding it on the proper level?

Keep in mind that my only intention is to clear logical gaps here and there we encounter in Buddha Dhamma so everybody has good and solid standing, truth of Dhamma will defend itself

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