Freawaru wrote:Hello tiltbillings,
tiltbillings wrote:Freawaru wrote: "Hearing" is not a requirement for becoming Ariyan.
The definition you seem to be using for "hearer" strikes me as coming out of the Mahayana, not the Theravada or the Pali suttas.
Yes, todays Theravada does not seem to have it any more
A claim based upon your opinion, and nothing more than your opinion, it would seem.
- but it is in the Pali suttas. The very fact that "Hearer" is also translated as "disciple" (aka disciple of a guru) is proove enough if you ask me.
But not if you ask me. First of all, if the term guru were of the significance in the Pali suttas as it is in the later Mahayana, you would know what the Pali for it was. The Pali suttas do not teach that sort of Mahayana/Vajrana student teacher relationship.
Sāvaka, as in the refuge - Sāvaka-Sangha -, refers only to the 8 kinds of noble disciples, which means that any individual who attains to some degree of awakening is part of the Sāvaka-Sangha.
There is more going on during "Hearing" than mere listening to a talk. Else we would all be sotapanna by now.
And so what would be going on during “hearing?” This is a rather vague statement.
Look, if Hearers can only Liberate by Hearing a sammasambuddha there would not have been disciples after Gautama's death. What would be the point of teaching something like that and then decide to die. If without a living sammasambuddha the sotapanna Path would be closed what would be the use of all those suttas. Somehow, something, has to be given on by the disciples.
Again, teaching something like what? It is not at all clear what you are talking about here.
There are countless Pratyekabuddhas.
This claim is based upon what?
The response:
Please be kind enough to quote from this link (or its sublinks) to show that there are
countless Pratyekabuddhas.
And now and then there is a Samyaksambuddha. Neither has had a transmission by Hearing the Dhamma from a guru
"Guru" is a far more a Mahayana concept than what one finds in the Pali suttas and within the Theravada.
The response:
If I recall correctly the Pali term is "guru" (or was it sanskrit?). Anyway, "guru" means teacher - this term appears in the suttas.
The Pali term for guru is not used in the suttas the same way as we find in the Mahayana and especially the Vajrayana. The ideal teacher in the Pali tradition is the kalyāna-mitta.
I think the Linage of the Hearers has be broken in Theravada. I think so because Theravadans interprete "Hearing dhamma" as listening in a seminar.
Not that I ever have seen.
And the response is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dhammastudygroup" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Read some of the treads there. It is all over it: Hearing Dhamma refers (in their view) to listening to someone quoting the suttas and explaining them. "Wise consideration" has nothing to do with wisdom any more but is (to them) formalistic analysis (the way one analysis mathematical systems). While this seems to be incorrect to many Theravadans (there are many thread there that discuss the ansatz of no meditation but just reading and discussing) - far as I know - I am the only one ever mentioning that the original assumption of what "Hearing Dhamma" means is wrong in the first place.
This does not tell me anything other than you do not like what you read in the yahoo group. If you are going to make such a claim as
Linage of the Hearers has be broken in Theravada, you are going to have actually present an actual argument with actual examples that clearly make your point. So far, you have given an opinion but no real justification for it.