Dear All, Would appreciate if anyone could share their learning technique here. After reading the notes, I was amazed with so much additional knowledge and things I never knew before. This lead to me reading more and more (thereby going in all direction), ultimately going astray in the wonderful material available in the e-library. I guess the best way is to sit still, read the lecture notes over and over again? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Regards. Wong |
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Learning Technique
Hi Wong,
There are many resources for your reading and you will not have time to read it all. Based on my experience you need to choose two or three books that you want to read the whole chapters.
For me, I read three books which are useful for my study:
(1) Peter Harvey, "An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices", Cambridge University Press.
(2) Narada, "The Buddha and His Teaching" (I think this book can represent Theravada Buddhism, doctrinal view).
(3) Akira Hirakawa, "A History of Indian Buddhism: From Sakyamuni to Early Mahayana (P. Groner, Trans.)". Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Then I spend one month for writing an essay, I tried to find electronic journal articles from public library, I read them then started writing the essay. After having written the essay, it would be easier for me when I re-read the lecture notes for final exam.
Hope it works.
Mahendra
Learning Technique
Hi Wong,
I think I am having the exact same problem.
I have also tried to tell myself to stick to the lecture notes only but I still get overwhelmed by the amount of 'good-to-know' knowledge there is, especially when I like to read in Chinese as well. Almost everything written about Buddhism I come into contact with seems 'good-to-know'.
And I can only always conclude that there is so little time... There is so much to find out... It is just so intellectually satisfying and spiritually rewarding.
I have been trying to organise what I am learning by keeping notes according to topics like 'The Buddha's Life', 'The Four Noble Truths', 'The Noble Eightfold Path' and 'The Five Aggregates' etc in both English and Chinese. What I do is that I will gather the core information on a particular topic (although that is still a lot of information) and hopefully expand on it later. In doing this, I hope to restrict myself to the 'need-to-know' first.
However, I must say I am still having difficulties stopping myself from wanting to read everything.
Yes, some advice/reference would be helpful. :)
Regards,
K S