How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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pink_trike
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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by pink_trike »

zavk wrote: McMahan's work demonstrates that we cannot easily 'strip back' two and half thousand years of Buddhism to uncover the most 'pristine' version. Rather, contemporary (Western) Buddhism emerges out of the interplay of various social, cultural, and historical processes--not unlike how we understand the 'self' as shaped by various aggregates. In this regard, any attempt at 'stripping back' is always already enabled by the 'shaping' processes of culture and history that we are constituted by.
This would be equally true for those who protect what is imagined to be "traditional" Buddhism...what is actually being protected is a very modern view of "traditional Buddhism" that emerges from the "'shaping' processes of culture and history that we are constituted by". Neither side has truly solid ground.
Vision is Mind
Mind is Empty
Emptiness is Clear Light
Clear Light is Union
Union is Great Bliss

- Dawa Gyaltsen

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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by pink_trike »

mikenz66 wrote:Here's a critique by Bhikkhu Bodhi for the BB fans...

http://www.buddhistethics.org/5/batch1.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mike
Interesting...same circular, closed debate style but much better explained and more directly.

I find this to be a bit odd:
For the Buddha and Buddhist tradition, dukkha really means the suffering of repeated becoming in the round of rebirths, and thus, once one dismisses the idea of rebirth, the Four Truths lose their depth and scope.
I've seen many arguments that stitch literal rebirth to various concepts but I've never seen such a blatant attempt to stitch literal rebirth to "dukkha" . Quite a broad leap. I'm not saying it is or ain't accurate, but broad leaps are kind of sloppy.
Vision is Mind
Mind is Empty
Emptiness is Clear Light
Clear Light is Union
Union is Great Bliss

- Dawa Gyaltsen

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mikenz66
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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by mikenz66 »

Hi PT,

It doesn't seem so odd if you quote the summary of Batchelor's view:
To lift the four Noble Truths out of their original context, shared by the Buddha and his auditors, and transpose them to a purely secular one is to alter their meaning in crucial ways, as Batchelor does when he interprets the first truth as "existential anguish." For the Buddha and Buddhist tradition, dukkha really means the suffering of repeated becoming in the round of rebirths, and thus, once one dismisses the idea of rebirth, the Four Truths lose their depth and scope.
Mike
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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by catmoon »

mikenz66 wrote:Here's a critique by Bhikkhu Bodhi for the BB fans...

http://www.buddhistethics.org/5/batch1.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mike

Merciful heavens that man can think and write! Go BB Go! :woohoo:


Yeah, I'm a fan.

:clap:
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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by pink_trike »

catmoon wrote:
mikenz66 wrote:Here's a critique by Bhikkhu Bodhi for the BB fans...

http://www.buddhistethics.org/5/batch1.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mike

Merciful heavens that man can think and write! Go BB Go! :woohoo:


Yeah, I'm a fan.

:clap:
The argument that faith in unknowables is justified because it is traditional doesn't strike me as very deep thinking. This is what his "argument" boils down to...and looks more like a game than critical thinking. So does the Pope's. It's just a closed parroted loop. I don't have the slightest idea whether literal rebirth is true or not, but a closed looping "logic" that is justified on the basis that someone else said it previously doesn't impress me.
Vision is Mind
Mind is Empty
Emptiness is Clear Light
Clear Light is Union
Union is Great Bliss

- Dawa Gyaltsen

---

Disclaimer: I'm a non-religious practitioner of Theravada, Mahayana/Vajrayana, and Tibetan Bon Dzogchen mind-training.
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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by pink_trike »

mikenz66 wrote:Hi PT,

It doesn't seem so odd if you quote the summary of Batchelor's view:
To lift the four Noble Truths out of their original context, shared by the Buddha and his auditors, and transpose them to a purely secular one is to alter their meaning in crucial ways, as Batchelor does when he interprets the first truth as "existential anguish." For the Buddha and Buddhist tradition, dukkha really means the suffering of repeated becoming in the round of rebirths, and thus, once one dismisses the idea of rebirth, the Four Truths lose their depth and scope.
Mike
I find it odd and sloppy logic either way. 500 years of oral tradition and then 21,000 pages of commentary, all piled onto that one word that doesn't have the extended meaning at the root that he asserts as the meaning of the word - there's a disconnect there that requires, imo, a less casual and large, extended assertion re: the meaning of dukkha. Extending the meaning of a word to support a traditional interpretation of the 21,000 pages of commentary and then justifying doing so on the basis of a traditional interpretation of the 21,000 pages of commentary isn't good clean logic...it is a circle of deception...psuedo logic. It strikes me as revisionism that is only supported by a mountain of faith that it "really means" suffering caused by literal rebirth because someone is believed to have said it previously before the 500 years of oral tradition and 21,000 pages of commentary existed. That's quite a load to put on one word. Setting aside any discussion of whether literal rebirth is true or not, Batchelor's definition of dukkha is much cleaner and closer to the root meaning, imo...with considerably less reification.
Vision is Mind
Mind is Empty
Emptiness is Clear Light
Clear Light is Union
Union is Great Bliss

- Dawa Gyaltsen

---

Disclaimer: I'm a non-religious practitioner of Theravada, Mahayana/Vajrayana, and Tibetan Bon Dzogchen mind-training.
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catmoon
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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by catmoon »

pink_trike wrote:
catmoon wrote:
mikenz66 wrote:Here's a critique by Bhikkhu Bodhi for the BB fans...

http://www.buddhistethics.org/5/batch1.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mike

Merciful heavens that man can think and write! Go BB Go! :woohoo:


Yeah, I'm a fan.

