Javi wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2017 4:18 pm
However, what I do see as a problem is when someone sees their perspective as the only one, the only proper way and everyone else is wrong.
Me too.
Any expansion that is not in the suttas is thus seen as a corruption. There is an ultra vigilance to expunge anything that is not directly spelled out in the suttas and to put it down as non-Buddhist.
In principle I think this "ultra vigilance" is a good thing. We all want to be inline with what the Buddha taught.
The problem as I see it is when this ultra vigilance is employed by 1) someone who "sees their perspective as the only one, the only proper way and everyone else is wrong" 2) someone who uses a style of delivery that shuts down dialogue, lacks any warmth or sense of conversation between
people 3) someone who has an excessive preoccupation with the supposed meanings of words-generally conceived of in the most narrow, gross and literal way; a meaning which can
only be divined through tortuous grammatical analysis and text critical methods (I do not deny that such things have their place)-an excessive preoccupation that seems to be blind to the greater context of those words and most importantly, what those words might actually mean in terms of personal experience here and now. The result is a pile of ossified, cold and (ironically)
meaningless abstractions.
The number of people on forums who supposedly have figured out what the suttas "really mean," and claim this as their near unique privilege, go about opposing "true buddhism" to what other posters are thinking or grappling with, implicitly or explicitly claiming stream entry left and right, and speak down to others from their supposed high horse... well, its mind boggling.
This is also a very tiring thing for others, because if one wants to discuss certain meditation techniques, but then one is unable to do so because of the constant claims of "not-buddhist", "not sutta" one is liable to just shut up or go elsewhere.
Yup. Or anything pragmatic for that matter.
PS Have you been wearing an n95? The air has been grotesque down in the bay!
"People often get too quick to say 'there's no self. There's no self...no self...no self.' There is self, there is focal point, its not yours. That's what not self is."
Ninoslav Ñāṇamoli
Senses and the Thought-1, 42:53
"Those who create constructs about the Buddha,
Who is beyond construction and without exhaustion,
Are thereby damaged by their constructs;
They fail to see the Thus-Gone.
That which is the nature of the Thus-Gone
Is also the nature of this world.
There is no nature of the Thus-Gone.
There is no nature of the world."
Nagarjuna
MMK XXII.15-16