How to read Religious Scriptures
Posted 08-02-2015 at 10:33 PM by Continuum
Buddhism and Hinduism has a ton of Sutras, e.g.
[URL="http://buddhasutra.com/index.html"]A Complete Buddhist Sutra Collection[/URL]
btw, this is not complete and these sutras are interpreted from one Buddhist school.
The Sutra Collection listed above comprised those that cater to Buddhists from Kindergarten to PhD levels.
To get to the gist of it one need to read the sutras from many other interpretations from different schools of Buddhism and from different individuals within those schools.
The Abrahamic religions has their core holy texts which are the immutable words of God and thus represent the imperative basis for the specific religion.
However the foundation for the mainstream Eastern religions are based on their core principles of which there are many similarities among them and their variations.
The core principles of Buddhism are;
1. The Four Noble Truths and Noble-Eightfold Paths.
2. Anatta
3. Anicca
4. Pratītyasamutpāda -dependent origination or dependent arising
5. Other principles, e.g. Two-Truths-Theory
6. The above core principles are backed by the verifiable generic empirical self and empirical world.
The above represent what is strictly Buddhism.
However Buddhism recognizes the Principle of the Bell or Normal Curve and thus humans come in all shapes, sizes and degrees of whatever, inclusive of spirituality and religiosity. This is the reason why Buddhism is dynamic and compromises to cater for the reality of diversity, thus the range of Sutras.
Thus when one has a good grasp of the above generic core principles one can easily understand all the other sutras ranging from the kindergarten to the PhD levels of the philosophies of Buddhism.
Understanding the generic empirical self, person or human, i.e. 'know thyself' is most critical. One need to understand [as much as possible] how the individual person or human ticks at least mechanically and psychologically instead of relying on supernatural explanations. In this case one need to equip oneself with all relevant knowledge associated with what is it to be human in addition to knowledge of the universe.
With the above knowledge one can begin to explore the whole range of Buddhist sutras [or any other religious texts] with a grounding of the above core principles in the background of one's mind at all times.
[URL="http://buddhasutra.com/index.html"]A Complete Buddhist Sutra Collection[/URL]
btw, this is not complete and these sutras are interpreted from one Buddhist school.
The Sutra Collection listed above comprised those that cater to Buddhists from Kindergarten to PhD levels.
To get to the gist of it one need to read the sutras from many other interpretations from different schools of Buddhism and from different individuals within those schools.
The Abrahamic religions has their core holy texts which are the immutable words of God and thus represent the imperative basis for the specific religion.
However the foundation for the mainstream Eastern religions are based on their core principles of which there are many similarities among them and their variations.
The core principles of Buddhism are;
1. The Four Noble Truths and Noble-Eightfold Paths.
2. Anatta
3. Anicca
4. Pratītyasamutpāda -dependent origination or dependent arising
5. Other principles, e.g. Two-Truths-Theory
6. The above core principles are backed by the verifiable generic empirical self and empirical world.
The above represent what is strictly Buddhism.
However Buddhism recognizes the Principle of the Bell or Normal Curve and thus humans come in all shapes, sizes and degrees of whatever, inclusive of spirituality and religiosity. This is the reason why Buddhism is dynamic and compromises to cater for the reality of diversity, thus the range of Sutras.
Thus when one has a good grasp of the above generic core principles one can easily understand all the other sutras ranging from the kindergarten to the PhD levels of the philosophies of Buddhism.
Understanding the generic empirical self, person or human, i.e. 'know thyself' is most critical. One need to understand [as much as possible] how the individual person or human ticks at least mechanically and psychologically instead of relying on supernatural explanations. In this case one need to equip oneself with all relevant knowledge associated with what is it to be human in addition to knowledge of the universe.
With the above knowledge one can begin to explore the whole range of Buddhist sutras [or any other religious texts] with a grounding of the above core principles in the background of one's mind at all times.
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