Namo Buddhaya! Thank you for sharing your story with us my friend 🙏

Thank you for the kind feedback. Yes, I agree. As we hinted at at the beginning of the video, the way in which a school understands its connection to the Buddhas will determine the 'nature of their lineage'. As you point out, traditionally the Pure Land schools have drawn a line of patriarchs which were not temporal, but 'faith-associates'. They are therefore still 'within a line', but the doctrinal foci they share, determines how they see this connection. I had the good fortune of visiting the Xiangjisi Temple 香積寺 in Xi'an, which is connected to the Pure Land Master Shandao 善導大師. At the temple is an altar within a Stupa depicting the Japanese master Honen 法然, meeting Shandao in a dream. It is quite a moving scene, but this too is its own authority. Both figures are within the same line, due to their reliance on Amitabha's power, rather than via temporal connections- but precisely this, is their line itself across time. You are correct that we shouldn't cling to the Dharma, and that lineage shows us a path moving forward. But this doesn't preclude the fact that if we choose forget about the 'authority' element filled by lineage, the risk of serious harm being caused by individuals who self-identify with something they've never tangibly been involved in, is extensive. Lineage fills many roles, and if we hold too tightly to the idea that a particular aspect of lineage (such as 'authority',) is not to be clung to- then we end up clinging to the rejection of this just as strongly. In short, lineage can and does hold both roles, and we all must navigate both to help others well :) 🙏

I'm glad it was useful 🙏 It is great to hear that you are intending to visit Mount Wutai. As for useful resources that might guide your pilgrimage, there a couple that might be helpful depending on what you're interested in. For example, there is an article entitled "Buddhist Pilgrimage at Mount Wutai: Architecture, Landscape, and Religious Heritage", which provides a fairly good map of the current temple structures on the mountain, as well as a map showing where Master Ennin visited during his own pilgrimage there. On that note, if you're hoping to 'walk in the footsteps of former pilgrims' as it were, the English translation of Ennins Diary in China ("Ennin's Diary: The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law ") can be quite inspiring. A slightly different approach might be to look into the travelogues of Buddhist masters. I'm thinking here of Xuanzang's record of his travels to and from India, or Faxian/Yijin's travels. This approach might give you a sense of 'what they felt and looked for' during their own pilgrimage, and give some perspective for your own journey. I'm not sure if this is the kind of thing you're looking for, but please don't hesitate to let me know if I might offer a slightly different response 🙏

Thank you for your comment. Pali and Sanskrit are indeed very useful, and anyone willing to study either language should do so. However, the number of Buddhist texts preserved in Chinese is far greater than the entirety of the Pali and surviving Sanskrit materials combined. And so, learning Literary Chinese in order to read Buddhist texts is still a very useful endeavour. Many materials, such as the entirety of the Sarvāstivādin 說一切有部 Abhidharma 阿毘曇, survive only in Chinese. Furthermore, for most of the extant Sanskrit texts, the Chinese translations we have are far earlier, and in many cases preserve earlier versions of śāstra material. In short, learning all of these languages is useful, and it is not a case of 'instead'. Thanks again for taking the time to watch the video.

Thank you very much Javier for the encouragement and positive feedback 🙏 I'm a fan of your content too, especially the Historical Tour series. I hope to see more in the future 🙏

Good point! You're correct, I didn't think about 賢首宗 as an alternative for 華嚴宗. Now that I'm thinking about it, it is another interesting comparison, inasmuch as we aren't referring to it as 杜順宗 or 終南宗. Thank you for reminding us of that example 🙏

I am not in Taiwan, and stating that 文言文 was the official written language up to 1949 is merely a statement of fact, and not a political comment. It was government policy to write all official communiqués in 文言文 under the Republican government. As it happens, the People's Republic of China is actually very proud of their efforts to democratise the written language since 1949. And my recognising their shift to written vernacular is in no way political bias, or an attempt to make any political statements whatsoever. Take for example, the National Anthem of the People's Republic of China (义勇军进行曲), and compare it with the National Anthem of the Republic of China (三民主義歌) used until 1949. You will find that the former is vernacular Chinese 白話, and the latter is Literary Chinese 文言文. Thank you for taking the time to comment on our video 🙏

Thank you for your comment. A "dead language" is defined as a language no longer spoken as the native tongue, by any community. This does not mean that the language is not in use, merely that it is not how people speak. By this definition, 文言文 is indeed a "dead language", as no community learns to speak in this manner. The term "文言" intends to imply this, but this of course does not mean that one does not regularly encounter 文言文 in China today. 文言文 is still in extensive use, but this is entirely different to representing a community's vernacular speech.

