I see the title "classical " Theravada. How does that differentiate from other groups calling themselves Theravada? I’ve been lurking for a little while, and am not yet sure what framework the people in this forum are using that is different from other Theravada groups. I see here there is a tension around the EBT movement, and maybe the Thai Forest as well. Would this include the Ajahn Chah lineage, Ajahn Lee, and Ajahn Mun? Are these above mentioned groups outside of Classical Theravada? And does this imply they aren’t orthodox?
There is not really tension.. it just appears that way (mostly from people who are not inline with the Classical Theravāda or Orthodox Theravāda.
We follow the entire library of Pāḷi texts approved by the Sixth Buddhist Council referred to as CST. This means we follow the root baskets piṭaka of vinaya, sutta, abhidhamma. However, we also follow the commentaries and subcommentaries. We also follow the ancient handbooks also approved by the Sixth Council, CST. This is what Theravāda is.
You can install Tipitaka Pali Reader and then install the English extension when prompted and see for yourself all the texts that are followed by us. Other groups often reject 80% of the CST books you see in that software.
We actually would prefer not to put Orthodox or Classical in front of Theravāda, but the English Dhamma world has many disobedient or protest followers of the Dhamma. It was suggested they be called Protestant Theravāda due to the name Protest. They are of quite emotional about the acceptance of the commentaries and subcommentaries and the abhidhamma. They believe in a conspiracy that the elders “invented” this “extra dhamma” and lied and falsely attributed it to the Buddha. This has been done in Mahayana and they are open about it. So they assume this was done in Theravāda.
We got created this group actually because the harassment was so strong. We had a subgroup called classical theravada, but the “haters” would lurk around a group they didn’t belong in and start chiming in about how fake the Dhamma was that we followed anytime we mentioned commentaries or abhidhamma.
Why? If you do not have the commentaries and the abhidhamma, the canvas is very big and you can paint your own picture how ever you wish. They get emotional about this when they are told it is wrong. I’m not sure how old you are, but there was a time when you had to guess the lyrics. It was a let down to find out you were singing the song wrong for x number of years. If they don’t accept the commentaries and abhidhamma, they are throwing away the lyric sheets and singing their own song.
The topic actually was recently resurrected by a person who is half Orthodox and half protestant. You will see he was quite emotional about it and Australians have a way of saying things in a very blunt way. I’ve known this exmonk for well over 20 years. He is my helper (although I’m not sure how personal he will be about the latest thread).
As for the Thai tradition, it is best I don’t comment on this. You will need to see how they feel about the commentaries and abhidhamma. It is more than just chanting the first chapter of the first book. You will most likely find that they do not like the abhidhamma and commentaries and they mention a thing called “Citta” which is not represented in the CST in the same way they use it.
I can tell you that there is a group in Thailand that follows the entire CST and follows vinaya too. They are connected or friendly to Wat Khao Sanamchai. There are roughly 12-14 monasteries in Thailand like this.
2 Likes
I think I understand. So, it’s basically that some of these groups are not using the entire accepted Canon, and are skeptical of a large amount of it? I’ve personally heard some criticisms of Abhidhamma, mostly that it’s just too dense and intellectual to be useful for most laypeople. I tend to agree on that front, because I’ve tried to read it and listen to lectures on it, but I find it not really helping me to work with my own suffering. But I personally wouldn’t go so far as to say it isn’t authentic or taught by the Buddha.
I guess my follow up question would be: As Buddhist laypeople, how necessary is it to read all of the Canon, every sutta, the abhidhamma, and all the commentaries? Because in the Buddha’s time, I am assuming some people became enlightened early on when encountering the Buddha, before he even had taught 90% of what he ended up teaching. So, am I not enlightened yet because I haven’t read or heard all of the teachings and read all of the commentaries, or not studied the Abhidhamma? Or is it that I haven’t rightly applied what little I have heard or read? This question is less doctrinal, and maybe more practical in terms of “what can I reasonably fit into my lay life to help me along the path before I die?” Because to be honest, I’m not knowledgable enough to put forth an argument for parts of the Canon being authentic or not. Some monks say certain things are, and other things not, and I don’t really have a way to confirm these assertions for myself.
