Why do Buddhists always revert back to siddhartha gautama?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
nowheat
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Re: Why do Buddhists always revert back to siddhartha gautam

Post by nowheat »

clw_uk wrote:Why do Buddhists, at least on internet discussion forums, always revert back to the first Arahant in india (siddhartha gautama) instead of referring to modern day arahants?

IMO we can take the core teachings from siddhartha and gain better elaborations from modern ajahans (such as Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Sumedho and Ajhan Buddhadasa) since they communicate via our modern languages and use our modern terms and concepts
I spent the first half of my Buddhist years getting my dhamma from those who wanted to share it -- mostly via books (this being prior to the days of the internet). What I discovered was that there were lots of varying opinions about what the Buddha taught. How would I know which was accurate? I tried the method of applying the techniques explained in the books, and got some distance down the road, but not far; I really could not understand what all the teachers were trying to show me.

The answer, for me, in straightening it out, has been to go back and learn from the master himself. It's a daunting task -- lots of texts, very different style of speaking. So I take your point, clw, that learning what it's about from someone who speaks the same tongue we do could be a very good thing. But my personal experience has been that, until I understood how the Buddha was framing his arguments -- what he was arguing against, and why he used the language he did the way he did -- I was not going to be able to sort out which modern teachers were making sense and which were not.

:namaste:
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Aloka
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Re: Why do Buddhists always revert back to siddhartha gautam

Post by Aloka »

My personal experience has been that at Amaravati Monastery in the UK, I have found that teachers such as Ajahn Sumedho and Ajahn Amaro have given sutta references both in their talks and in the question and answer sessions afterwards.

This has been very helpful for me, because I can then refer to the suttas afterwards.

I'm not a Pali scholar however - and to be honest, regular meditation is becoming more important than a lot of studying, in connection with my daily life.

After being a Vajrayana practitioner for a long time, I feel much more connected to the western Theravada Thai Forest Tradition now and I think I've benefited from their teachings, so I wouldn't want to give that up.

So to conclude, I'm definately not setting aside the teachings of the Buddha in the suttas, but I'm acknowledging that modern teachers who have had many years of study and practice and who have dedicated their lives to Buddha,Dhamma, Sangha, can help me to better understand them.


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BlackBird
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Re: Why do Buddhists always revert back to siddhartha gautam

Post by BlackBird »

danieLion wrote:Hi friends,
In MN 47, the Vimamsaka Sutta, the Buddha invites examination. Coupled with the notorious Kalama Sutta, we have precedent for the so-called "charter of free inquiry" (I borrow from Ven. Analayo, but am not sure if the phrase is original to him). Yet, as Bhikkhu Bodhi reminds us (commenting on the Kalama Sutta), Right View must be one's basis for such inquiry:
The discourse to the Kalamas offers an acid test for gaining confidence in the Dhamma as a viable doctrine of deliverance. We begin with an immediately verifiable teaching whose validity can be attested by anyone with the moral integrity to follow it through to its conclusions, namely, that the defilements cause harm and suffering both personal and social, that their removal brings peace and happiness, and that the practices taught by the Buddha are effective means for achieving their removal. By putting this teaching to a personal test, with only a provisional trust in the Buddha as one's collateral, one eventually arrives at a firmer, experientially grounded confidence in the liberating and purifying power of the Dhamma. This increased confidence in the teaching brings along a deepened faith in the Buddha as teacher, and thus disposes one to accept on trust those principles he enunciates that are relevant to the quest for awakening, even when they lie beyond one's own capacity for verification. This, in fact, marks the acquisition of right view, in its preliminary role as the forerunner of the entire Noble Eightfold Path.
Kindly,
dL
Pretty much sums up exactly how I feel when the Kalama sutta is dragged out by secularists as a blank cheque for being skeptical of whatever aspects of the Dhamma offends their views. I'm also forever harping on about how in order to make progress in the Dhamma beyond a certain point, we must abandon this idea that our views have primacy. We must abandon the idea that our views are correct, because we're deluded and ignorant. To assume one's views are on an equal platform with that of the Buddha is like a blind man attesting that he can see just as well as a man with sight. We blind people should take the man with sight as our guide.