@@ginabanadab it is awkward to claim a language is used but not spoken, So ,what the utility of this language ? toliet paper ?.even you just write it, you do at least speak inside your mind.. why you think you english definition works for chinese language? do you have something similar in english ? ,"文言文" is by chinese definition, it is a way of writing . it is not any language, you can certainly speak with it ,and it will just sound bookish . Today, any educated Chinese can read and write it .why it is dead?? by saying "literacy language " is dead, it just states, we Chinese are not literacy anymore under the communistic regime. . totally ignorant. You throw your definition all around ,it is not any good way of learning from Buddhism perspective. i see a clear colonial mentality and self-superiority in these statements, giving definition to other culture , or stating other culture are dead,. only you , colonial master can revive it. haha, no matter how much Chinese culture you learn, you will be only a humanoid form of British museum.. cause you said yourself, it it is dead..

@@leekinboo So many problems with what you just said. The term dead language is a technical term with technical uses. Your issues with it are irrelevant. Reading aloud or in your head is not speaking. Speaking is communicating with others. 文言文 cannot be used for speaking. You wouldn't sound "bookish". You wouldn't be understood at all. Modern Chinese is still literary. Just because 文言文 (a separate language) is dead, doesn't mean modern Chinese isn't literary. Your jump to colonialism is just absurd. Latin and Greek are also dead. So is old and middle English. It's not a political claim. It's just fact.

Hi Jon, thank you for the suggestions. I am certainly happy to make videos discussing these two topics, so I'll see if I can gather my thoughts in a helpful way 🙏

Yes, this is good advice. Active Recall can be used to great effect with Literary Chinese. The Pleco Flashcard system can be used quite well for this, as you can make your own decks. The extensive reading of primary texts is also critical to such retrieval practise, as you are forced to review learnt material in entirely new scenarios. Thank you for suggesting it here for others 🙏

What questions do you have my friend?

@@ginabanadab may be it's not possible on the comment section, any social media of yours Question to be asked - on marriage, On war, tendai warriors monks , ethics on lay person etc. There can be holy war to establish justice and freedom, as mentioned in Nirvana sutra , buddha advices to punish the icchantikas . Tendai mostly focuses on Nirvana and Lotus sutra , but as a supplementary they used to read every sutra. it's not possible in comment section to discuss all this .

@@SubhoChak If you click on my KZbin channel, you can find my Facebook page information in the channel description. You are welcome to send me a message there to discuss further 🙏

You're very welcome Mister Meow 🙏 I'm very happy to hear that it is of some use for those beginning their journey in the language. Please don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions along your journey. Good luck! And thank you for taking on the challenge! Namo Amitabha Buddha 🙏

Thank you for your comment. You are correct that the word 'primer' is pronounced with a short vowel in American English (when referring to the book), and represents an earlier pronunciation. Indeed, this is admittedly closer to the Latin root 'primarius' from which it is drawn. Nevertheless as an Australian, the standard of English pronunciation I use is British English, not American English. And the word 'primer' (referring to the book), is pronounced the same way as 'primer' (the paint) in British English, and has been pronounced this way since the 1800s. I hope that you enjoyed the video nonetheless, and found something useful in it. 🙏

@@ginabanadab Thank you. You broadened my knowledge. It's not really polite to pick on other people's pronunciation but I couldn't help it. 😉

He died 2000 years ago, we don't believe in dead zombie.

@@TalaySeedam rude

Jesus went to India and studied Buddhism in his missing years

@@slomo4672 And still died as a criminal.

Friends, I appreciate you all watching my video. Our Christian friend here is following his scriptures (Mark 16:15) when he comments like this, and though we may not agree with said scripture when it follows this with "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.", we can surely appreciate someone who knows and follows their own canonical texts. There is always room for healthy debate, but given that the topic of this video is studying Buddhist canonical texts in one of the primary languages, it may not be here. Here, it is probably best to show him that we also have scriptures that we follow in response, and say to him: 《妙法蓮華經》卷6〈20 常不輕菩薩品〉：「如此經歷多年，常被罵詈，不生瞋恚，常作是言：『汝當作佛。』說是語時，眾人或以杖木瓦石而打擲之，避走遠住，猶高聲唱言：『我不敢輕於汝等，汝等皆當作佛。』」(CBETA 2024.R1, T09, no. 262, pp. 50c26-51a1) 《Lotus Sūtra: Ch. 20, Fasc. 6》: In this way over many years he was constantly abused and reviled, but did not give rise to malice. He would always say: “You will become Buddhas!”. When he would say this, many people would either beat him with staves, sticks, tiles or rocks. He would withdraw by running and standing at a distance, and then with a loud voice say: “I dare not disrespect you, for you all will become Buddhas!” 🙏