1 Like
We need enough to really understand what the Buddha taught. The teaching is subtle and goes against the flow of wrong views which are ingrained in all worldlings.
See this thread.
4 Likes
Yes they don’t like it.
Believe it or not, we would recommend being more focused and you do not need to study all of the suttas etc. You should know the story of the Buddha, and maybe 10 or 20 key suttas. However, you should know the “footnotes” to those suttas. The footnotes is a basic understanding of Abhidhamma, and following the commentaries (which often explains with an Abhidhamma context). I have a series of audio talks that I have given and still give which takes a lot of matrix and lists out of the Abhidhamma but gives you the general background you need. You can see them here. You can start with June 2nd and then pick the ones that fall on Sunday’s. I think they are easy to follow along, but let me know what you think. @RobertK is a big follower of the teacher Sujin. You can find links here or on his website abhidhamma.org .
It is ironic, but I find that most who reject the “extra stuff” we follow here like to read the entire 4 Nikayas and recommend it. I have done it, plus the Dhammapada commentary stories and 95% of the Jataka stories, but I’m a monk.
I’m working on a MA thesis now which ironically is against technology and advocates that less is more. It is my belief that you can know things better and deeper if you study less quantity of material. A little bit of like the Karate Kid movie quote, “It is not what you know, but how well you know what you know.” All that said, technology does not go away, and the end goal is to find a hybrid of old and new pedagogy for monastic education.
It is also my belief that most people didn’t have the entire collection of suttas to their access. On the other hand, I think that many monks spent weeks months or years on a single sutta. The monks who heard Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta (a very important Sutta), were very special. They had very strong pārami since they were the first five disciples and already at the first stage of enlightenment when they first heard that sutta. However, I think that this sutta was taught to others.
I will be making a post on this sutta soon. If you know the Abhidhamma, you will see that there are 300 or 500 or 1000+ things that can be systematically practiced just from this slender and dense sutta. Ironically, as important as I feel this sutta is, this sutta is also labeled by the full-CST haters an “Absolutely Authentic Sutta” since it was the second Sutta taught by the Buddha. For “Early Buddhist Texts”, there is only one more that is earlier.
Nevertheless, without the Abhidhamma, you just cannot fully understand the depth of this sutta. It’s present form is compressed and abridged and rarely expanded. When you see “…” or ‘pe’, that means the sutta repeats again. If you try to find someone in the English language to explain what the list of 11 ways to know the khandas is and how to apply them, you will likely turn up dry. It is the “dry” Abhidhamma which wets, and infuses that particular sutta. When looking for the meaning, you will probably only see a glossed over list. No explanation. It is deep. If you know the Abhidhamma, you will read it and know. So you need that foundation first. It is like cooking. You need to know how certain ingredients interact, temperatures to cook, and ways to mix. Then you understand a recipe by merely looking at it.
3 Likes
Forgive me for my ignorance, but is it the case that the Abhidhamma was taught by the Buddha after he died, and it was taught to devas, who then taught it to humans?
2 Likes
You have several stories mixed up, perhaps by someone who dislikes the Abhidhamma and provided an inaccurate account.
The Buddha’s mother, Queen Māyā, passed away seven days after his birth. She was immediately reborn as a deva in the Tusita heaven. The Buddha later ascended to the Tāvatiṃsa heaven to teach the Abhidhamma to her and the assembled devas. He then transmitted these teachings to Venerable Sāriputta, who in turn shared them with his own disciples, thereby preserving the lineage of the Abhidhamma. When they compiled the teachings in the First Buddhist Council, the Abhidhamma was officially included in the Khuddakanikāya.
These are the official historical events on how we have the Abhidhamma today.
2 Likes
Thank you for clearing that up. I think my mistake was my own mix up of different things I had heard or read, not due to any one person who gave me wrong information.
