@M_Ronin,
Yes, read several times.
My thoughts... well, I've been meditating since I was 18. Never for longer than 10 minutes at a time. Often that 10 minutes seemed like a chore.
Reading Buddha, it was immediately fascinating what a clear and very
precise teacher he is.
The focus is on precise ways to look at things, and precise ways to do things, which are extremely balanced, and very intuitive.
When I write or teach anything, the effect I try to strive for is for the reader/student to go through the material and experience a feeling of "Of course! That is so simple. And seemingly so obvious. How is it I never noticed that before?"
This is the effect you experience throughout Pali Canon. There aren't a lot of books like that, that have that kind of effect, so even just for that it's a very pleasant read.
More specifically, Buddha introduces the four jhānas one can reach in meditation. He describes them clearly, and describes what you need to do to reach them. When I read about them, I began meditating daily, seeking to reach the jhānas. It took me from max 10-minute meditations to max 70-minute meditations. I found I could pretty reliably hit jhāna 2 at about the 45-minute mark... because that was how long it took me to completely clear all the thoughts and distractions running through my head and get myself completely stilled. I hit jhāna 3 about 5 or 6 times. Then finally jhāna 4.
I've been sporadic about meditation since then. I got very busy, and haven't returned to it regularly.
But occasionally I will block out some time and go to the jhānas. It is a very nice experience, very calming, and very, very pleasant.
The jhānas are a fascinating experience... before I experienced them, I was a little skeptical about it. I mainly went into it thinking, "Okay, I'm going to try this, even though I don't think it's real, just because I want to test it out and see."
You get some kind of nice feelings, and think "Was that the second jhāna? It feels
kinda nice, but I don't really know..."
And then you hit the jhāna, and it is a very, very clear feeling. You just sit there in bliss because you are in it.
And then the next day you sit down to meditate and are like, "Was that real? Maybe I just imagined that."
And then you do it again -- you hit jhāna 2 again, and you're like "Yep, this is definitely real."
I had to experience it 10 or 15 times before I stopped second-guessing it the next day.
When you are in it -- it's basically just pure bliss. And you will be thinking "Wow. This is better than any other pastime I have. And all I am doing is just sitting here with an empty mind in quiet. I don't have to DO anything and this is GREAT!"
They have done neuroimaging studies on various people, and come back with brain readings saying Tibetan monks are the happiest people on Earth. Once you start doing the jhānas, you will understand why.
Aside from that...
Pali Canon essentially consists of two parts: the technical stuff on how to meditate properly, and free yourself from suffering (rooted in desire). And the fully spiritual stuff, such as discussion of the afterlife, other spheres of existence, the cycle of rebirth, and whatnot.
It kinda depends on where you stand with that stuff how you will feel about reading that. It might seem interesting, it might seem silly.
Surprisingly,
24% of Christian Americans believe in reincarnation, despite that not being remotely a part of that religion. Some of the Ancient Greeks (
including Plato) subscribed to it. It is a common thread in
near-death experiences.
So, seeing as it is a surprisingly common belief even among highly logical people and people who subscribe to a religion based around a permanent heaven and hell with no rebirth, in cultures where it is not preached or discussed but many people just believe in it anyway, it is at least interesting to read about it and see what someone who speaks very clearly about the things he is teaching says about it.
@Space,
As for Jesus, this is just one interpretation, maybe your interpretation, but certainly not the only interpretation. If your source is the Bible it was written centuries later than Jesus lived and certainly promoted the writers' then current agendas. Jesus didn't speak Greek either.
As for the Buddha. He personally didn't sign and authorize the Pali Canon, a main text according to one of the main Buddhist traditions, but not the only Buddhist tradition.
The earliest three of the main four Biblical Gospels were written somewhere between 30 to 70 years after the events they describe. It is widely accepted the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were likely based on a collection of Jesus's stories and sayings, dubbed the "Q source", written down anywhere from, at the most likely latest, 20 years after his death down to, at the earliest, possibly at the same time he was conducting his ministry.
As for Buddha not "signing and authorizing" the Pali Canon, that's a bit like arguing that since Socrates, Confucius, and Homer did not sign and authorize the works attributed to them, we have no guarantee that... well I'm not sure what you're arguing there's not a guarantee of, only that he didn't sign them.
What works for me and I realize this doesn't work for everyone is I simply Google (and these days YouTube) all the answers and guidance I'm looking for in a personalized fashion personalized to me. I realize many people appreciate to be told to read this (holy or unholy) text but maybe rather this than that. We are different and it's fine.
This is like learning about a foreign country by reading Wikipedia rather than going to that foreign country.
Or trying to learn anything about geopolitics by reading the stuff on Google News.
All you're getting is the most superficial, sound-bite-ized clips of anything.
There is no way to grasp something significant without reading the actual text of it.
If you really want to understand history, you don't read the Wikipedia article on an event. You read the actual historical volumes on it, either the first source, or a renowned history that draws from first sources.
If you want to understand the teachings of a given teacher, you don't read summaries about what his teachings are on some website you Googled. You go and read his actual words.
Everyone has interpretations of what a teacher is saying. Each great teacher has entire schools of thought and various renowned-in-their-own-right disciples who interpret his teachings and say "This is what he really meant when he said that" and "He didn't talk about this, but based on everything he said we can be certain he would have felt that certain way" and so on and so forth.
Personally, I would encourage everyone to go read as direct a transliteration of a teacher's words or a historical event's happenings as he can find.
It is
always clearer, and far more interesting and enlightening, from the original guy.
There is a reason the original guy, or text, or history inspires entire schools of thoughts and noteworthy disciples, and it is not because this stuff is dusty or boring.
I know it's a leap for a lot of folks, in our "You've gotta read the latest stuff! Get it off the web! New stuff is the best stuff!" age, to take a break and read the words (or as close to the original words as possible) of the original guy.
But really -- none of the interpreters I've read ever get close to what the people just trying to write down as clear a record as they can of what the original guy said do.
Plutarch, Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, Aristotle, Plato, some ancient stories like the Epic of Gilgamesh, and historians like Edward Gibbon -- I advise anyone who wants to look at the world in a different light to log off the web for a while and sit down with one of these men's books.
You won't likely be disappointed.
Chase
