Dear Kumâra Bhikkhu,Jou, and other friends:

>This brings about some questions which I hope you could answer:
>1. Which of the Pali texts are you referring as earlier and later?
>2. What are the "early Paali texts which have been modified"?
>3. How is such a reckoning deduced?

These questions are very important. Some Buddhist scholars have been trying to find out , with different methods, which part in Pali or Agama Canon is the oldest thereby the original parts of the teaching of Buddha. However in my openion, ,all the methods they used seem to be speculative and questionalbe. I hope Jou would be kind to explain the method by which Buddhist scholars used to distinguish the earlier parts and the later parts of Pali Canon.

>I believe there are more than a few in this group who has tried it out, since it is widely >applied in many Vipassanaa traditions, such as the Mahasi.

As a temporal bhikkhu, I stayed in Chanmyay Sayadaw Meditation Center practicing Vipassana meditation of Mahasi's method for about 50 days in 1999. The experience is very great and memorable. And as a Buddhist researcher with BA degree in Taiwan, I don't think Buddhist Scholars who understands Buddhism only by reading and logical thinking will understand Buddha's central teaching better than those Bhikkhus practicing Vipassana meditation industriously all his life like Mahasi Sayadaw and Silananda Sayadaw.


With metta

Tzungkuen


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