[Buddha-l] Loving your object of study

[Richard Hayes]

On Tue, 2007-11-20 at 11:38 -0500, Jackhat1 at aol.com wrote:

> ====
> I see it as describing the 3 stages  of the 'progress of the  disciple'.1. 
> Understanding the doctrine (pariyatti). 2. Practicing  it
> (patipatti) and 3. Penetrating it (pativedha) and realising it.  Scholarship 
> only deals with 1 and not necessarily 2 and 3.

I think the terms of the discussion have shifted somewhat, perhaps
because I was not paying attention. It has never been my contention that
scholarship is equivalent to striving for nirvana. It is my claim that
if one is striving for nirvana, one of the ways of doing it is through
an intellectual grasping of the nature of suffering and understanding of
its root causes. If one also makes efforts to follow the path that leads
to an end of suffering, one can end suffering. As I understand it, that
path is pluralistic, and ONE of the ways of following it is entirely
intellectual, by which I mean without an devotional component and
without the attainment of any jhaana beyond the first.

-- 
Richard Hayes