How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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tiltbillings
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by tiltbillings »

jcsuperstar wrote:if you read buddhadasa's explination it makes sense. but basically it states if the kamma we make has to be drawn out over 3 lives then you always have to have a future life, even if you stopped making kamma right now your past kamma from this life isnt gonna end till the next life so you still have 1 more life. or something like that. the main point is that if youre always working with three lives you cant end it in this life. but if youre not always working with 3 lives whats the point of a 3 life model?
even if you stopped making kamma right now your past kamma from this life isnt gonna end till the next life so you still have 1 more life.

Following this line of thinking all kamma made in this life must be exhausted in this life, which is not too realistic.

Past kamma from 10 lives ago may play itself out in this life. Break the chain, there will be residual kamma, the body being part of that, but there is nothing further impelling one foward. There is no grasping after. Buddhism is not Jainism where kamma must be completely exhausted for there to be awakening.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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jcsuperstar
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by jcsuperstar »

Following this line of thinking all kamma made in this life must be exhausted in this life, which is not too realistic
not so, what it implies is that it can be. not that its has to be. buddhadasa is saying the buddha said nibbana can be had here and now (at least in the buddha's time, if we want to argue over whether or not one can be an arahant now thats a different thread) and if this is true and one can skip out on samsara in this life time (not in the future one you have to be in next for your kamma to play out) the 3 life times model is flawed.
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the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
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jcsuperstar
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by jcsuperstar »

i bet somewhere there are heads spinning as i use buddhadasa to enforce my pro-rebith ideas... :tongue: though you have to admit this is probably the most productive rebirth/buddhadasa thread in existance
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the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
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tiltbillings
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by tiltbillings »

jcsuperstar wrote:
Following this line of thinking all kamma made in this life must be exhausted in this life, which is not too realistic
not so, what it implies is that it can be. not that its has to be.
That is the point. The Buddha's teaching is not about exhausting kamma. It is about cutting the link that impels us forward.
buddhadasa is saying the buddha said nibbana can be had here and now (at least in the buddha's time, if we want to argue over whether or not one can be an arahant now thats a different thread) and if this is true and one can skip out on samsara in this life time (not in the future one you have to be in next for your kamma to play out) the 3 life times model is flawed.
It is only flawed if you accept the Jain position of having to "exhaust" kamma. If I cut the link between vedana and tanha, no more kamma is created, and movement forward into the next life is ended. There is no need that whatever kamma made must be experienced.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by jcsuperstar »

exactly, which is why i am saying the 3 life model is flawed.
สัพเพ สัตตา สุขีตา โหนตุ

the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
nathan
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by nathan »

On reflection the three times, past, present and future adequately demonstrate that if kamma making is not brought to an end, clinging, craving and aversion will continue indefinitely irrespective of what body and mind it may be.

If Ven. Buddhadasa brought an end to all this ignorance and dukkha then he both was and is a successful rebirth denier.

For those who can observe they are still kamma making, the depiction of it as the compulsive pursuit of being and becoming is available in the present. What can be observed adequately demonstrates the nature of the problem. When ignorance is not defeated then even death will not free from ongoing cyclic being and becoming.

I don't have any problems with any of the Theravada Bhikkhu writers, east or west. I think they are all misunderstood at points. It gets sorted out in the long run. They have all taught me a lot. I'm very appreciative of all of it and I liked Buddhasasa's writing a lot.
:anjali:
Last edited by nathan on Fri Jul 10, 2009 7:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
But whoever walking, standing, sitting, or lying down overcomes thought, delighting in the stilling of thought: he's capable, a monk like this, of touching superlative self-awakening. § 110. {Iti 4.11; Iti 115}
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tiltbillings
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by tiltbillings »

jcsuperstar wrote:exactly, which is why i am saying the 3 life model is flawed.
Not that you have shown, unless one wants to assume a Jain position about kamma.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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mikenz66
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by mikenz66 »

jcsuperstar wrote:i bet somewhere there are heads spinning as i use buddhadasa to enforce my pro-rebith ideas... :tongue: though you have to admit this is probably the most productive rebirth/buddhadasa thread in existance
Hmm, perhaps it's the most reproductive...

Like Tilt, I don't understand your/Buddhadhassa's problem.