1 Like
Groups such as the Thai Forest tradition are movements mostly started by 19th-century-born village monks who were likely illeterate or perhaps marginally literate. For example, roughly 95% of the population in Ajahn Sao’s home region was illiterate in 1911. It appears Mun, his disciple, may have been literate as he went on to author a long poem, however, at least part of it is known to have been copied from a pre-existing poem, and it was mysteriously found posthumously. Ajahn Maha Bua, one of his students born in the early 20th century, went on to write very fanciful stories about Mun that depict things that the Abhidhamma and Commentaries quite literally show to be impossible.
This movement gained a lot of respect in Thailand, and traction. Mainly because 1) These monks were at least trying to follow the rules and live like the early disciples of the Buddha while the vast majority of monks were not 2) Westerners who were percieved as rich and educated came to study with them and pay their respect to them (this was a huge thing for Thais)* and 3) There were claims of supramundane attainments attributed to these monks either by themselves or by their disciples, as well as magical abilities, etc.
*These in during a time when Westerners were first exposed to Eastern forms of spitirually at large and were very much in a honey moon phase. They were not taking pains to discriminate between different teachings, nor could they at the time.
The Westerners who stayed on generally started taking Western Academics as their Krubha Ajahns in many ways, at least in the sense of deciding which Buddhsts texts they thought “rang true” with authenticity through the works of these academics. Nevermind the fact that these particular academics were born 2,500 years after the Buddha, on a different continent, were mostly not Buddhists themselves, and were mostly just interested in forwarding their own careers.
They also wanted to appeal more to Western sensibilities so they took on feminism (to the point of creating their own [or reviving depending on how you see it] ordination lineage for nuns which had been lost), taking on woke language and translating the teachings to be gender inclusive even in instances where the Buddha is only addressing monks, and so on.
So it is a Guru cult, but today Western academics also have a lot of imput on it, as well as modern social mores. They will edit Budhism based on this. 
R
1 Like
If I could ask another follow up question to gain clarity on where the core beliefs of the orthodox Theravada falls… How would you place meditation practice in the framework of following the full of the Canon? For instance, there seems to be a great deal of controversy out there over how people meditate, or even if people are supposed to meditate. Some groups say meditation isn’t for laypeople, only for monks. Also that all meditation methods taught now are not truly Buddhist. Some teachers say that there are two distinct kinds of meditation, Samatha and Vipassana, and that they are both taking people to different destinations, so to speak. And then other teachers say there isn’t a separation of samatha and vipassana, and everyone needs both to fully practice towards enlightenment. I have heard that only vipassana is necessary and samatha can be useful but is at the end of the day, more of an “extra” practice. Then I hear that there is no insight into reality without first having made some progress in jhana and samatha practices. I’m sure an entire thread could be made on the many different points of view on jhana as well, but I’d like to keep this question more focused on meditation practices taught today, and why there is so much disagreement on the purpose and outcome of these practices.
To me, this is a more important issue than determining which suttas or parts of the Canon are authentic or verified. Most of my Buddhist practice revolves around meditation, and my day-to-day actions. The intellectual study is something I sometimes get into, but in a limited way due to time constraints and my own lack of expertise. I often become discouraged by all of this back and forth between groups within the Theravada world. It makes me second guess what I hear one monk say, because there’s always another monk somewhere who has an equally large following and a plethora of teachings who will teach the opposite to be true. Could you shed any light on this?
Are monastics simply cherry picking their favorite parts of the Canon, or what personally resonates with them, and teaching from that? And then some other monks find that to be trivial, but focus on a whole different teaching within the Canon? I guess the most prominent example could be breath meditation which comes from the Anapanasati sutta vs. Noting/Mahasi meditation coming out of the Satipatthana sutta.
But even within these overarching systems there is debate.. like Ajahn Lee teaching about body energies and working with those. But another monk will say this isn’t a Buddhist practice, and we should only watch the breath at the tip of the nostrils, because that is what the sutta actually teaches. And I’m sure there are variations and disagreements around noting/insight practices too.
