What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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chownah
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What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by chownah »

Buddhists have the 4 noble truths and the eight fold noble path.....but the paccekabuddha attains release without ever learning these from anyone....I guess. So what does a paccekabuddha have for a path? Speculation is fine but it would be nice if it was somehow based on scripture...but of course pure speculation is fine too even if it is just based on ones experiences.
chownah
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BlackBird
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by BlackBird »

The Buddha never spoke about pursuing it as a goal.
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

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Ben
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by Ben »

Greetings Chownah,
Ledi Sayadaw mentions it briefly in his Manual of the Excellent Man. I don;t have my copy with me presently but from memory it seems very similar to the path of the Bodhisatta aspirant. The difference between the Bodhisatta aspirant, the pacekhabuddha-to-be and the chief disciple aspirants is the time they spend developing their paramitas before making their aspiration in front of a living Buddha who then predicts their future as a Sammasambuddha, paccekabuddha or Savaka.
kind regards

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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retrofuturist
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Chownah,

I see no reason to see why it's any different in essence to what the Buddha did, other than that the paccekabuddha doesn't have inclination and/or skill to build a dispensation.

Not being inclined towards commentary unfounded in sutta, I don't think the paramitas have anything to do with it.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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cooran
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by cooran »

Hello chownah,

This might be of interest:
The Paccekabuddha: A Buddhist Ascetic - A Study of the Concept of the Paccekabuddha in Pali Canonical and Commentarial Literature
by Ria Kloppenborg
http://www.bps.lk/olib/wh/wh305.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

with metta
Chris
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
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Ben
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by Ben »

retrofuturist wrote:Not being inclined towards commentary unfounded in sutta, I don't think the paramitas have anything to do with it.
I am inclined to disregard this comment.
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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retrofuturist
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,
SN 56.11 wrote:"And what is the middle way realized by the Tathagata that — producing vision, producing knowledge — leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding? Precisely this Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This is the middle way realized by the Tathagata that — producing vision, producing knowledge — leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding.
The notion that the Buddha followed one path and then taught another is somewhat baffling.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Ben
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by Ben »

Equally baffling is the assumption that someone such as Ledi Sayadaw, Aggamaha-pandita, the pre-eminent Buddhist scholar of his day, and possibly the greatest Theravadin scholar-monk since Buddhaghosa, didn't know what he was talking about.
I might be wrong but I don;t think there is anyone here qualified to critique the commentarians.
Sorry!
kind regards

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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retrofuturist
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Ben,
Ben wrote:Equally baffling is the assumption that someone such as Ledi Sayadaw, Aggamaha-pandita, the pre-eminent Buddhist scholar of his day, and possibly the greatest Theravadin scholar-monk since Buddhaghosa, didn't know what he was talking about.
I might be wrong but I don;t think there is anyone here qualified to critique the commentarians.
Sorry!
To be clear, I'm neither critiquing Ledi Sayadaw, nor his teachings... just saying that you won't find anything about a paccekabuddha path or a path of ten paramitas in the suttas.

Which of course, neither makes either inherently right nor wrong... just unfounded in sutta. As Jack said above, "The Buddha never spoke about pursuing it as a goal."

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
chownah
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by chownah »

Cooran and Ben,
Thanks for the references...I've downloaded both and will study later.
Thanks again,
chownah
daverupa
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by daverupa »

Ben wrote:I might be wrong but I don;t think there is anyone here qualified to critique the commentarians.
The SuttaVinaya performs this task as needed.

:heart:
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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BlackBird
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by BlackBird »

Since when did commentaries and commentators become infallible to the point that no common man has the right to critique them?

Ben I figure your statements come from a position of deep reverence and I do not mean to insult or discredit that reverence, but perhaps we can agree that there might be value in giving precedence to what the Buddha has said above all else, since as devout practitioners we take the assumption that the Buddha was in fact blameless and infallible and that we cannot say for sure whether the same is true of a venerable scholar monk no matter how grand his reputation.
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

Path Press - Ñāṇavīra Thera Dhamma Page - Ajahn Nyanamoli's Dhamma talks
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ground
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by ground »

BlackBird wrote:Since when did commentaries and commentators become infallible to the point that no common man has the right to critique them?

Ben I figure your statements come from a position of deep reverence and I do not mean to insult or discredit that reverence, but perhaps we can agree that there might be value in giving precedence to what the Buddha has said above all else, since as devout practitioners we take the assumption that the Buddha was in fact blameless and infallible and that we cannot say for sure whether the same is true of a venerable scholar monk no matter how grand his reputation.
I understand that the words of the Buddha are independent of traditions wheras the commentaries are not. Commentaries actually are "tradition-building".


Kind regards
chownah
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by chownah »

I have read some of the info from the links but not all...I have a question which might be answered in that info but thought I'd post the question now to let those involved in the discussion of commentaries have a breather and get refreshed for the next round....the question is:
I have read a few times before that paccekabuddah can only arise when the dhamma does not exist in the world....but what I have read so far indicates that they arise when there is no Buddha in the world...seems like a sigificant difference....I'll keep reading the downloaded info and will keep an eye out for this but perhaps someone can direct me to the info inregards to.
OK....times up....round two!!!!.........ding!
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ground
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Re: What's the path of a paccekabuddha

Post by ground »

cooran wrote:Hello chownah,

This might be of interest:
The Paccekabuddha: A Buddhist Ascetic - A Study of the Concept of the Paccekabuddha in Pali Canonical and Commentarial Literature
by Ria Kloppenborg
http://www.bps.lk/olib/wh/wh305.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

with metta
Chris
Thank you. That is both inspiring and encouraging.

Having said this IMO the scriptural "standard figures" of the sravaka, pacceka-bodhisattva and (Mahayana) bodhisattva are sort of conceptual "isolates" of traits that are both ubiquituous and impermanent in human beings although there may be prevalence of one or the other in certain individuals.


Kind regards
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