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

Post by jcsuperstar »

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...
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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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mikenz66
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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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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by jcsuperstar »

i feel like youre saying what i'm saying

im saying one doesnt have to eat up all the kamma, that one can become an arahant and that act negates the 3 life model or at least renders it useless

i guess if youre saying the 3 life model is true for all but arahants, then maybe, i cant argue for or against that, and i think buddhadasa's model would have to conciede as well as his argument is the same as mine
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by tiltbillings »

jcsuperstar wrote:i feel like youre saying what i'm saying

im saying one doesnt have to eat up all the kamma, that one can become an arahant and that act negates the 3 life model or at least renders it useless

i guess if youre saying the 3 life model is true for all but arahants, then maybe, i cant argue for or against that, and i think buddhadasa's model would have to conciede as well as his argument is the same as mine
That the 3 life model works untill the link between vedana and tanha is broken. tanha, upadana and the rest are ended, so no more three lives.
>> 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 Ceisiwr »

Hey

Craig,

Ajahn Buddhadasa wrote:
Take the question of whether or not there is rebirth. ...

He doesn't go on to say "the Buddha taught that there is no rebirth", he goes on to say that it is not a useful question to ask.

Metta
Mike
wasnt the discussion how he breaks from tradition, his above statement is a break from tradition by saying that Rebirth is outside buddhadhamma and not a part of it. Your post backs my point

If I may [ ] rebirth denial is starting to resemble a dead horse. It seems unlikely that any evidence is going to convince Craig, and likewise Craig I feel you're wasting precious time trying to bring others around to the idea that "We simply don't know" if indeed that's your idea - I'm sorry I don't know.

I know I jumped in all guns blazing - opinions at the ready, but that was a foolish mistake.
For the sake of harmony in this community, perhaps we should just let go.
Do you know?

Anyway i wasnt trying to convince anyone of anything, as i said the post was to show how Ajahn broke with tradition and so insnt just a case of his pesky "western students" misunderstanding him


I havent heard Ajahn say "after death there is nothing" (since this is a speculative view) but its not hard to see from his work that he doesnt take the view of any kind of post mortem contiuance, rebirth or reincarnation. Perhaps in private he did and this was his teaching method, i dont know i never met him or asked him so i (and we) can only go on his works and Dhamma talks. He doesnt seem to take the view of no "rebirth" or "rebirth"
Craig, do you have a source for that quote on rebirth?
Its from the begining of "heartwood from the bodhi tree"



Maybe somewhere Buddhadasa Bhikkhu did actually deny any form of post-mortem continuance, but I've yet to see it. I tend to think that sometimes people just grab a quote out of context (e.g. "There is no such thing, in reality, as rebirth or reincarnation.") and use that to push a different argument... either that there is no post-mortem continuance, or that Buddhadasa went against the teachings of the Buddha. I see nothing in the above quote that supports either of those views.
He doesnt deny it outright and neither does he say it is since both are going into specualtions, in his view the question simply isnt important. Similar to Ajahn Sumedhos take on it (and mine)



N.B. shouldnt the debate about three lives be in the D.O. thread?

metta
Last edited by Ceisiwr on Fri Jul 10, 2009 9:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by jcsuperstar »

so i guess we're in agreement :spy:

maybe my and buddhadasa's understanding of the 3 life model is wrong. but one would have to wonder why he would make an issue of it, i doubt he'd have just been some jerk making a strawman argument. maybe this is the average thai understanding of the 3LM? i mean most thai buddhists i know believe in a soul and a hindu type karma, and practice is not about nibbana but a better rebirth and after all this was buddhadasa's audience. if you read the book he clearly isnt writing a book to disprove buddhaghosa, that isnt the point of the book, the point of the book is about understanding and breaking the links in DO.
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by jcsuperstar »