Thank you so much for taking the time to watch our video! Your textbook is a fantastic resource, and a number of our temple members have purchased and utilised it. We are deeply indebted to your and Linebarger's efforts, in bringing us this wonderful resource. And would be very grateful for any resources you might provide on the website. Please feel free to post any updates to the website here for viewers, and if we can ever assist with anything, please don't hesitate to let us know 🙏.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I was unfamiliar with Dobson's work, but after having had a quick look, I can see that Dobson is indeed very comprehensive. It looks like a great resource, and I suspect that I will make use of it moving forward. Thank you again for bringing it to our attention 🙏

It is a good question. In the long run, the answer is definitely: yes, having one of these modern languages up your sleeve will help. In the short term, learning modern languages using Chinese characters (like Mandarin and Japanese) can be both helpful, and make things more difficult for you. For example, if you learn modern Mandarin: the positive is that you'll be pushed to learn lots of characters fairly quickly; the negative is that you may end up learning simplified characters, which will divert some of your attention, and words that have shifted semantically will possibly cause confusion- take 但 for example, which in Modern Mandarin means "but; still etc", whereas in Literary Chinese it can mean that, but it most often means "only; merely". Japanese will help vis a vis scholarship and living traditions in the long run, and in the short term, given that Japanese often retains older approximations of the pronunciations of Chinese characters, you'll have a leg up in trying to work out transliterations of Sanskrit words: eg. 釋迦牟尼 would be pronounced as "Shijiamouni" in Mandarin, but "Shakamuni" in Japanese- which is much closer to the "Śākyamuni" that it transliterates. Nevertheless, as you say, Japanese is quite a different language with its own difficulties. My advice would be to start with Literary Chinese on its own first. As you begin to get comfortable with basic Literary Chinese, then you can start introducing a modern language like Mandarin or Japanese, and to a certain extent your brain will be able to differentiate between them easier. 🙏

I am reading Classical Tibetan right now. Its so hard for me to understand due to few knowledge in english grammar. I cant understand most of the things being taught. The private tutors are very expensive for me. Is there any book would you recommend me please?

Thank you for the positive feedback. I'm glad to hear that you have a clear goal in mind for your study of Literary Chinese. Keep it close as you progress- it will keep you on the right track when things get difficult. Between you and I, Yijing’s 義淨 translation of the Longer Version of the Golden Light Sutra 金光明最勝王經 (T 665) is a personal favourite of mine! I have translations of part of it in draft form (first fascicle, and excerpts), so thank you for bringing it back to my attention- I need to get on with doing the rest. If you are ever looking for a good hard-copy Chinese edition for the "Deep Dive", be sure to try and get a hold of the 福建莆田廣化寺 edition. It is punctuated quite well, and has light notation (mainly on rare characters, Sanskrit transliterations and variant manuscripts) to assist. Keep me posted on how your journey unfolds 🙏 and good luck!

@@Language-rf5gy if you can afford it, try Translating Buddhism from Tibetan by Joe B Wilson. There's also a very helpful KZbin channel dedicated to this: youtube.com/@learningbasicreadingtibeta337?si=SKd2j4N563LJ_RTC

Make life easy for yourself. Search for EVERY book by Russian sinologist J. J. Brandt, especially the one written in Russian, it is the perfect primer. Use google translate if you don't read Russian. His other books are in English.

I'm very glad you found the video useful, and I thank you for the positive feedback. It's also great to hear that you'll be going to DRBU for translation, and I hope it is a fruitful experience for you! Please give my best regards to DRBU for all their hard work, and let them know that they have admirers of their output - even here in Australia 🙂🙏

I hope it is of some use. My understanding is that the Primers currently exist only as PDFs. But Dr Kieschnick is regularly updating and improving them, so it is not beyond possibility that a print version/hard copy could be put together. I would certainly be interested in a hard copy version myself. Dr Kieschnick is also very approachable, so perhaps if we all email Dr Kieschnick and express our interest in a print version, we might just make it happen.

I'm very glad that it was helpful my friend. If you have any ideas of other topics/questions/issues which it would be useful for me to do dedicated treatments of, please don't hesitate to make suggestions 🙏

I hope that it is useful :)

Thank you!

Glad you enjoyed it!