The universe is without a refuge, without a Supreme God.

[tiltbillings]

The thread may not be about you, but you seem to pay no attention to what I have repeatedly said and you continue to focus on the words "Supreme God," as if I have said nothing else.

As for your other msg, it is hard not to read it as suggesting that I have deliberately twisted the Dhamma by twisting my translation to fit an agenda. Of course, as usual, you make no argument to support that, you merely assert it. It is an insulting suggestion, and like any ad hoiminem it points to a lack of a real argument.

[Jechbi]

It was not an ad hom. This thread is not about you.

[tiltbillings]

It was not an ad hom. This thread is not about you.

Good, then you do not think that I have twisted the meaning of the word in question therby twisting the Dhamma to meet a particular agenda. That is good to hear.

[Jechbi]

If it makes you feel better to understand it that way, then that's great, Tilt. Do what you need to do.


This thread is not about what I think about you.

[tiltbillings]

If it makes you feel better to understand it that way, then that's great, Tilt. Do what you need to do.


This thread is not about what I think about you.

All I am trying to do is makes sense out the post. Since it is not about me, that is good, because I certainly would not want to be considered one of those naughty people who twist the Dhamma to meeet an agenda.

Since that is settled, I would simply point to, for your consideration, that while I think "Supreme God" is defensible, as I said this is not a life and death translation. Whatever translation one might opt for, taking the actual words of the texts, the actual balance of the text, the explanation of it given by Ven Ratthaplala to the king, whatever translation used would require that abhissaro would be inclusive of the idea of an outside protector/guardian that would be inclusive of a God/god notion. For me, it is a serious matter of being true to the text.

[Jechbi]

Yes, as I wrote earlier:

Undoubtedly, each of us has our own imagined abhi-issaro, whether we acknowledge it or not. May we all come to a greater understanding that there is no abhi-issaro.

And I agree with what you wrote here:

whatever translation used would require that abhissaro would be inclusive of the idea of an outside protector/guardian that would be inclusive of a God/god notion.

Supreme protector does that nicely.

[tiltbillings]

Alrighty then!!!

[roni]

I came accross this remark "May I draw your attention to the Sudatta sutta (SN 10.8)
in which Buddha teaches the young Anathapindada (or Anathapindika) on creation and creator.
Here he’s more than specific: no Creator, no Creation.
The Sudatta sutta is part of the Small Vehicle Pali, Agama, and Kanjur collections." here http://www.thinkbuddha.org/article/432/ ... od#comment" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

The Sutta I found as SN 10.8 (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) doesn't seem to be about this topic. Could you please help me either with the source of the text (in English or Pali) or secondary literature on thdis sutta?

Thx & metta,

Roni

[tiltbillings]

I came accross this remark "May I draw your attention to the Sudatta sutta (SN 10.8)
in which Buddha teaches the young Anathapindada (or Anathapindika) on creation and creator.
Here he’s more than specific: no Creator, no Creation.
The Sudatta sutta is part of the Small Vehicle Pali, Agama, and Kanjur collections." here http://www.thinkbuddha.org/article/432/ ... od#comment" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

The Sutta I found as SN 10.8 (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) doesn't seem to be about this topic. Could you please help me either with the source of the text (in English or Pali) or secondary literature on thdis sutta?

Thx & metta,

Roni

Maybe the Ven nun can clarify her statement. As it stands the text she cited does not say what she says it does.

[Laurens]

I'd rather tackle my own delusions before I move on to other people's.

[Kim OHara]

I came accross this remark "May I draw your attention to the Sudatta sutta (SN 10.8)
in which Buddha teaches the young Anathapindada (or Anathapindika) on creation and creator.
Here he’s more than specific: no Creator, no Creation.
The Sudatta sutta is part of the Small Vehicle Pali, Agama, and Kanjur collections." here http://www.thinkbuddha.org/article/432/ ... od#comment" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

The Sutta I found as SN 10.8 (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) doesn't seem to be about this topic. Could you please help me either with the source of the text (in English or Pali) or secondary literature on thdis sutta?

