The teachings of Bhikkhu Buddhadasa

[tiltbillings]

All realms are the mental dwelling places of physical human beings.

In the suttas - the Buddha's teachings - devas are not human beings, however else one might want to understand the idea of devas.

[tiltbillings]

Are you sure we cannot see devas? You tried and they just weren't there to be seen?

Have you seen some? Please describe?

I am not the one here making truth claims about the nature of devas. You are. The only truth claim I am making is simply that in the suttas - the Buddha's teachings - devas are not, contrary to your unqualified statement, understood as being human beings.

[jcsuperstar]

If we compare ourselves with chickens we'll see,
They don't have headaches, insomnia, or ulcers.
They're free of nervous tension and mental disorders.
Chickens don't go crazy like we do every day.
The world's people take drugs by the ton,
While the chickens don't take even a speck.
They sleep tight, minds at ease one-hundred per cent.
Don't you feel a little embarrassed by the chickens?
Human birth gives us the right to be neurotic:
Should we count this as a blessing or a curse?
Please find some Dhamma before it's too late,
To live happily, no longer shamed by the chickens.
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu
[translated by Santikaro Bhikkhu]

[Element]

I am not the one here making truth claims about the nature of devas. You are. The only truth claim I am making is simply that in the suttas - the Buddha's teachings - devas are not, contrary to your unqualified statement, understood as being human beings.

Tilt

This thread is about Buddhadasa's teachings.

Indeed, devas are not understood as human beings because their minds are not human. But their bodies are human form.

Just as the hell beings do not literally live in a physical hell, similarly the heavenly beings do not literally live in a other worldly heaven, just as the human beings have renounced celestial delights and aspire to the Four Noble Truths.

Best wishes

Element

[jcsuperstar]

anyone know where i can get the book Dhammic Socialism?

[jcsuperstar]

The Silent Mind Listens to Grass Speak
Lord Buddha, once enlightened, with silent mind
hears revelations from the myriad things,
As if clamoring to report through themselves
that there is nothing at all worth grasping
And clinging to as “I,” “myself,” or “mine.”
Never dream of owning any of them — what foolishness!
Taking these selfless things to be “I” or “me”
brings only sadness, soreness, and sorrow.
Even the rocks, sand, soil, trees, and grass
sound this song through every nook and cranny;
Yet, the busy-minded don’t understand or suspect
that everything sings out Dhamma’s lesson.
With silent mind one hears even the leaves of grass
counseling each other with this beautiful, witty fact:
“All beings may dance at ease in the breeze with minds
left silent by laying to rest all things.”

[translated by santikaro bhikkhu]

[tiltbillings]

I am not the one here making truth claims about the nature of devas. You are. The only truth claim I am making is simply that in the suttas - the Buddha's teachings - devas are not, contrary to your unqualified statement, understood as being human beings.

Tilt

This thread is about Buddhadasa's teachings.

Just as the hell beings do not literally live in hell, similarly the heavenly beings do not literally live in heaven, just as the human beings have renounced celestial delights and aspire to the Four Noble Truths.

[edited by moderator]

Best wishes

Element

Not a problem. To safe guard the truth, one would state: According to Buddhadasa's teaching hell beings do not literally live in hell, similarly the heavenly beings do not literally live in heaven, just as the human beings have renounced celestial delights and aspire to the Four Noble Truths.

[jcsuperstar]

Turtle Bearing Scriptures

Turtle, may I ask you something?
Your attitude makes me laugh:
Made of stone, eyes blind, punished by karma,
Unaware of the Dhamma on your back.
Human, I’ll drill something into your ears —
we ourselves are the very Dhamma itself.
Your Dhamma is in books, how crazy!
My Dhamma is just me living here as Dhamma.
Stone means being immersed in the coolness of Nibbana
after avijja has been thoroughly disposed.
Blind and deaf signifies the supreme peace erasing karma,
living in voidness constant and forever.
That these texts are not the Dhamma at all,
take a good look, human, don’t go astray.
You may find some Dhamma in them, no big deal!
Read just enough to find the Real Thing.

[translated by Santikaro Bhikkhu]

[jcsuperstar]

"Nothing whatsoever should be clung to as "I" or "mine." To understand this is to heal all illness and sorrow. Let yourself be still, without grasping or resisting. The wise person lives in voidness, with an open and free heart that does not cling to anything. This is the peace of Nirvana. Is it always here, available whenever we let go."

