After nearly 50 years of seeking and studying religion and ending up choosing to practise Buddhism, I have given up all forms of Buddhism except early Buddhism, with which I have been Iiving for nearly 2 decades now. Why stand in the shadows of foreign cultures and exotic cults when we can bask in the bright healthy sunshine of early Buddhism?
As I study more of the early Buddhist texts more closely—translating and analyzing them, and writing modern commentaries on them—I find that I am beginning to know less and less, but understanding ever better. It’s like learning a language. At first you read the primer, then the grammars, conversations, essays and debates. But when you have mastered the language, you simply enjoying communicating with people, or delving into the wealth of its literature, drama and meditations. You begin to love the culture and the people. So, it is for me with the Buddha Dhamma.
I think he is onto something essential to human condition and understanding the Dhamma.
I used to listen to a lot of talks by Jacque Fresco in my studies of communication and he used to talk quite a lot about how people seek to participate in conversations in which they are not qualified to participate in, instead of being aware of their own short comings and gathering more accurate information before making any decisions or statements they engage in meaningless discussion and project their views as reality.
It is somewhat like people not hestitating to talk about high Dhamma teachings as if they were experts but when posed with a real psychological problem in real life then all of a sudden they do not know much about the human condition afterall and seek out a "professional".
Here a short one by JF;
Last edited by User1249x on Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:30 pm, edited 3 times in total.
"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."
Oh yes, I can speak volumes,write volumes about it; and I have. But I still have to awaken to what the Buddha and the arhats
have awakened to. Of this I am more certain than ever before.
Well, I can relate to this.
I have post 8000 questions and answers in this forum, But I still wonder what I write.
But I am more certain than ever before about the awakening.
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
this is (imo) too sectarian. i rely on the early buddhist texts and view them as verifiably authentic, unlike later additions, but just because something was added later doesn't mean it's not dhamma. compare it to the early teachings, analyze it for leading to dispassion. my local temple is theravāda and to them early buddhism might seem foreign. i'm still going there to give alms. if my temple were lotus sutra i might still give alms, if there were validly ordained monks
i believe the buddha's dispensation is good enough that even apocryphal traditions contain purity of essence.
"Just as the ocean has a single taste — that of salt — in the same way, this Dhamma-Vinaya has a single taste: that of release."
— Ud 5.5
Dhammarakkhito wrote: ↑Sat Mar 03, 2018 8:56 pm
this is (imo) too sectarian. i rely on the early buddhist texts and view them as verifiably authentic, unlike later additions, but just because something was added later doesn't mean it's not dhamma. compare it to the early teachings, analyze it for leading to dispassion. my local temple is theravāda and to them early buddhism might seem foreign. i'm still going there to give alms. if my temple were lotus sutra i might still give alms, if there were validly ordained monks
i believe the buddha's dispensation is good enough that even apocryphal traditions contain purity of essence.
How do you know if there were validly ordained monks or not ?
Last edited by sentinel on Tue Mar 06, 2018 1:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
paul wrote: ↑Fri Mar 02, 2018 11:34 pm
Are there any examples of monks returning to lay life from the Pali Canon?
Sure. Can't recall where in the Canon though. It has some lay people saying that they've disrobed not because the Buddha'a teaching is no good, but they are just not up to the training, or something like that.
That link doesn't work for me. I even Googled "R541 Revisioning Buddhism 202", and when I clicked the direct link for that dhammafarer site, it still took me to the same page saying the site couldn't find the content I was looking for.
Is it possible to paste the full text of the article here? Or is it too long?
Thanks for the website information about the Dhamma works by Piya Tan. He certainly has done a very good job for those who want to know about Buddhism and spiritual happiness. But it seems that he uses and claims to be studying Early Buddhism is actually investigating Pali Buddhism.