I was reading something about the famous Chinese Ch’an master Xu Yun (Empty Cloud), who is among the most famous of Chinese Buddhist masters in the 20th century. One of the most interesting parts of his life (among many) was his intense study of a certain Buddhist sutra, the Shurangama Sutra, which is extremely popular in Chinese Buddhism, but not generally elsewhere. The sutra itself isn’t the focus of this post, but rather, in his autobiography he claimed that the year he spent studying this one sutra was more valuable to his time than the previous practices he did.
I also remember reading a post on Kyoushin’s blog about reading the Kyogyoshinsho (the main text of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism) 6 times and appreciating it more as a result.
From the examples above, I can see some important lessons for those studying Buddhism (including myself):
- Reading a Buddhist text multiple times is very helpful in appreciating the meaning.
- Sometimes it’s better to study one text well, than to glance over 10 of them.
So, I am not personally advocating a particular text as something to read, but rather, if you have a text that is important to you, it’s good to study it really in depth, to the point you can quote scripture-and-verse. Once you’ve really internalized that text, then it’s probably more applicable to you. Westerners like myself, tend to do an a la carte approach to Buddhism where we read lots of various sources (unlike previous generations, we have a ton of information at hand), and make judgements based on surface-level understanding. I know that Nichiren Buddhists, for example, read and study the Lotus Sutra quite a bit, so veteran Nichiren Buddhists really know the text well, and it reflects in their appreciation of it. Naturally this can apply to other Buddhists sects as well.
If it worked for Master Xu Yun, it has to say something. 
Namuamidabu
Hello, this blog is about my life as a father, Buddhist and Japanophile / Koreaphile. Any useful information I can pass along will hopefully make the 
That is good advice. Especially in regards to Buddhist literature and texts as they can often be difficult to understand.
But with many things in life that you want to learn about or become familiar with, you really need to read or study it multiple times in order to truly grasp it.
As tornadoes28 said, that is good advice. I find myself just reading book after book. Later on, I find that I need to reread something for it to sink in. Right now I am rereading Buddha of Infinite Light by D.T. Suzuki. I have also reread, more than once, Unno’s books and Kubose’s books. But this advice is really good. I will start with the Tannisho because it is a short read and then the Larger Pure Land Sutra.