Reading, Writing, and Reciting

This chapter explores Buddhist literary practices. A huge number of Buddhist practices focus on the written word. Though early Buddhist teachings were passed on orally, they eventually took the form of written texts, which began to occupy a special place in Buddhist practice. Buddhist texts often function as tools to help us reorient the mental life. We interact with books in many ways; they are things we create, use, neglect, admire, destroy, and contemplate. Buddhists in particular spend huge amounts of time and energy reading, reciting, memorizing, studying, interpreting, and translating texts. These are widespread Buddhist practices and can function not only to preserve and spread Buddhist ideas and techniques but as distinctive practices of their own.