:clap:
The argument that faith in unknowables is justified because it is traditional doesn't strike me as very deep thinking. This is what his "argument" boils down to...and looks more like a game than critical thinking. So does the Pope's. It's just a closed parroted loop. I don't have the slightest idea whether literal rebirth is true or not, but a closed looping "logic" that is justified on the basis that someone else said it previously doesn't impress me.
I just reread it. I see no such argument as you mention. BB does not look to tradition for support, but clearly he does look to practical benefits of traditional practices, in order to justify them.
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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by Sanghamitta »

Well said Catmoon. Its a strange world where things traditional have to be defended on a THERAVADA forum. Knee jerk anti traditionalism is as much a dead end as fossilised formalism. No one is forced to consider the claims of the Way Of The Elders, considering those claims is an entirely free choice, and those claims are best judged by their fruits. And the fruit is Ajahn Mun, Ajahn Lee, Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Sumedho, Bhikku Bodhi, Ajahn Brahm, Ajahn Munindo etc etc.
The going for refuge is the door of entrance to the teachings of the Buddha.

Bhikku Bodhi.
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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by pink_trike »

Sanghamitta wrote:Well said Catmoon. Its a strange world where things traditional have to be defended on a THERAVADA forum. Knee jerk anti traditionalism is as much a dead end as fossilised formalism. No one is forced to consider the claims of the Way Of The Elders, considering those claims is an entirely free choice, and those claims are best judged by their fruits. And the fruit is Ajahn Mun, Ajahn Lee, Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Sumedho, Bhikku Bodhi, Ajahn Brahm, Ajahn Munindo etc etc.
The term "knee-jerk" is insulting and patronizing...it assumes that any questions re: traditional logic patterns are reactionary and not thoughtful. It is designed to shut down dialog...to silence and terminate questions.

Why should any belief be free of needing to substantiate the tradition that the belief is built upon with something other than the belief itself? Tradition can be used to support the belief that Santa Claus crawls down chimneys and travels in a flying sleigh. "I know this is true because those who came before me believed it" isn't enough to substantiate a belief. It is just a closed circular reification of belief. To suggest that tradition is defense enough of belief without substantiating tradition is reified anti-intellectualism. All closed systems corrupt themselves with reification. Logic raises the bar. Mature people test their beliefs by attempting to prove their substance by means other than the belief itself. This is the message, imo, that is at the heart of the Dharma.
Vision is Mind
Mind is Empty
Emptiness is Clear Light
Clear Light is Union
Union is Great Bliss

- Dawa Gyaltsen

---

Disclaimer: I'm a non-religious practitioner of Theravada, Mahayana/Vajrayana, and Tibetan Bon Dzogchen mind-training.
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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by tiltbillings »

Please keep the conversation more or less civil.
>> 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 far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by Sanghamitta »

While fundmentally disagreeing with not just your arguments Pink Trike but with your entire approach to Dhamma, I would defend your right to express those beliefs. I would however suggest that you read through your posts of the last day or so, you have been very busy on the forum, and I would suggest that it would be possible to read in your posts a lot of frustration , even anger. This is a Theravada forum, you and anyone else are of course free to post your views which differ from mainstream Theravadin views, but dont be surprised if they provoke a response which is (hopefully ) considered, but takes a diametrically opposed view to yours over a number of utterly fundamental issues..I do not disgree with your views because I have not considered what they represent, because over the years I have , and have reached very different conclusions to yours.
The going for refuge is the door of entrance to the teachings of the Buddha.