Thx & metta,

Roni

It's clear that the Sudatta Sutta reference is wrong. I spent a while trying to find the correct reference (just indulging my curiosity) and the nearest I got was the Milinda-Panha - as given at http://www.agniyoga.org/ay_txt/ay_FoB.txt:

The idea of God has its own interpretation for Buddhists, in accordance with the law of Karma and with the understanding of the necessity of personal efforts for oneís own liberation. ìWho is it that shapes our lives? Is it Isvara, a personal creator? If Isvara be the maker, all living things should have silently to submit to their makerís power. They would be like vessels formed by the potterís hand; and if it were so, how would it be possible to practice virtue? If the world had been made by Isvara there should be no such thing as sorrow, or calamity, or sin; for both pure and impure deeds must issue from him. If not, there would be another cause besides him, and he would not be self-existent. Thus, thou seest, the thought of Isvara is overthrown.
Again, it is said that the Absolute has created us. But that which is absolute cannot be a cause. All things around us come from a cause as the plant comes from the seed; but how can the Absolute be the cause of all things alike? If it pervades them, then, certainly, it does not make them.
Again, it is said that Self is the maker. But if Self is the maker, why did he not make things pleasing? The cause of sorrow and joy are real and objective. How can they have been made by Self?
Again, if we adopt the argument that there is no maker, our fate is such as it is, and there is no causation, what use would there be in shaping our lives and adjusting means to an end?
Therefore, we argue that all things that exist are not without cause. However, neither Isvara, nor the Absolute, nor the Self, nor causeless chance, is the maker, but our deeds produce results both good and evil.

You may find a more authoritative version.

Hope this helps,

Kim

[tiltbillings]

You may find a more authoritative version.

In light of Richard Gombrich's WHAT THE BUDDHA THOUGHT, (which I am about 2/3 of the way through) which puts the Buddha's teachings within the context of the Brahmanical background of the Buddha's time, the translation the line from MN 82: Ratthapala Sutta as The universe is without a refuge, without a Supreme God is quite appropriate.

There are a number of other texts from the suttas which I have collected that address the question of a god/God.

[Jechbi]

Great king, there are four summaries of the Dhamma that have been taught by the Blessed One who knows and sees, accomplished and fully enlightened. Knowing and seeing and hearing them, I went forth from the home life into homelessness. What are these four?

[Life in] any world is unstable, it is swept away: this is the first summary of the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One who knows and sees, accomplished and fully enlightened. Knowing and seeing and hearing this, I went forth from the home life into homelessness.

[Life in] any world has no shelter and no protector: this is the second summary of the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One who knows and sees ...

[LIfe in] any world has nothing of its own; one has to leave all and pass on: this is the third summary of the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One who knows and sees ...

[Life in] any world is incomplete, insatiate, the slave of of craving: this is the fourth summary of the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One who knows and sees.

(The note with regard to "no shelter" offered at the end of the book: There is no one able to offer it shelter or to console it with a refuge. This statement, of course, does not deny a refuge from the world, which is just what the Dhamma offers.)

If the passage is a "summary of Dhamma" as Ven. Bodhi indicates in his translation, and if one looks at these four summaries of Dhamma together as a group, one must recognize that the point of them, collectively, does not focus on polemical positions regarding theories of theism versus atheism.

[Kim OHara]

I looked at the Ratthapala Sutta too, and came to the same conclusion as Jechbi - it doesn't seem to be the sutta the OP was trying to find. Any other candidates in your collection, tilt?