Imagine you're on fire, and a man comes up with a bucket of water and says - here, quickly, let me pour this water on you and you say: 'Well, does it really work? How do you know it's going to work? Where did you get that water from? Where did you buy that bucket? Is it a good bucket?" - That's how I see people with too much skepticism. A bit is fine, a bit is healthy, especially when you're new to Buddhism. But when you're chopping and changing parts of the Buddha's teachings, and you don't believe he said X or Y because of some revisionist history, then I think you're more interested in the origin of the bucket than in putting out the fire.

:anjali: & metta
Jack
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

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Kim OHara
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Re: Why do Buddhists always revert back to siddhartha gautam

Post by Kim OHara »

BlackBird wrote:... We blind people should take the man with sight as our guide.

Imagine you're on fire, and a man comes up with a bucket of water and says - here, quickly, let me pour this water on you and you say: 'Well, does it really work? How do you know it's going to work? Where did you get that water from? Where did you buy that bucket? Is it a good bucket?" - That's how I see people with too much skepticism. A bit is fine, a bit is healthy, especially when you're new to Buddhism. But when you're chopping and changing parts of the Buddha's teachings, and you don't believe he said X or Y because of some revisionist history, then I think you're more interested in the origin of the bucket than in putting out the fire.

:anjali: & metta
Jack
To revert back to Siddhartha Gautama :tongue: ...
"It's just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a brahman, a merchant, or a worker.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me... until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short... until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored... until I know his home village, town, or city... until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow... until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was wild or cultivated... until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was bound with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.' The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him.

"In the same way, if anyone were to say, 'I won't live the holy life under the Blessed One as long as he does not declare to me that 'The cosmos is eternal,'... or that 'After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist,' the man would die and those things would still remain undeclared by the Tathagata.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta

:reading:
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BlackBird
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Re: Why do Buddhists always revert back to siddhartha gautam

Post by BlackBird »

Yeah, the Buddha as always says it much better than me :)
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

Path Press - Ñāṇavīra Thera Dhamma Page - Ajahn Nyanamoli's Dhamma talks
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Alex123
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Re: Why do Buddhists always revert back to siddhartha gautam

Post by Alex123 »

BlackBird wrote:Imagine you're on fire, and a man comes up with a bucket of water and says - here, quickly, let me pour this water on you and you say: 'Well, does it really work? How do you know it's going to work? Where did you get that water from? Where did you buy that bucket? Is it a good bucket?" - That's how I see people with too much skepticism. A bit is fine, a bit is healthy, especially when you're new to Buddhism. But when you're chopping and changing parts of the Buddha's teachings, and you don't believe he said X or Y because of some revisionist history, then I think you're more interested in the origin of the bucket than in putting out the fire.
And how do we really know that Buddhist, as opposed to Christian or some other religion is the way to "extinguish the fire"?
How do we know that "fire" can even be permanently "extinguished"?

Some say that the reason why Buddhism is better than Christianity is that it offers Nibbāna here and now* in this life. To this a Christian can easily reply that "who cares about your Nibbāna in this life if you will burn in hell for eternity due to non-acceptance of Lord Jesus Christ?"


* How many people have actually reached Arahatship in the present time? Is the amount of these something to rely and place one hopes on? :(
Last edited by Alex123 on Sat Jul 20, 2013 5:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Alex123
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Re: Why do Buddhists always revert back to siddhartha gautam

Post by Alex123 »

mikenz66 wrote: 1. What the Buddha taught.
2. What is useful elaboration.
Unfortunately we can never know what the Buddha, if He even existed, has verbally taught , thus we can't compare it with modern elaborations of his Teaching as was written down centuries after his death.

How do we really know what elaborations are really useful in long term and which aren't? Some believe that Awakening takes many lifetimes which one cannot observe, of course. So it is an article of Faith. How do we really know that there is rebirth?

A person can temporary pacify his mind through jhāna, vipassana ñāṇa, seclusion, etc. But this works only while these very brittle conditions are present. What happens when they pass, and circumstances change? I would love to know what would happen to the mind of a great monk who disrobed and became a lay follower.
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