Whose Buddhism is the truest?

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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Ben
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Re: Whose Buddhism is the truest?

Post by Ben »

alan wrote:I no longer waste time with that Tricycle, which seems to have ulterior motives.

This article is a good example of what they often present as research. Lots of words which sound impressive, a few true facts intermingled with an assumed conclusion. Nothing was proven, but the feel of authenticity lingers. As usual, we are lead to believe Buddhism is just a free-floating thing that no one can really get. Or maybe we all can, just tune in next month. Besides, who wants to waste time actually studying?

Oh, and buy our magazine.
I agree.
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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Kare
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Re: Whose Buddhism is the truest?

Post by Kare »

cooran wrote:
Whose Buddhism is the truest?
Mine, of course. :rolleye:
Mettāya,
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Viscid
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Re: Whose Buddhism is the truest?

Post by Viscid »

Kare wrote:
cooran wrote: Whose Buddhism is the truest?
Mine, of course. :rolleye:
Bah! Beat me to it.
"What holds attention determines action." - William James
dharmagoat
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Re: Whose Buddhism is the truest?

Post by dharmagoat »

The Buddha's?
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m0rl0ck
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Re: Whose Buddhism is the truest?

Post by m0rl0ck »

Pretty exciting stuff, anyone know if there are any translations / comparisions published?
What i find most interesting about this is
The manuscript record in Pali, however, doesn’t begin until about 800 C.E.
about the same time chan was well established in china and that the manuscripts in the article are even earlier.
The collections contain the earliest known Prajnaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) texts
Id love to read some more about that.
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.” ― Robert M. Pirsig
pegembara
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Re: Whose Buddhism is the truest?

Post by pegembara »

binocular wrote:Whose Buddhism is truest?


"Monks, do not wage wordy warfare, saying: 'You don't understand this Dhamma and discipline, I understand this Dhamma and discipline'; 'How could you understand it? You have fallen into wrong practices: I have the right practice'; 'You have said afterwards what you should have said first, and you have said first what you should have said afterwards';[1] 'What I say is consistent, what you say isn't'; 'What you have thought out for so long is entirely reversed'; 'Your statement is refuted'; 'You are talking rubbish!'; 'You are in the wrong'; 'Get out of that if you can!'

"Why should you not do this? Such talk, monks, is not related to the goal, it is not fundamental to the holy life, does not conduce to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, tranquillity, higher knowledge, enlightenment or to Nibbana. When you have discussions, monks, you should discuss Suffering, the Arising of Suffering, its Cessation, and the Path that leads to its Cessation. Why is that? Because such talk is related to the goal... it conduces to disenchantment... to Nibbana. This is the task you must accomplish."


SN 56.9

Two monks were arguing about the temple flag waving in the wind. One said, "The flag moves." The other said, "The wind moves." They argued back and forth but could not agree.

The Sixth Ancestor said, "Gentlemen! It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is your mind that moves." The two monks were struck with awe.

Everything starts from the mind. Reality is nothing moved. Only the mind and depending on which way it moves both viewpoints are "right". Ignorance is condition for fabrications. The mind fabricates things. So the most important thing is what happens when the mind stops fabricating.
And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter: This is called right speech.
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tiltbillings
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Re: Whose Buddhism is the truest?

Post by tiltbillings »

pegembara wrote:

Two monks were arguing about the temple flag waving in the wind. One said, "The flag moves." The other said, "The wind moves." They argued back and forth but could not agree.

The Sixth Ancestor said, "Gentlemen! It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is your mind that moves." The two monks were struck with awe.
And so ends your first lesson in Yogachara.
>> 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
nibbuti
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Re: Whose Buddhism is the truest?

Post by nibbuti »

tiltbillings wrote:
pegembara wrote:

Two monks were arguing about the temple flag waving in the wind. One said, "The flag moves." The other said, "The wind moves." They argued back and forth but could not agree.

The Sixth Ancestor said, "Gentlemen! It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is your mind that moves." The two monks were struck with awe.
And so ends your first lesson in Yogachara.
The above story is not complete yet.

It ends with the sentence, "And then came an elderly, withered man, grey, wrinkled and burdened with years, and, after being told what had happened and asked for his view on the matter, replied: 'It is not the flag, the wind or the mind that move but your flattering mouths.'"

:anjali:
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m0rl0ck
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Re: Whose Buddhism is the truest?

Post by m0rl0ck »

pegembara wrote:
Two monks were arguing about the temple flag waving in the wind. One said, "The flag moves." The other said, "The wind moves." They argued back and forth but could not agree.