Kim

[tiltbillings]

[[Life in] any world has no shelter and no protector

Except that the Pali for no protector abhi-issaro is far more emphatic than the weakly stated “no protector.” To state that the Buddha would not make a “polemical” statement in a summary of the Dhamma is also not quite true. There is a fair amount of satire and biting humor to be found in the suttas, and it often runs counter to our modern Western sensibilities of how we think the Dhamma should be expressed. The fifth sutta in the Digha, the Kūṭadanta Sutta makes this point. No Brahmin mother is going to name her sweet little baby Kūṭadanta, “Snaggle-tooth.” The Brahmins certainly do get a bit of biting humor directed at them. Another example:

Hi Individual,

The only thing that comes to mind is the Soṇa Sutta (AN. iii. 221-2), where the Buddha describes the five ways in which dogs are better than brahmins, owing to the latter's discarding of their ancient customs. It's one of a series of suttas where the Buddha decries how the brahmins of his day had degenerated. To paraphrase:

1. Dogs only have sex with other dogs, whereas brahmins, though formerly having sex only with other brahmins, nowadays will do it with women from any caste.
2. Dogs only have sex when the bitch is in season, whereas brahmins will do it at any time.
3. Dogs don't buy and sell bitches, but rather, will mate according to mutual affection. Brahmins do buy and sell lady brahmins.
4. Dogs don't hoard silver, gold, grain etc., but brahmins do.
5. Dogs go looking for their evening meal in the evening and their morning meal in the morning. Brahmins stuff themselves silly and then keep the leftovers for the next meal.

"Verily, bhikkhus, these are the five ancient brahmin dhammas that are nowadays practised by dogs but not by brahmins."

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu

The examples can be multiplied considerably, and the point is that we should not assume how the Dhamma is going to be expressed is going to conform to modern day sensibilities.

Another example that addresses the concern about expressing “polemics” in the expression of the Dhamma can be seen in the Buddha’s response to a claim made by the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, a text - the ideas contained within were - obviously familiar to the Buddha as they were to much of his audience.

"In the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad we read a dialogue in which Yajnavalkya is asked the crucial question: Kati devah, how many are the devas [gods]? His first answer is a quotation from a Vedic text:

'Three hundred and three and three thousand and three." Pressed
on, he reduces the number first to thirty-three, then to six, then to
three, to two, to one-and-a-half and finally to One.

'Which is the one deva [god]?' And he answers: "The prana (breath, life). The Brahman. He is called tyat(that).' Though the devas still figure in sacrificial practice and religious debate, the question 'Who is God?' is here answered in terms that has remained the Hindu answer ever since.

10. Verily, in the beginning this world was Brahman. It knew only itself
(atmanam): "I am Brahman!" Therefore it became the All. Whoever of the gods became awakened to this, he indeed became it; likewise in the case of seers (rsi), likewise in the case of men. Seeing this, indeed, the seer Vamadeva began:-

I was Manu and the sun (surya)!

This is so now also. Whoever thus knows "I am Brahman!" becomes this All; even the gods have not power to prevent his becoming thus, for he becomes their self (atman).

So whoever worships another divinity [than his Self], thinking "He is
one and I another," he knows not. He is like a sacrificial animal for the gods. Verily, indeed, as many animals would be of service to a man, even so each single person is of service to the gods. If even one animal is taken away, it is not pleasant. What, then, if many? Therefore it is not pleasing to those [gods] that men should know this.

11. Verily, in the beginning this world was Brahma, one only.

The All. The Buddha directly and radically challenges this statement with this fundamental statement of the Dhamma:

"Monks, I will teach you the all. And what is the all? The eye and forms, the ear and sounds the nose and odors, the tongue and tastes, the body and touch, the mind and mental phenomena. This is called the all. If anyone, monks, should speak thus: ' Having rejected this all, I shall make known another all' - that would be a mere empty boast." SN IV 15.

What follows a rather biting caricature of the creation story of the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad that pre-dates the Buddha.

There are, Bhaggava, some ascetics and Brahmins who declare as their doctrine that all things began with the creation by a god [issara, or ishvara, skt], or Brahma. I have gone to them and said: "Reverend sirs, is it true that you declare that all things began with the creation by a god, or Brahma?" "Yes", they replied. Then I asked: "In that case, how do the reverend teachers declare that this came about?" But they could not give an answer, and so they asked me in return. And I replied:

'There comes a time, monks, sooner or later after a long period, when this world contracts. At a time of contraction, beings are mostly reborn in the Abhassara Brahma world. And there they dwell, mind-made,' feeding on delight," self-luminous, moving through the air, glorious - and they stay like that for a very long time.