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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by pink_trike »

Sanghamitta wrote:I would however suggest that you read through your posts of the last day or so, you have been very busy on the forum, and I would suggest that it would be possible to read in your posts a lot of frustration , even anger.
I'm very familiar with this response...it is usually the first line of defense whenever I suggest that belief is not enough to support belief. No, there's no anger or frustration...just a a lot of respect for critical examination of how we believe what we believe, rather than giving belief a free pass. Take care... :smile:
Vision is Mind
Mind is Empty
Emptiness is Clear Light
Clear Light is Union
Union is Great Bliss

- Dawa Gyaltsen

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Disclaimer: I'm a non-religious practitioner of Theravada, Mahayana/Vajrayana, and Tibetan Bon Dzogchen mind-training.
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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by mikenz66 »

Hi Pink Trike,
pink_trike wrote: I find it odd and sloppy logic either way. 500 years of oral tradition and then 21,000 pages of commentary, all piled onto that one word that doesn't have the extended meaning at the root that he asserts as the meaning of the word - there's a disconnect there that requires, imo, a less casual and large, extended assertion re: the meaning of dukkha. ...
Perhaps that sentence in the review is sloppy, and it seems pointless to worry about that, but I think that what Bhikkhu Bodhi is trying to get at is that some the Buddha's teachings place us as a small speck in cosmic time and space and that Batchelor's approach ignores the potential value for some practitioners of having a more expansive view of how big a problem (and how much dukkha) we may be facing.

Of courses, this is elaborated in other places:
http://downloads.wisdompubs.org/website ... review.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Moreover, the process is not only beginningless but is also potentially
endless. As long as ignorance and craving remain intact, the
process will continue indefinitely into the future with no end in sight.
For the Buddha and Early Buddhism, this is above all the defining crisis
at the heart of the human condition: we are bound to a chain of
rebirths, and bound to it by nothing other than our own ignorance and
craving. The pointless wandering on in samsara occurs against a cosmic
background of inconceivably vast dimensions. The period of time
that it takes for a world system to evolve, reach its phase of maximum
expansion, contract, and then disintegrate is called a kappa (Skt: kalpa),
an eon. Text I,4(3) offers a vivid simile to suggest the eon’s duration;
Text I,4(4), another vivid simile to illustrate the incalculable number of
the eons through which we have wandered.
The Suttas he is referring to are some of these:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .html#sn15" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
“Monks, this samsara is without discoverable beginning. A first point
is not discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by
ignorance and fettered by craving...
Mike
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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by pink_trike »

mikenz66 wrote:Hi Pink Trike,
pink_trike wrote: I find it odd and sloppy logic either way. 500 years of oral tradition and then 21,000 pages of commentary, all piled onto that one word that doesn't have the extended meaning at the root that he asserts as the meaning of the word - there's a disconnect there that requires, imo, a less casual and large, extended assertion re: the meaning of dukkha. ...
Perhaps that sentence in the review is sloppy, and it seems pointless to worry about that, but I think that what Bhikkhu Bodhi is trying to get at is that some the Buddha's teachings place us as a small speck in cosmic time and space and that Batchelor's approach ignores the potential value for some practitioners of having a more expansive view of how big a problem (and how much dukkha) we may be facing.

Of courses, this is elaborated in other places:
http://downloads.wisdompubs.org/website ... review.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Moreover, the process is not only beginningless but is also potentially
endless. As long as ignorance and craving remain intact, the
process will continue indefinitely into the future with no end in sight.
For the Buddha and Early Buddhism, this is above all the defining crisis
at the heart of the human condition: we are bound to a chain of
rebirths, and bound to it by nothing other than our own ignorance and
craving. The pointless wandering on in samsara occurs against a cosmic
background of inconceivably vast dimensions. The period of time
that it takes for a world system to evolve, reach its phase of maximum
expansion, contract, and then disintegrate is called a kappa (Skt: kalpa),
an eon. Text I,4(3) offers a vivid simile to suggest the eon’s duration;
Text I,4(4), another vivid simile to illustrate the incalculable number of
the eons through which we have wandered.
The Suttas he is referring to are some of these:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .html#sn15" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
“Monks, this samsara is without discoverable beginning. A first point
is not discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by
ignorance and fettered by craving...
Mike
HI Mike,

I understand very well the highly refined logic path that is employed to place literal rebirth at the center of Buddhism. I'm just pointing out that it is a circular logic that seems seamless to some people and seems unsophisticated and impotent to others. Both the reviewers used this circular logic, and one used it to rather largely expand the definition of a key word in the 4NT. My point was just that I don't find either of these reviews to be very well-considered...they both were reaching pretty hard.I doubt there is a logic professor anywhere in the world that would let their logic path pass.
Vision is Mind
Mind is Empty
Emptiness is Clear Light
Clear Light is Union
Union is Great Bliss

- Dawa Gyaltsen

---

Disclaimer: I'm a non-religious practitioner of Theravada, Mahayana/Vajrayana, and Tibetan Bon Dzogchen mind-training.
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tiltbillings
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Re: How far back can you strip the Buddha's teachings?

Post by tiltbillings »

mikenz66 wrote: Batchelor's approach ignores the potential value for some practitioners of having a more expansive view of how big a problem (and how much dukkha) we may be facing.
I am not sure Batchelor necessarily ignores the cosmic problem. What he is focusing on, which is legitimate, is what we do directly experience and know know right now. For most people rebirth is a belief, not a knowledge. As a belief it can be inspiring, but what can be even more motivating is the fact that at this moment, I hurt.
>> 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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