Why should I study the Suttas? If the Buddha said that we shouldn't take his teachings as dogma, but rather try to experience for ourselves what realization is--why should we study the scriptures?
If the Buddha said that we shouldn't take his teachings as dogma, but rather try to experience for ourselves what realization is--why should we study the scriptures?


First, one should study the scriptures so one is not caught on hearsay of what the Buddha might have taught. Moreover, how can one expect to learn the teachings of the Buddha while at the same time ignoring the teachings of the Buddha?

Having said that, besides being understood as a religion or carrying a philosophy, Buddhism carries a pedagogy and much of what the Buddha taught is a training, and like all training, it is intimately associated with technique (pretty much anything that requires repetitive practice is an exercise on technique).

By comparison, take anything else that requires training and technique, like martial arts, for example. With the dedication to study and practice guided by a master, one can expect you to become a master yourself, perfectly fluent in the craft, in this life time. But turn your eyes away and ignore those who came before you, and the likelihood is that you might not develop yourself at all, much less, become a master yourself -- possibly, will hurt yourself before there's any significant progress.

In another analogy, take calculus. It's not so hard to learn what Newton created by studying his work. However, it's very hard to come up with and invent calculus yourself.

Now note, it's not impossible to progress alone in any path -- some of them did have someone to pave the way after all. It just requires a certain commitment, a high endurance to failures and skills that is really rare. On that vein, some people may entertain the idea of trying alone anyway -- but then, the goal is not something like achieving nirvana (or understand calculus) but something else (like being recognized as someone who did it all by oneself -- a strange devotion to the very ego one is trying to destroy, one could say).

Now, to explain why a teacher would say to avoid taking the lessons as dogma, imagine for example a martial arts student copying and memorizing the lessons and boasting others by how well he has memorized -- but who could not perform a single move of what has been taught. Such student would likely have the teacher telling him "hey, don't take what I say as a dogma, but experience [the movements in order to learn]".