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Clearly textual material provides a convenient and expedient way for Masters to elevate a student's understanding. However, where one person may find textual material useful, helpful, another may encounter problems that lead to doubts and uncertainties. Because each student is different, it follows that the strategy or methodology used to teach students needs to vary from student to student. To simply hand out sheets with information recorded on them without first considering the individual capacities of the students to whom those teachings are being disseminated, would be counterproductive, and potentially harmful to students' practice. Buddha expounded his doctrine to students who originally lived over two thousand years ago. His teachings were determined not simply by the students he taught, but by the social, political, and intellectual climate of which they were a part. Therefore, teachings given over 2000 years ago, which may have been entirely appropriate at that time, will not necessarily have the same convenience now, 2000 plus years later. So it is not even just a matter of trying to work out which were the true teachings of Buddha's from those earlier times, it is also critical to explicate teachings within the context of our social, political, and intellectual climate now - which are relevant to where we are in this space time continuum. |
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