N.B. shouldnt the debate about three lives be in the D.O. thread?
well the 3 life argument is about buddhadasa's understanding of it so it makes sense here
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by tiltbillings »

jcsuperstar wrote:so i guess we're in agreement :spy:

maybe my and buddhadasa's understanding of the 3 life model is wrong. but one would have to wonder why he would make an issue of it, i doubt he'd have just been some jerk making a strawman argument. maybe this is the average thai understanding of the 3LM? i mean most thai buddhists i know believe in a soul and a hindu type karma, and practice is not about nibbana but a better rebirth and after all this was buddhadasa's audience. if you read the book he clearly isnt writing a book to disprove buddhaghosa, that isnt the point of the book, the point of the book is about understanding and breaking the links in DO.
It has been a long time since I have read Buddhadasa, but I think a lot of it may have had to do with his strong disaproval of the rather superstitious view of things common among the Thai laity. I really can't say; just don't know.
>> 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 »

clw_uk wrote:
i never met him or asked him so i (and we) can only go on his works and Dhamma talks.
i pointed out before that Santikaro says he believed in literal rebirth, for whatever that's worth.

he not only met him, but studied under him, lived with him, and is the translator for most of his works, so he is probably the best we've got to go on.
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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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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by Macavity »

retrofuturist wrote:Well there we go... that firmly places the onus on those who claimed Buddhadasa Bhikkhu denied any form of post-mortem continuance to find real evidence (i.e. not just out of context snippets) to back up their claims.
Buddhadasa often claimed that the belief in rebirth is eternalism. For example, in his book on dependent origination.

To describe a belief as eternalism is to assert that it is wrong view.
To assert that a view is wrong is to assert that what the view holds to be the case is not in fact the case.
To assert that rebirth is not in fact the case is to deny rebirth.
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Macavity,
Macavity wrote:Buddhadasa often claimed that the belief in rebirth is eternalism. For example, in his book on dependent origination.
Every instance of him denying rebirth I've seen is him actually denying atta. In other words, that the question of "Who or what is reborn?" itself is faulty.
Now we come to the third question which they will ask: When there is no attā, then what is reborn? What or who is reborn? Forgive us for being forced to use crude language, but this question is absurd and crazy. In Buddhism, there is no point in asking such a thing. There is no place for it in Buddhism. If you ask what will be reborn next, that's the craziest, most insane question. If right here, right now, there is no soul, person, self, or attā, how could there be some "who" or "someone" that goes and gets reborn? So there is no way one can ask "who will be reborn?"Therefore, the rebirth of the same person does not occur. But the birth of different things is happening all the time. It happens often and continuously, but there is no rebirth. There is no such thing, in reality, as rebirth or reincarnation. That there is one person, one "I" or "you," getting reborn is what reincarnation is all about. If all is anattā, there is nothing to get reborn. There is birth, birth, birth, of course. This is obvious. There is birth happening all the time, but it is never the same person being born a second time. Every birth is new. So there is birth, endlessly, constantly, but we will not call it "rebirth" or "reincarnation."
Source: http://www.what-buddha-taught.net/Books ... ebirth.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think he considered the "anatta vs atta" issue to be far more significant than talk of multiple lives.

Metta,
Retro. :)
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Re: How are the views of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu regarded?

Post by kc2dpt »

jcsuperstar wrote:im saying ... one can become an arahant and that act negates the 3 life model or at least renders it useless
Yes, this is the whole point of the Buddha's path: to put an end to the cycle of birth and death.
i guess if youre saying the 3 life model is true for all but arahants...
That is the standard Theravadin teaching, yes. Dependant origination describes what happens for the un-liberated. It describes where things come from, what they depend on. For example, birth depends on becoming; becoming depends on clinging; clinging depends on craving. When there is no craving, there can't be any clinging, no becoming, and no birth. An arahant has eradicated craving so there can be no future birthing.

Or to look at another part of the model, new kamma depends on ignorance. When there is no ignorance there can't be any new kamma. An arahant has eradicated ignorance so there can be no new kamma.

When we look at the third part of the model it is the same for unawakened or awakened. Death comes form birth. An arahant was born so he or she must eventually die. Thus the Buddha died. On the other hand, since for an arahant there is no future birth there can't be any future death. Thus the endless rounds of birth and death have been ended even though there is still one more death to experience.

If one says "Stop worrying about future births; instead focus on eradicating craving here and now" that is fine but that is not the same thing as saying "There is no such thing as future births." This is where it seems some people misunderstand Ven. Buddhadasa.
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