Dear Sensei Tony- Do Buddhists have a Bible? This is Ronnie.

Hi Ronnie-  This is a really important question as sacred writings are very valid to most religions. So let’s breakdown some basic information about sacred scriptures that are pertinent to most faith traditions:

• Oral transmission Comes First: Early followers often memorized teachings and passed them down orally before writing was widespread or consistent.

• The Community Creates: As groups grew, communities compiled teachings into letters, narratives and commentaries.

• Interpretation and Editing: Some texts may preserve older works and then they get edited or expanded over time.

The reality is that most religious communities grow and develop without specific texts of reference. Most are composed decades or even centuries after the main teacher’s life and even then, go through years before being established as a canon (collection accepted as genuinely representing the original teacher).

In time, these texts take on a life of their own, becoming often authoritative in a manner that the original writers may not have even intended.

And this is authoritarian approach is not even limited to the book oriented Abrahamic traditions. Some schools of Buddhism do it too. While some see them as historical documents, written for a specific time and place, in the world of hermeneutics (interpretation of scriptures) there can be a great variety of evaluation and opinion. Some take an exegetical (think “excavate”) approach while others, an eisegetic (think “read or project onto”).

So, how does our spiritual community understand them? Let me share from my recent book, A Short Catechism of Oneness in the Legacy of the Buddha(https://www.asksenseitony.com/store).

From Chapter Five:

Let’s break this down. I think of them firstly, as a love letter from the Sangha, written out of their experience of practicing the Dharma. Secondly, while they contain all things necessary for enlightenment, they don’t have be looked at literally or dogmatically. Thirdly, we believe that inspired writings are still being written by teachers today. We utilize one specific to our Order of the Dragonfly, called, The One Body of the Buddha(https://www.amazon.com/Mere-Buddhism-One-Body-Buddha/dp/B0D2HQ59BS?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER).

And fourthly, we emphasize a personal living experience, not trapped by time or cultural milieu.

Our faith tradition has at least 84,000 texts, so it would be pretty hard to carry around! I respect them all but am not dictated by any, rather, I utilize them as inspiration for heuristic practices and homilies and find them fantastic in both their emphasis and scope.

I hope this helped.