The Dao of Reading

Missoula Sunset, 8-19-08

Last night’s “Dharma Tuesday” centered on the simple act of reading a sutra. What benefits may be gained in this practice? Why, in Buddhism, which seems so focused experience and activity in the world, are texts so important?

I recall learning years ago of a discussion amongst two Greek philosophers, perhaps Socrates and an interlocutor. In the dialog, one of the great thinkers lamented the invention of writing. He said that now people will simply write down great wisdom and leave it there, in the pages or engraved in stone; they will no longer take up and live the wisdom in their bodies as they had before. The value of the teacher, he worried, would decline, as intelligent but unwise youth turned instead to books, and the whole system of civic virtue, which relies upon the human-to-human passing of wisdom and discipline, would slip into decline.

In India at the same time there may have been similar worries. The Buddhist canon wasn’t put into writing until four centuries after the Buddha’s death. Young monks were instead assigned sections of it and spent years memorizing these lengthy teachings. They came together periodically, called from all corners of India and beyond, to recite, in unison, the teachings in order to ensure that with each generation not a single word was lost. Eventually, likely due to a famine and the death of many monks, it was decided that the Dhamma should be put into writing, thus creating what we have today.

My boss’s dog, Pogo

But the problem for many of us today is that we don’t know how to read a Buddhist text. As a scholar I am trained to comb through, find relevant terms or ideas, check for consistency and changes, find the underlying assumptions, and all that jazz. But as a practitioner, a very different approach to the texts must be taken. That approach is artfully described in Dharmajim’s article, The Dao of Reading. There he gives thirty pithy verses, such as:

12. Approach the book with humility, and 13. Approach the book with gratitude.

With these come explanations, telling us why these approaches are necessary.

The effect is quite noticeable. The slowing down. The deepening as we move from consuming texts to allowing the text to infuse our being. In the process our ego checks out, our need for control slips away, and we enter the flow of wisdom.

I highly recommend giving the Dao of Reading a read – a real read, not a skim or comb through. Read it all. Let it sink in. See if/how it touches your core. So long as we are capable of this, then the worries of a loss of wisdom in the age of text may be set aside.