The Sixth Ancestor said, "Gentlemen! It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is your mind that moves." The two monks were struck with awe.

Everything starts from the mind. Reality is nothing moved. Only the mind and depending on which way it moves both viewpoints are "right". Ignorance is condition for fabrications. The mind fabricates things. So the most important thing is what happens when the mind stops fabricating.
Its not complete without the nun maioxins capper.
As the seventeen monks were walking toward her, Miaoxin said, it's not the wind moving, it's not the flag moving, it's not the mind moving."

All the monks realized enlightenment. They thanked Miaoxin and returned to Shu without seeing Yangshan.
http://buddhism.about.com/od/whoswhoinb ... iaoxin.htm
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.” ― Robert M. Pirsig
Rasko
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Re: Whose Buddhism is the truest?

Post by Rasko »

m0rl0ck wrote:Pretty exciting stuff, anyone know if there are any translations / comparisions published?
What i find most interesting about this is
The manuscript record in Pali, however, doesn’t begin until about 800 C.E.
about the same time chan was well established in china and that the manuscripts in the article are even earlier.
The collections contain the earliest known Prajnaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) texts
Id love to read some more about that.
The pdf link I posted above about the Schøyen Collection has background intoduction, some examples and there's a Bibliography in the end.
http://www.indologie.uni-muenchen.de/do ... alogue.pdf

Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā
page 20:

The Manuscript

The present manuscript(s) consists of sixty-six fragments, all of which can not be presented here (see BMSC vols. I and II for a full description). Mostly larger fragments and those that are part of a reconstructed folio are here presented. The material is palm leaf, and the script is a square and upright Brāhmi typical of the Kuṣāṇa period. A date in the second half of the third century A.D. is suggested. The language is a mix of Sanskrit and Prakrit forms, also called Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, a mix found in many of the manuscripts of the collection. Four folio numbers are preserved (or reconstructed), indicating the large number of leaves originally constituting the manuscript: 4) folio 152, 13) folio 243 , 14) folio 245, and 15) folio 247.

The manuscript is the oldest trace of the Aṣṭāsāhasrikā in an Indic language so far established (although news of an apparently older manuscript from Pakistan has recently surfaced). It had always been assumed that the text was at least this old, as the oldest Chinese translation was done by Lokakṣema in 179-180 A.D. The present manuscript has confirmed this assumption. The text is quite close to the later Nepalese version (eleventh-twelfth century A.D.), but differs from Lokakṣema’s translation, suggesting that more than one Indian recension may have existed as early as the second to third century A.D.

The manuscript preserves, among other things, a discussion from the end of chapter one between Śāriputra and Subhūti, two senior disciples of the Buddha who figure prominently in the Prajñāpāramitā literature. On the first and second line of the first fragment the names Śāriputra and Subhūti may be read. From later editions of the text we know that in the section Śāriputra names Subhūti as ranking first among the teachers of the law (dharma). The text goes: “Addressed like this the venerable Subhūti spoke to the venerable Śāriputra as follows: ‘This is the true state of things of the Lord, venerable Śāriputra, for disciples not dependant on the moments of existence (dharmas). In whatever (way) they are questioned, they find (a way) out and do not obscure the true state of things, and do not turn away from the true state of things.’”
BTW The oldest survived manuscripts of Rigveda are dated to 1464 C.E. What does that tell us?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda
Last edited by Rasko on Sun May 05, 2013 12:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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equilibrium
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Re: Whose Buddhism is the truest?

Post by equilibrium »

cooran wrote:Whose Buddhism is the truest?
Potentially.....No one when reached.....until then, it is nothing but fabrication.
SN 46.54: "Monks, I don't see anyone in this cosmos"
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Indrajala
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Re: Whose Buddhism is the truest?

Post by Indrajala »

plwk wrote:I can't help but to think that IF the Mahasamghikas and Sarvastivadins were still around, they would have given Theravada a run for the money... lol
They were the dominant schools around India for many centuries. All things considered the Sarvāstivāda school was extremely influential in terms of doctrine and their Vinaya. They were also very skilled at debate as their corpus of texts demonstrate.
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Kamran
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Re: Whose Buddhism is the truest?

Post by Kamran »

The benefit of not having an original canon is that it makes the results of the practice, rather than its "sacredness" or "holiness", the determining factor of its validity, and offsets the tendency to worship or develop strong emotional attachments to a practice that was intended to be just a tool to be picked up, used, and let go of.
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