1 Like
Some here will doubt the veracity of this so I include the following:
According to the Statistical Yearbook of the Kingdom of Siam 1920, the province of Isan (which roughly corresponds to modern-day northeastern Thailand) had a total population of 1,455,497. Of these, the census recorded:
-
Males: 77,068 literate vs. 615,155 illiterate
-
Females: 1,109 literate vs. 762,165 illiterate
This means the overall literacy rate in Isan at that time was roughly 5.4%. When broken down by sex, the disparity is very stark:
-
Male literacy: About 11% (77,068 out of 692,223 males)
-
Female literacy: About 0.1% (1,109 out of 763,274 females)
Literacy was rare, especially in rural areas. The figures above are for an entire province. In the remote village monasteries where Ajahn Sao trained, the rates would likely have been even lower. A village monk being functionally illiterate was the statistical norm.
Just imagine how unfamiliar you have to be with the Suttas—never mind their Commentaries and the Abhidhamma—to believe that the best way to attain enlightenment quickly is to unnecessarily walk across extremely large swaths of jungle whilst intentionally encountering tigers along the way, because the Buddha did that. The Buddha did it because he had no other way to reach potential students that were far away. They thought that wandering through forests and encountering tigers on the way was a feature of the practice itself, not a bug. They actually taught that these things would bring you closer to enlightenment and very quickly (especially if you encountered tigers but were not scared).
That’s who you are dealing with. I remember reading this in many Forest writings years ago. At the time I was new to Buddhism so I just thought it was puzzling and put it aside. Now I understand much better what was going on…
R
As a baseline, it’s best to accept a teacher who has an approach to the Dhamma that accepts the whole Tipiṭaka along with its Commentaries, etc. In short, everything that has been handed down to us by the Ancients.
Within that, you will find a number of different approaches, and it is up to you to decide which is best.
R
Within traditional Theravāda (which accepts the Tipiṭaka and its Commentaries), there will always naturally be differences.
R
Totally wrong. There are plenty of suttas where meditation was taught to laypeople. For example: Anāthapiṇḍikovāda Sutta (MN 143). There are many commentary stories as well. Take, for instance, the Weaver’s Daughter and contemplation of death. There were sotāpannas who were famous laypeople. You cannot become enlightened without meditation. King Bimbisāra is one; Visākhā is another. Very famous!
Yes. There are two distinct meditations. Samatha is for Jhāna, which practiced alone, leads to the Brahama planes. This is not exclusive to Buddhism. However, when it is used with the intention to generate the light of wisdom so one can practice proper vipassana, this is proper Theravāda. This is often in the Pa-Auk tradition which strictly follows the visuddhimagga and abhidhammatthasaṅgaha texts. This is very ideal, if you can attain jhāna. It is not well known that pa-auk teaches 4 elements directly, which is sort of like vipassana. The technical definition of vipassana comes after you known your past life knowledge. However, some of the knowledges come before that, so we say it is “vipassana.” For instance knowledge of materiality and mentality can be done without jhāna and are very beneficial for you to achieve in this life. Pa-Auk will be the closest you get to a 1 to 1 practice vs Theravāda Pāḷi Texts (CST).
Yes, EBT is a big distraction. We agree. It is easier to just take the famous suttas along with the abhidhamma and the commentaries. When you do, the way to practice does not vary. Yet there are many ways to choose within this system to meet different practitioners’ needs and temperments.
Just follow what we say. haha… But what we say.. and others like us. We are actually the majority in the Theravāda world, but not in the English Theravāda world. Even within the Thai Forest Tradition, it was verified from my friend Ajahn Gavesako, that most Thai monks follow the commentary and abhidhamma (as well as suttas too). You can see this in the Thai government exam system.
