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~ [MN 76](/content/canon/mn76)
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description: "A rigerous tour of key words and images used in the Early Buddhist Texts, this course unpacks early Buddhist philosophy from the unique perspective of the rhethoric it deployed. This course also serves as an introduction to Pāli for nonspecialists."
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part_header: This is part of a course going systematically through Bhikkhu Analayo's <a href="/content/monographs/craving-to-liberation_analayo">Excursions</a> <a href="/content/monographs/grasping-to-emptiness_analayo">series</a>.
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part_header: This is part of a course going through the similes and metaphors of the Buddha.
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Because of this, coming to understand the words and images of the Canon can be both incredibly challenging and rewarding: a powerful “Dharma Gate” that has inspired (and awakened!) a hundred generations of Buddhists — from the first “turning of the wheel” up to the present day.
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## Prerequisites
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<h2id="we-will">In this course you will...</h2>
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This course assumes some prior familiarity with [the Early Buddhist Texts]({% link _courses/ebts.md %}).
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### Learn
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## Textbook
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- The many ways that the Buddha used material examples in the world around him
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- How to interpret similes in ways that are authentic and meaningful
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- How to use the suttas to deepen your understanding of the spiritual path
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This course will center around Bhikkhu Anālayo’s two “Excursions into the Thought World of the Pāli Discourses”:
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### Build
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{% include content_blurb.html category="monographs" slug="craving-to-liberation_analayo" %}
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{% include content_blurb.html category="monographs" slug="grasping-to-emptiness_analayo" %}
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-These two books each give a systematic treatment to a dozen important terms from the Pāli Canon, analyzing their nuances and the various ways each term is used.
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- An anthology of suttas you find personally meaningful
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- A broad knowledge of the teachings in the Pali Canon
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-Your own connection with the Buddha's words
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{% include content_box.html category="monographs" slug="similes-of-the-buddha_hecker" %}
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### Master
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As we read through the Excursions we will also weave in the similes from this anthology to illustrate and “flesh out” the terms with images from the Canon.
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- One of the Buddha's main rhethorical tools
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- A broad range of dhamma topics
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- An authentic, close reading of the Pali Canon
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Please note that the Sutta references given throughout Bhikkhu Anālayo’s two books are to the volumes and page numbers of the PTS edition of the Pāli Canon, not to sutta numbers as you may be familiar with. Thankfully there is [a converter tool online](http://pts.ticao.de){:target="_blank"} you can use to turn the PTS references into “normal” sutta numbers (and even links to SuttaCentral).
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## Prerequisites
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Note also that while a few suttas are “assigned reading” below, please don't let that limit you! Feel free to explore Anālayo and Hecker’s many sutta references, even if they aren't on the assigned reading list!
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This course assumes some prior familiarity with [the Early Buddhist Texts]({% link _courses/ebts.md %}).
description: That's enough, venerable sir — what you have done, what you have offered. ~ <a href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn41/sn41.004.than.html" target="_blank" ga-event-value="0.4">SN 41.4</a>
description: "Buddhism has many symbols representing different layers of historical development."
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---
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Before we dive into the three main books, let's first set the stage a bit by going back in time.
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## An Introduction to the Buddha's Pyrotechnics
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### Pyrotechnic Imagery
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The fire of passion being “extinguished” gives us the term “Nibbāna (nirvāna)” and the fire of samādhi (meditation) is an enduring image in both text and art. As we start to move back in time to the Buddha's India, let us gaze a little closer into the flames:
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The fire of passion being “extinguished” gives us the term “*Nibbāna (nirvāna)*” and the "fire" of *samādhi* (meditation) is an enduring image in Buddhist text and art. As we roll back in time to the Buddha's India, let us gaze a little closer into the flames:
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{% include content_blurb.html category="articles" slug="fire-miracles_analayo" %}
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- Bhikkhu Analayo demonstrates the interdependence of text and early art by showing how fire motifs in early Buddhist art found their way back into the texts as miracles. It shows another way in which a visual understanding of the EBTs is critical, and hints at how the symbols we're so familiar with (like those above) became so widespread.
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- Bhikkhu Analayo explains some of the stories of the Buddha's miracles, and how a close reading of the texts can reveal the evolution of the legend.
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{% include content_blurb.html category="articles" slug="myth-as-meditation_gethin" %}
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-We go a bit further back in time with Rupert Gethin to explore a particular myth in the DN and how it might have been read as a story of meditation.
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-Traditional Buddhists, however, read their myths less as history than as guides to the spiritual journey.
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{% include content_blurb.html category="articles" slug="playing-with-fire_jurewicz" %}
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- Many of the Buddha's contemporaries were fire worshipers and the vedas put fire front and center in their mythology. This paper explores how the Buddha played with the Vedic fire imagery to create his own explanation of origination, bringing us right back to the Buddha's own intentions.
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- Finally, rewinding the clock all the way back to the Buddha's own day, we learn how the Buddha played with ancient Vedic fire imagery to create his own, perhaps satirical, creation myth.
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### Optional Reading
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See Also:
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{% include content_blurb.html category="booklets" slug="mind-like-fire-unbound_geoff" %}
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- Ajahn Geoff explores the symbolism of extinguishment in the context of ancient Indian physics to give us another take on this central image of Buddhist soteriology in this extra credit reading.
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- Ajahn Geoff explores the symbolism of extinguishment in the context of ancient Indian physics to give us another take on this central image of Buddhist soteriology.
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## Quiz
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While a more thorough understanding of India at the time of the Buddha will have to wait for another time, I hope the above gives some sense of the thought world of ancient India that we peer back into as we...
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Read the introduction to Part 1 of [Hecker]({% link _content/monographs/similes-of-the-buddha_hecker.md %}) now, and the similes: **7**, **14**, **39** and **44**.
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_(Don't forget to read Analayo Chapter 2!)_
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### Reflections
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I notice that the passion images (a stream, an ocean, an affliction) are more wet and natural than the images for its near-synonym “craving” (though of course still negative). What does this say about the Buddhist attitude towards passion (especially vis-a-vis craving)? How are they different?
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