dhammafriend wrote:Thanks for the replies all. Ive seen his youtube page and listened to why he is now and 'ex buddhist'. The reason people like him are important, even if we disagree on some of his conclusions, is because of people like me. In all my years of trying to get to dhamma i had to wade through all the nonsense from Olcott, Rhys Davis, Blavatsky,Watts etc.
tiltbillings wrote:
Geez, how old are you?
I guess I'm lucky I came to this in the 21st C and had no idea who those people were, so it's all rather academic to me...
dhammafriend wrote:Eventually I found my way to Gunaratna, Nyanponika, Nanananda etc. And even there one has to be discerning. I think we need to go back to the very beginning. To questions like: what is buddhism? Is there such a thing as buddhism?
tiltbillings wrote:
And do not forget Richard Gombrich.
Or Bhikkhu Bodhi (though I guess Nyanaponika implies that group) who was the first person whose translations and explanations I seriously read. For me, his writings and talks have the great advantage over many other commentators that he doesn't try to argue that he has all the answers.
tiltbillings wrote:
Mazard, however, is far too idiosyncratic and cranky to be taken seriously, in my opinion, but then no one needs share it.
He does make some interesting points, but I don't take seriously anyone who implies that they alone have figured things out...
dhammafriend wrote: We've yet to accept that the text runs parallel to the living tradition. And that the text is not always the origin of a practice but the result of a practice.
tiltbillings wrote:
That is obvious.
I certainly agree that living traditions are important. The most useful things I learned about practice were from personal instruction.
Mike