I don't know.namaste wrote:What do members think of the part of the book in which he discusses the Pali canon, and says that there are parts of it that were developed by Theravada, and parts that were ignored, the latter of which became the basis for some of the Mahayana teachings? (Under "What Is Theravada?") He gives a couple of examples, I'll just mention one here:
"For example, the Four Expressions of Sympathy (sangha vatthuni) are frequently mentioned by the Buddha, and could have important implications for a deeper understanding of love and compassion, particularly their social application. Mahayana used them to develop a whole philosophy of practical altruism, but they're given almost no attention in Theravada." He also discusses different versions of dependent origination taught by the Buddha, only one of which was developed into the concept we know as such today.
I find this fascinating. Do readers here feel this is a fair representation of scriptural development?
I found that part of the book fascinating because it shows how much of Asian Buddhism can be Asian rather than Buddhism. In other words, Buddhism could have been very different from it is now and still be as true/not true to the Pali Canon......it was just a matter of what particular cultures chose to become fixated on.
I started reading "In the Buddhas Words" by Bhikkhu Bodhi shortly after I read "The Broken Buddha". In his anthology of the Pali Canon Bodhi included a sutta that stated that giving dana to monks yielded the most kammic rewards. I saw the sutta where much of the corruption Dhammika described in his book started. Instead of one sutta among many, the Asian Sanghas over the centuries made that sutta prominent.