'But the time comes, sooner or later after a long period, when this world begins to expand. In this expanding world an empty palace of Brahma" appears. And then one being, from exhaustion of his life-span or of merits, falls from the Abhassara world and arises in empty Brahma- palace. And there he dwells, mind-made, feeding on delight, self- luminous, moving through the glorious - and he stays like that for a very long time.

'Then in this being who has been alone for so long there arises unrest, discontent and worry, and he thinks: "Oh, if only some other beings would come here!" And other beings, from exhaustion of their life-span or of their merits, fall from the Abhassara world and arise in the Brahma-palace as companions for this being. And there they dwell, mind-made. ... and they stayed like that for a very long time.

'And then, monks, that being who first arose there thinks: "I am Brahma, the Great God, the Omnipotent, the Omniscient, the Organizer, the Protection, the Creator, the Most Perfect Ruler, the Designer and Orderer, the Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be, He by Whom we were created, He is permanent, Constant, Eternal, Unchanging, and I will remain so for ever and ever."

These beings were created by me. How so? Because I first had this thought: 'Oh, if only some other beings would come here!' That was my wish, and then these beings came into this existence!" But those beings who arose subsequently think: "This, friends, is Brahma, the Great God, the Omnipotent, the Omniscient, the Organizer, the Protection, the Creator, the Most Perfect Ruler, the Designer and Orderer, the Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be, He by Whom we were created, He is permanent, Constant, Eternal, Unchanging, and He will remain so for ever and ever."

How so? We have seen that he was here first, and that we arose after him."

'And this being that arose first is longer-lived, more beautiful and more powerful than they are. And it may happen that some being falls from that realm and arises in this world. Having arisen in this world, he goes forth from the household life into homelessness. Having gone forth, he by means of effort, exertion, application, earnestness and right attention attains to such a degree of mental concentration that he thereby recalls his last existence, but recalls none before that. And he thinks: "That Brahma, ... he made us, and he is permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, the same for ever and ever. But we who were created by that Brahma, we are impermanent, unstable, short-lived, fated to fall away, and we have come to this world."
-- Digha Nikaya 24

Anguttara Nikaya 3.61: "Again, monks, I [the Buddha] approached those ascetic and brahmins and said to them: 'Is it true, as they say, that you venerable ones teach and hold the view that whatever a person experiences...all that is caused by God's creation?' When they affirmed it, I said to them: 'If that is so, venerable sirs, then it is due to God's creation that people kill, steal ... [and otherwise act badly]. But those who have recourse to God's creation as the decisive factor, will lack the impulse and the effort doing this or not doing that. Since for them, really and truly, no (motive) obtains that this or that ought to be done or not be done...."'

"If the pleasure and pain that beings feel are caused the creative act of a Supreme God [Issara-nimmana-hetu], then the Niganthas [Jains] surely must have been created by an evil Supreme God." - MN II 222.

The idea of a god, issara, who was characterized so: "That Worshipful Brahma, the Great God, the Omnipotent, the Omniscient, the Organizer, the Protection, the Creator, the Most Perfect Ruler, the Designer and Orderer, the Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be, He by Whom we were created, He is permanent, Constant, Eternal, Unchanging, and He will remain so for ever and ever." (DN 24: iii 28) was obviously part of the very well known and accepted background within which the Buddha taught and to which he responded.

That the Buddha would say The universe is without a refuge, without a Supreme God - abhi-issara - is not at all out of keeping with statements made elsewhere in the suttas (as we see above), nor is it out of keeping with “four summaries of the Dhamma" of the Ratthapala Sutta, and the point of such a statement would not be lost on the audience who would be steeped in such ideas of a singular, unchanging issara to whom we can appeal for protection and of which we imagine we are a part. The point is clearly stated there is no singular, unchanging thing to be found within the universe to which we can cling or hide behind or grasp onto or which we somehow are.