Here are some comments from Ven Nyanatiloka, who presubly wasn't aware of Ajahn Buddhadasa when he wrote his Dictionary in the 1940s while incarcerated by the British.
http://what-buddha-said.net/library/Bud ... pp%C4%81da" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Nyanatiloka wrote:Against Dr. Paul Dahlke's misconception of the paticcasamuppāda as;one single kammical moment of personal experience,; and of the 'simultaneity' of all the 12 links of this formula, I should like to state here distinctly that the interpretation of the p. given here as comprising 3 successive lives not only agrees with all the different schools of Buddhism and all the ancient commentaries, but also is fully identical with the explanations given already in the canonical suttas. Thus, for example, it is said verbatim in Nidāna-Samyutta S. XII, 51:;Once ignorance 1 and clinging 9 are extinguished, neither kammically meritorious, nor disadvantageous, nor imperturbable kammic-constructions 2=10 are produced, and thus no consciousness 3=11 will spring up again in a new mother's womb.; And further:;For, if consciousness were not to appear in the mother's womb, would in that case mentality and materiality 4 arise?; Cf. above diagram.
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

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so youre saying it has to take place over three lives? cause if so you have to have that 3rd life no matter what you do now, even if you were the buddha youd have to live one more life to eat up that kamma unless the 3 life model is wrong. if you believe you can ge out of samsara without exhausting all your kamma then the 3 life model is wrong is what i'm saying. how can you have a 3 life model if you can get out of it 2nd life? or 1st whatever.

angullimala is the perfect example he clearly had to have created kamma in his last life that should have made for some pretty crappy future lives but he became an arhant, he didnt have to live a future life, he didnt have to experience that kamma played out over 3 lives. the model fails here.
สัพเพ สัตตา สุขีตา โหนตุ

the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by mikenz66 »

Hmm, I still don't get it. My understanding was that for an Arahant there is nothing to condition the next rebirth. That's what the quote I gave above seemed to be saying.

On the other hand, I think that saying that all aspects of the model need to be over three lives is probably an overinterpretation of what Buddhagosa was saying. Can someone point us to the specific section of the Visuddhimagga?

Mike
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

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i think once he became the arahant he didnt create new kamma, same as buddha, but same as buddha he still had to feel the effects of it, headaches like the buddha, getting stoned like angullimala...
สัพเพ สัตตา สุขีตา โหนตุ

the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by tiltbillings »

jcsuperstar wrote:so youre saying it has to take place over three lives? cause if so you have to have that 3rd life no matter what you do now, even if you were the buddha youd have to live one more life to eat up that kamma unless the 3 life model is wrong. if you believe you can ge out of samsara without exhausting all your kamma then the 3 life model is wrong is what i'm saying. how can you have a 3 life model if you can get out of it 2nd life? or 1st whatever.

angullimala is the perfect example he clearly had to have created kamma in his last life that should have made for some pretty crappy future lives but he became an arhant, he didnt have to live a future life, he didnt have to experience that kamma played out over 3 lives. the model fails here.
You really are not listening here. The 3 life model does not negate kamma made and experienced in this life. There is no need to have kamma exhausted before awakening or after awakening. Once awakening happens, kamma making is stopped, and there there is no further further factors of tanha or grasping which push one into a new life. The kamma the remains does not need to be eat[en] up to use your expression. It is modified or neutralized, and the past kamma that makes up the body is not an occasion to make more, nor is any of the residual kamma. The arahant lives her then dies.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by mikenz66 »

OK, I went and looked at the Visuddhimagga myself.
Page 669 of the Nanamoli translation:
XVII 287
The past, the present and the future are it's three times. Of these, it should be understood that, according to what is given as such in the texts, the two factors ignorance and formations belong to the past time, the eight beginning with consciousness belong to the present time, and the two, birth and ageing-and-death, belong to the future time.
I don't see where it says "three lives"...

Mike
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by tiltbillings »

mikenz66 wrote:OK, I went and looked at the Visuddhimagga myself.
Page 669 of the Nanamoli translation:
XVII 287
The past, the present and the future are it's three times. Of these, it should be understood that, according to what is given as such in the texts, the two factors ignorance and formations belong to the past time, the eight beginning with consciousness belong to the present time, and the two, birth and ageing-and-death, belong to the future time.
I don't see where it says "three lives"...

Mike
As I said, paticcasamuppada is circular and plays itself out in time, past, present, future.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by mikenz66 »

Thanks,

Members might also check out Robert's critique of Buddhadsa's critique of Buddhagosa...
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=311" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mike
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