What do I need to believe?
A section where I am collecting all I can find and articulate about the core teachings of Buddhism so I have some solid ground for assessing whether I can take this stuff on faith.
👈🏼 previous note, 06. Cultivating Saddhā
| growth | epistemic status |
|---|---|
| 🌱 seedling | exploratory |
The Buddha taught dhamma: four words that unpack into a vast and sprawling doctrinal framework for directly experiencing those aspects of reality that eliminate suffering in the human conditon. Which seems like a lot, but the further one gets into the fray, the clearer things become - patterns emerge, and understanding begins to converge on those parts of the sprawl that are relevant in the application of the dhamma.
An important aspect of cultivating saddhā, hopefully obviously, is understanding what the Buddha taught, and didn’t teach. We need to understand who the Buddha was, what he taught, and how to practice in pursuit of the spiritual development he described, from full-blown ignorant worldling through the four stages of awakening to fully awakened arahant.
We can start with a simple but extraordinarily helpful teaching found in the somewhat famous MN 20, about how to deal with distracting thoughts. Can you imagine the thrill of relief I felt upon learning there was a whole sutta dedicated to this?! And then! I later learnt there is something called The Thought Trilogy, with MN 18 and MN 19 both dealing with this subject. Thought Trilogy, I love it.
But also, to get our priorities straight we can start with Buddha’s exhortation that we pursue full awakening 👉🏻 in this lifetime. Actually look at that - in drafting I have gone and listed saving the world 👉🏻 above personal liberation. So I guess this section begins as a choose-your-own-adventure.
You could also just choose a teaching at random. The following notes cover only some of the ground covered by the Buddha in his 45 years of peripatetic pedagogy.