[retrofuturist]

http://www.buddhanet.net/budasa2.htm

Now any religious text is bound to contain material which later people have found occasion to add to, and our Tipitaka is no exception. People in later ages have added sections based on then current ideas, either in order to boost people's confidence or out of excessive religious zeal. Regrettably even the rites and rituals which have developed and become mixed in with the religion are now accepted and recognized as Buddhism proper. Ceremonies, such as setting up trays of sweets and fruit as offerings to the "soul" of the Buddha in the same way as alms food is offered to a monk just do not fit in with Buddhist principles. Yet some groups consider this to be genuine Buddhist practice, teaching it as such and keeping to it very strictly.

Rites and ceremonies of this kind have become so numerous that they now completely obscure the real Buddhism and its original purpose. Take for example the procedure of becoming ordained a monk. There has come into existence the ceremony of making gifts to the newly ordained bhikkhu Guests are invited to bring food and to watch proceedings, and as a result, there is much drunkenness and noise. Ceremonies are performed both at the temple and in the home. The new bhikkhu later leaves the Order again only a few days after having been ordained, and may become an even stronger temple-hater than he was before. It must be borne in mind that there was none of this at the time of the Buddha. It is a later development. Ordination at the time of the Buddha meant simply, that some individual, who had obtained his parent's consent, renounced home and family. He was a person who was able to close accounts at home and go off to join the Buddha and the Order of bhikkhus. On some convenient occasion he would go and be ordained, and perhaps not see his parents or family again for the rest of his life. Though some bhikkhus might go back to visit their parents again on suitable occasions, this was rare. There does exist a rule permitting a bhikkhu to go home when there is a good reason for doing so, but at the time of the Buddha this was not the done thing. Bhikkhus did not receive ordination with their parents in attendance nor did they celebrate the event as a great occasion, only to leave the Sangha again after just a few days, no better off than at first, as commonly happens in the present day.

All this presenting of gifts to newly ordained bhikkhus, this performing of ceremonies, including all sorts of celebration - this we are foolish enough to call Buddhism! Furthermore we choose to make much of it, thinking nothing of spending all our own money, or other people's on account of it. This "Neo-Buddhism" is so widespread as to be almost universal. The Dhamma, the genuine teaching that once was paramount has become so overlaid by ceremonial that the whole objective of Buddhism has been obscured, falsified and changed. Ordination, for instance, has become a face-saving gambit for young men whom people have been pointing at for never having been ordained, or a prerequisite to finding a wife (as having been a monk is considered a sign of maturity), or is done with some other kind of ulterior motive. In some places an ordination is regarded as an opportunity for collecting money for which job there are always people on hand to help. It is one way of getting rich. Even this they call Buddhism! And anyone who goes and criticizes this is considered to be ignorant of Buddhism or opposed to it.

Another example is the presentation of kathina cloth The Buddha's original intention was to have cloth for robes given to all the bhikkhus simultaneously so that they could sew it together themselves with a minimum loss of time. If there was only one robe, it was allocated to some bhikkhu not necessarily the most senior one, whom the group considered worthy of using that role or in need of it, and was presented to him in the name of the entire order. The Buddha's intention was to avoid any bhikkhu's having a high opinion of himself. On that day everyone, regardless of rank, had to humble himself and be one of the crowd. Everyone had to lend a hand cutting and sewing the cloth, boiling tree pith to make the dye, and whatever else was involved in getting the robes ready and finished the same day. Making the cloth into robes was a co-operative effort. That is how the Buddha intended it to be, an event not necessarily involving lay people at all. But nowadays it has become an affair involving ceremony, fun and games, loud laughter and money seeking. It is just a picnic and is devoid of all the desirable results originally intended.

