[Buddha-l] Loving your object of study

[Joy Vriens]

Jack,
>Thanks for posting this. I read the above excerpt not to refer to   
>intellectual knowledge or scholarship but to insight which may have been gained  by aid  
>of conceptual knowledge or gained without any conceptual knowledge  at all.  
>How do you read it? 

The main message is the equivalence of testifying with the body (non conceptual, or at least the "truth" isn't reached through concepts) , faith and view. So knowing this, when I read the sutta, I tend to read it in that light. If the Buddha wanted to talk explicitly about a difference between intellectual knowledge and insight, I expect he would have somehow stated that or would have spoken a separate sutta on that topic.

I don't see much difference between intellectual knowledge, (impartial/objective) scholarship and insight, which I basically see as analysis, or the knowledge gained through intellectual analysis. The Buddhist Insight (in meditation) tends to be more guided towards soteriological topics that need to be analysed in order to remove error (i.e. which causes pain) and with more or less the objective to not take sides/to chose/to judge (disturbs peace, is conducive to pain). The analysing mechanism is the same, the objective is different.

Personally, "scholarship", or my dilettant practise of it,has been extremely useful for me to give attention to problems and nuances. Problems and nuances is what gets in the way of one's general pet theories. ;-)

Joy