I hope you understand this part: Follow monks who follow the Suttas and Practice and Vinaya according to commentaries and Abhidhamma. You will not find variations. The problem is that many Westerners say.. "The majority of the CST is fake and added later by monks who are liars who don’t care about kamma. It is all a conspiracy theory. We need to accept the CST as it is. They say “this is not authentic” and then show you their own interpretation not found anywhere else in the texts. It is sort of funny. I think you are at the stage where you can see this clearly. We had to create our own server. We are best off by ourselves in a smaller group. My videos were reaching 10,000-30,000 people on facebook, but I deleted the account (last month) because I was reaching far outside the Theravāda circle. It was too much trouble for me.
There are “favorites” pretty much approved by most monks. But they interpret those suttas in many different ways. If you know the Abhidhamma, it is very precise. You can look at almost any sutta and understand “how it works” when using the framework.
Ānāpāna is very popular, but it is one of the forty samatha objects. Mahāsi noting seems to force-feed itself into many suttas. However, the Bāhiya Sutta is the most fitting for Mahāsi, as is a small section of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta.
I once read his book on that ages ago. Please stay away from that. That is very close to Kriya indian meditation.
I would agree, if you want to follow breath meditation.
I think what you need to do is learn some basic Abhidhamma. It is not very hard. My talks have the basics you need to know. A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma is the Bible, and main text. But it is terse and actually meant to be memorized. Then you can learn about the cittas which I have yet to cover. After that, you read the visuddhimagga. It is somewhat of a banned book in Thai Tradition and Westerner monks don’t like it. It is the central core meditation book. It is free online. If you know these books, you can look at suttas and understand what the commentaries are likely to say. It will reaffirm rather than surprise you.
Knowing and Seeing is a comprehensive and complete practice book of the two books mentioned above.
You are welcome to stay in this group and ask questions. We enjoy people like you. Create a new thread for more focused questions.
3 Likes
Abhidhamma describes what is real, and what is here and now. If we start to see that then the world begins to shows its true nature. Writing this now there is colour, seeing, thinking and so on. There is the conceptual world and the world of ultimate realities. So actually nothing is more interesting or useful.
4 Likes
Indeed. And, as you have pointed out here before:
R
2 Likes
While it is true that some within the Ajahn Mun, Ajahn Chah lineage as well as some modern reformer monks such as Bhikkhu Buddhadasa were highly critical of the commentaries and abhidhamma, this is well less than 10% of Thai temples.
Vast majority are not critical of either though they certainly don’t study them as seriously as the Burmese.
That said standard Thai tipitaka includes the same root commentaries. The Pali tests that are an important component of the whole sangha hierarchy are all pretty much based on the commentaries. Visuddhimagga and Abhidhammasangaha are foundational texts here too. Probably the main difference with the Burmese is far less emphasis on the abhidhamma pitaka and testing on commentaries written in Chiangmai from the C16th century.
As for the supposedly illiterate population, that is in contradiction of all records of western observers going back to Van Vliet and Loubere in the 16-17th centuries. They all reported Siamese males having higher literacy rates than contemporary Europeans.
Not saying you’re necessarily wrong but I would like to know whether your source is referring to literacy in “Thai” i.e. Central Thai that Bangkok was forcing on everyone in the 1920s rather than literacy in Tham Isaan and the old Lao script used in that region, the hundreds of thousands of palm leaf manuscripts written in the 19th century in that region are at least suggestive of a high proportion of monks being literate. While considering every man in the region who didn’t want their mother to burn in hell became a novice and a monk for often years does make me doubt those statistics.
Sorry but I did want to chip in on behalf of Thai Buddhism to an extent though perhaps the intent was more limited to the Thai Forest Tradition promoted in the west?
1 Like
I never thought I would post ven. Yuttadhammo in this group, but he says a lot in this 5 minutes related to what we said here.
3 Likes
Thank you, Bhante, for posting that excellent video of the well-learned Venerable. Ajahn Sujin teaches in exactly the same way—taking the whole Tipiṭaka and its Commentaries into account while teaching.
R
@Jayadharma take note what I said below: