Yeah, you never say what you said. I get it. I don't say what you think I am saying - you seem to want to think I differ to your dogmatic views and sometimes I do, sometimes I don't and mostly my comments aren't specifically one way or the other. You are really hung up on this dogmatic mahayana antiintellectual-ism thing. Books are evil! Burn the books! The Buddha placed a great deal of emphasis on hearing the Dhamma correctly, learning it correctly, discussing it, and not misapprehending it. Rather than anti -intellectualism, what I have been saying here is that at the time a person would not have needed to be an intellectual to hear, learn, discuss and practice the teachings which later became Suttas. Nonsense. If you don't know what it is that you are practising and why, you are just spinning your wheels. More mahavajra dogmatism. This is not what I said at all. That doesn't really mean anything. What "teachers" have you found who were not "committed practitioners? Many - informal teachers and also formal teachers. But I note that you said "ALSO" this time, instead of "RATHER THAN". Still the same baseless dogmatic assertion. But again, you never say what you said. The intention of giving the teachings, which later became Suttas was the information being used by anyone who had ears and the will, not to become the property of scholars. Today, in the West we need scholars to help us understand the nuances of language used. In reading the Sutta that Element started the thread with, without understanding the exact meanings, the picture created can still be understood, rather than misapprehended, if we contemplate.