When the Buddha wasn’t meditating, eating, sleeping, etc., he was teaching, one on one, or to groups. People memorized these teachings, passed them on orally and then finally they were written down as sutras some hundreds of years later.
Buddhist schools continually teach, interpret, and debate the meaning of every phrase in them. Despite this several large schools, notably the branches of Zen, discourage their students from getting caught up in “words and letters”, and thereby distracted from the real enlightenment experience which is completely experiential and void of concepts. And yet, all the Buddha did for some 40 years was preach.
To me, part of the creating of causes and conditions for the direct experience, is to study the Buddha’s teachings. The Buddha had to use language to transmit his teachings. Surely he knew that these came across as concepts, yet what choice did he have? He must have understood that study is not inherently bad or wrong, but rather the beginning stages of an individual’s awakening.
By working on and understanding these concepts of Impermanence, Causality, Dependent Arising and Emptiness, the ground can be prepared for awakening. Through logical consideration of Buddhist principles, mistaken views can be undermined and ultimately done away with, to the point where there is only a small step to the direct realization that is essential to enlightenment.
My point? Don’t neglect your study. It goes hand in hand with your practice.
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