This sort of thing is a tumour which has developed in Buddhism and thrived. The tumour takes hundreds of different forms too numerous to name. It is a dangerous, malignant growth which by degrees has completely overlaid and obscured the good material, the real pith of Buddhism, and quite disfigured it. One result of this has been the arising of many sects, some large, some insignificant, as off-shoots from the original religion. Some sects have even become involved in sensuality. It is essential that we always discriminate in order to recognize what is the real, original Buddhism. We must not foolishly grasp at the outer shell, or become so attached to the various rituals and ceremonies that the real objective becomes quite lost to view. The real practice of Buddhism is based on purification of conduct by way of body and speech, followed by purification of the mind, which in its turn leads to insight and right understanding. Don't go thinking that such and such is Buddhism just because everyone says it is. The tumour has been spreading constantly since the day the Buddha died, expanding in all directions right up to the present day, so that it is now quite sizeable. The tumour in Buddhism must not be misidentified as Buddhism itself. It is also wrong for of other religions to come and point at these shameful disgraceful growths as being Buddhism. It is unjust, because these things are not Buddhism at all; they are excrescence. Those of us interested in furthering Buddhism, whether as a foothold for all people, or for our own private well-being, must know how to get hold of the true essence of Buddhism and not just grab at some worthless outgrowth. Now even the genuine Buddhism is many-sided, a fact which may lead to a false grasp of true meaning. For instance, if looked at from the point of view of a moral philosopher, Buddhism is seen to be a religion of morality. There is talk of merit and demerit, good and evil, honesty, gratitude, harmony, open-heartedness and much more besides. The Tipitaka is full of moral teachings. Many newcomers to Buddhism approach it from this angle and are attracted to it on this account.

A more profound aspect is Buddhism as Truth, as the deep hidden truth lying below the surface and invisible to the ordinary man. To see this truth is to know intellectual emptiness of all things; the transience, unsatisfactoriness and non-selfhood of all things; to know intellectually the nature of suffering, of the complete elimination of suffering and of the way to attain the complete elimination of suffering; to perceive these in terms of absolute truth, the kind that changes and which everyone ought to know. This is Buddhism as Truth.

Metta,
Retro.

[Element]

Not a problem. To safe guard the truth, one would state: According to Buddhadasa's teaching hell beings do not literally live in hell, similarly the heavenly beings do not literally live in heaven, just as the human beings have renounced celestial delights and aspire to the Four Noble Truths.

To safe guard the truth, one would state according to Buddhadasa's teaching:

WORLD

Now we shall say something about the word "world" (loka). In everyday language, the word "world" refers to the Earth, this physical world, flat or round or however you conceive it. The "world" as the physical Earth is everyday language. In Dhamma language, however, the word "world" refers to worldly (lokiya) mental states, the worldly stages in the scale of mental development - that is to say, dukkha.

Link

[clw_uk]

A lot has been posted since my last post so sorry if it seems im back tracking.


In reguards to the Devas being psychological as well as actual i see no reason why there cannot be both. The sense of being something is always in the mind.

In reguards to Buddhadasa and Rebirth he clearly states there is no rebirth because there is no "I" to be reborn or pass through, he doesnt deny that there is birth and birth of different things going on all the time (until it is stopped) no reason to think this would end at a physcial death, just it is no rebirth beacause there is no true "I" which is what I feel is in line with the buddhas teachings.

Lord Buddha taught rebirth to lay people as eternalism for the reason of instilling morality.

For his monks he taught that in reality there is no person passing through, all is anatta so there is no real rebirth, only birth birth birth of identity grasping at the aggregates. I feel Buddhadasa has got back to this important fact and helped people shift from the mundane teachings to the High Teachings. He also helped to show how the buddha never went into detail about rebirth with the lay people and how to correctly understand Dependent Origination.

People who dislike Buddhadasa teachings about there being no rebirth seem to miss the essence of what is being said. There can be no rebirth because there is no "i" or "me" that can or will be reborn.

Just my two cents

[tiltbillings]

Not a problem. To safe guard the truth, one would state: According to Buddhadasa's teaching hell beings do not literally live in hell, similarly the heavenly beings do not literally live in heaven, just as the human beings have renounced celestial delights and aspire to the Four Noble Truths.

To safe guard the truth, one would state according to Buddhadasa's teaching:

WORLD

Now we shall say something about the word "world" (loka). In everyday language, the word "world" refers to the Earth, this physical world, flat or round or however you conceive it. The "world" as the physical Earth is everyday language. In Dhamma language, however, the word "world" refers to worldly (lokiya) mental states, the worldly stages in the scale of mental development - that is to say, dukkha.

Link

That's nice, though not particuraly relevant to our exchange.

[Element]

If all people in the world object to bringing Dhamma into the world, because they think it's impossible, that's up to them. We alone, if need be, ought to make ourselves quench all dukkha with Dhamma that's up to the mark. Never be disappointed that so few people are interested in Dhamma.

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