Study Guides & Commentaries

Discuss and learn about the traditional Mahayana scriptures, without assuming that any one school ‘owns’ the only correct interpretation.
Post Reply
Christopherxx
Posts: 99
Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 1:47 am

Study Guides & Commentaries

Post by Christopherxx »

Anyone have a good source for study guides and or commentaries on the sutras.

Coming from a Christian background years ago I remember that one thing that tradition did amazingly was exegesis. Look at the WBC & NICOT commentary series. Each takes a book of the bible and does about 400 or so pages on it. Pretty high level as well. Though really if I could get any good commentaries and or study guides on the sutras I would be happy :)
User avatar
Paul
Posts: 1726
Joined: Sat Feb 13, 2010 8:12 pm

Re: Study Guides & Commentaries

Post by Paul »

Heart Attack Sutra by Karl Brunnholzl is an absolute cracker of a commentary on the Heart Sutra.
Look at the unfathomable spinelessness of man: all the means he's been given to stay alert he uses, in the end, to ornament his sleep. – Rene Daumal
the modern mind has become so limited and single-visioned that it has lost touch with normal perception - John Michell
User avatar
Paul
Posts: 1726
Joined: Sat Feb 13, 2010 8:12 pm

Re: Study Guides & Commentaries

Post by Paul »

There's a bunch of free texts here, by the way: http://www.buddhanet.net/ebooks_ms.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Look at the unfathomable spinelessness of man: all the means he's been given to stay alert he uses, in the end, to ornament his sleep. – Rene Daumal
the modern mind has become so limited and single-visioned that it has lost touch with normal perception - John Michell
Christopherxx
Posts: 99
Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 1:47 am

Re: Study Guides & Commentaries

Post by Christopherxx »

Paul wrote:Heart Attack Sutra by Karl Brunnholzl is an absolute cracker of a commentary on the Heart Sutra.
Now that is a title! lol

Thanks friend :)
Sherlock
Posts: 1202
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2012 3:14 pm

Re: Study Guides & Commentaries

Post by Sherlock »

Funny, I always thought there was a dearth of commentaries in the Buddhist sense about Abrahamic religions, guess it goes both ways for newcomers.

In Buddhism, the whole Abhidharma-pitaka is basically commentarial literature on the sutras, and Abhidharma works themselves have spawned commentaries on top of commentaries. There is the famous Abhidharmakosa by Vasubandhu, which is a root text summarizing the key tenets of the Sravaka Buddhist canon according to some of the different schools at the time in India, then the Abhidharmakosa-bhasyam is a word-by-word commentary by Vasubandhu which elaborates and criticizes many of these points.

Likewise, the Madhyamika treatises are summaries of the Prajnaparamita sutras, which themselves have been extensively commented upon.

In general, if you are referring to word-by-word commentaries on the sutras themselves, I think they don't exist very much in Buddhism except for certain very popular sutras like the Heart Sutra, though I could be wrong. Maybe this is what you mean by exegetical literature in Christianity. I think this highlights the difference in the commentarial tradition in Buddhadharma and in the Judaeo-Christian sense -- the Buddhist commentarial tradition is a continuation of Abhidharma literature, which collates the teachings from many sutras, Christians (or is it mainly Protestants?) try to comment on the Bible itself.
User avatar
Astus
Former staff member
Posts: 8883
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2010 11:22 pm
Location: Budapest

Re: Study Guides & Commentaries

Post by Astus »

1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
Christopherxx
Posts: 99
Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 1:47 am

Re: Study Guides & Commentaries

Post by Christopherxx »

You guys are both beasts. Awesome posts!
Lotus_Bitch
Posts: 283
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2012 12:24 am

Re: Study Guides & Commentaries

Post by Lotus_Bitch »

http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=32 -- "Vimalakirti Sutra" translations and commentaries
Many meditators know how to meditate,
But only a few know how to dismantle [mental clinging].
- Je Gyare
Post Reply

Return to “Sūtra Studies”