It's just another book and in my opinion heavily shaped by Ven Dhammika's own monastic experience. I'm sure that if the Ven had stumbled into Wat Pa Barn Tard (for example) as a young man he would be writing very different books. What are our expectations of a living religion that is over 2500 years...

Not the same event but in the same vein
http://october2011.org/quotes/bhikkhu-bodhi" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hi Rowboat

I would hope that participants in this forum would be respectful whoever they were addressing.

I would add that I actually wasn't directly addressing Bhikkhu Pesala but was commenting on the Ven's comment.

Apologies if you found my comment disrespectful.

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:A huge mass of people have been conned completely by that false Guru called Māra and have failed to arrive at even mundane right view, let alone supramundane right view.

Give us a break.

It's like a Rose with many petals.

pilgrim wrote: Indeed....for millenia, Buddhists practise the Dhamma for one purpose only, the ending of rebirth. It takes a Western Buddhist to turn the Dhamma into a feel good therapy.

?????

Hi cooran & all What I meant is when Ian Stevenson's research is used to try and validate Buddhist doctrine it often has the reverse of it's 'intended effect. I don't think it adds anything and my opinion is that it may actually take something away because from what I have observed it tends to m...

What I don't get is why there is a wish to correlate the studies of Ian Stevenson with the teachings of Buddhism. For me Buddhist practice stands up well with out the need for "scientific" validation. The kind of validation that can come from such non-mainstream views as that of Ian Steven...