Re: Do you also read Mahayana Sutras?
Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 5:54 am
Forgive my ignorance but I would like to know if the Mahayana Buddhists have an equivalent of the Sutta Pitaka in their collection of scriptures.
A Buddhist discussion forum on the Dhamma of Theravāda Buddhism
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So for you the common Nāthadeva/Metteyya stuff is legit but any other devas with bodhisattva or buddha qualities abiding in other world systems is absolutely impossible and therefore illegitimate?Sanghamitta wrote:The issue isnt the commonalities.....its the later lurches into fantasy fiction.
Not impossible. Just irrelevant. Its gilding the lily. Its a literary device which adds nothing to the basic Pali Canon narrative and instead muddies the waters.Ñāṇa wrote:So for you the common Nāthadeva/Metteyya stuff is legit but any other devas with bodhisattva or buddha qualities abiding in other world systems is absolutely impossible and therefore illegitimate?Sanghamitta wrote:The issue isnt the commonalities.....its the later lurches into fantasy fiction.
And how do you know that its merely a literary device?Sanghamitta wrote:Its a literary device
Just wondering why you would want to categorically dismiss everything not found in a Pāḷi text as fictions with no more soteriological utility than The Lord Of The Rings?Sanghamitta wrote:Nana why do you care what I think....?
I don't see it as having anything to do with diplomacy. Denigrating other expressions of Buddhist faith as being no more soteriologically meaningful than popular fiction is arrogant and self-serving. I don't detect any skillfulness in belittling others as being misguided unfortunates unwilling or unable to rise to your superior level. It's just another version of the hīnayāna polemic: Everyone who doesn't see it your way is by default employing a poor, deficient vehicle.Sanghamitta wrote:And the only difference between myself and most other Theravadins is that I am not diplomatic about it on the record.
"And how are there four kinds of verbal conduct not in accordance with the Dhamma, unrighteous conduct?
Here someone speaks falsehood: when summoned to a court or to a meeting, or to his relatives' presence, or to his guild, or to the royal family's presence, and questioned as a witness thus, 'So, good man, tell what you know,' then, not knowing, he says 'I know,' or knowing, he says 'I do not know,' not seeing, he says 'I see,' or seeing, he says 'I do not see'; in full awareness he speaks falsehood for his own ends or for another's ends or for some trifling worldly end.
He speaks maliciously: he is a repeater elsewhere of what is heard here for the purpose of causing division from these, or he is a repeater to these of what is heard elsewhere for the purpose of causing division from those, and he is thus a divider of the united, a creator of divisions, who enjoys discord, rejoices in discord, delights in discord, he is a speaker of words that create discord.
He speaks harshly: he utters such words as are rough, hard, hurtful to others, censorious of others, bordering on anger and unconducive to concentration.
He is a gossip: as one who tells that which is unseasonable, that which is not fact, that which is not good, that which is not the Dhamma, that which is not the Discipline, and he speaks out of season speech not worth recording, which is unreasoned, indefinite, and unconnected with good. That is how there are four kinds of verbal conduct not in accordance with the Dhamma, unrighteous conduct."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .nymo.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"The holy life is lived under the Blessed One, my friend, for the sake of total Unbinding through lack of clinging."Sanghamitta wrote:This idea that "clinging" is somehow the antichrist of Buddhism should be treated with great care. For a start very few people actually clarify what they mean by clinging as though it is self explanatory. It isnt.
Some of the most obvious clinging I see is from people who cling to the idea that not clinging is the raison d'etre of Buddhadhamma. It isnt,