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Re: What resources exist dealing with the claim that Nibbana is the True Self?

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2021 5:12 pm
by TRobinson465
Coëmgenu wrote: Thu Apr 08, 2021 5:00 pm Dhammakaya pays a lot of money funding many scholars who connect their innovative meditation practices and doctrines with various kinds of supposedly repressed, oppressed, and marginalized versions of Theravāda. The repression of "true" folk religion by sponsored "institutional" religion is an easy boogeyman IMO.
I hope you have evidence of this claim. Cuz DW terms forbid unsubstantiated allegations against Buddhist traditions. So you would be violating terms of service if the admins actually decided to enforce that rule this time.

I can provide the sources when I get home if you want and you can decide based on the available evidence.

Re: What resources exist dealing with the claim that Nibbana is the True Self?

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2021 5:14 pm
by Coëmgenu
Is the claim that you want substantiated the claim that Dhammakaya funds many scholars or the claim that those scholars often depict Dhammakaya as having root in various marginalized traditions of Theravāda or both?

Re: What resources exist dealing with the claim that Nibbana is the True Self?

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2021 5:22 pm
by TRobinson465
The claim that they fund many scholars "who" do that.

Re: What resources exist dealing with the claim that Nibbana is the True Self?

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2021 6:06 pm
by TRobinson465
I'm also interested in this claim.
scholars often depict Dhammakaya as having root in various marginalized traditions of Theravāda
As all of the things I've read have only pointed to exactly one root, if any. Not various. So I would be very interested in what you've been reading that indicates various roots. I'd be interested in this even if the scholars who did this were supposedly paid by Dhammakaya. As I'm just curious what these other supposed roots are and what the logic linking them was in the things you've read.

Re: What resources exist dealing with the claim that Nibbana is the True Self?

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2021 6:51 pm
by Coëmgenu
Well, I wouldn't necessarily call getting a scholarship, funding, or a bursary being "paid by" Dhammakaya because being "paid by" to me implies they are an employee and this pay is potentially regular or agreed upon for a particular service. So I'll take back the phrasing "pays" and say "funds" instead. If Microsoft funds a grant that allows a PhD candidate to write a paper, are they necessarily compromised and some sort of hired academic goon of Microsoft? Hardly. The academic bursaries funded by Dhammakaya are not with hidden conditions of "You must write it like this." As per your other inquiries, I have seen Dhammakaya meditation linked to Borān Kammaṭṭhāna, but also to the specific movement associated with the Yogavacara manual. I have seen links to extinct Southeast Asian Vajrayāna based on the Borān connection. I have seen conflicting claims that Borān Kammaṭṭhāna is an outgrowth of orthodox Mahāvihāravāsin Buddhism that is later ostracized and disenfranchised by the religious establishment, also that Dhammakaya meditation comes from Abhayagirivihāravāsin practice and was repressed by the Theravādin mainstream.

As for papers cited, I can put some time aside from that, Ontario just entered a new Covid lockdown, but give me a while to get to it.

Re: What resources exist dealing with the claim that Nibbana is the True Self?

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2021 7:33 pm
by TRobinson465
In that case can u provide evidence that they "Fund" scholars who do this? I know they fund scholarships. That doesn't mean that those same ppl are the ones making the links to the various older traditions as you say. But as you said, even if they "funded" them that doesn't mean the work was compromised. Unless maybe if it was only ppl who got scholarships or funding who made those links. And that's only a maybe.

I might be mistaken. But I actually thought Borān Kammaṭṭhāna was the same as Yogavacara. But either way I look forward to your papers.

Re: What resources exist dealing with the claim that Nibbana is the True Self?

Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2021 11:06 pm
by plabit
4GreatHeavenlyKings wrote: Thu Apr 08, 2021 12:29 pm
plabit wrote: Thu Apr 08, 2021 7:36 am
4GreatHeavenlyKings wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 4:37 pm I am aware that this claim is made by the Dhammakaya movement, but they are aware that other Buddhists disagree with their claim. Are there any refutations of the Dhammakaya movement's claim about Nibbana as the true self?
I doubt it, because to acknowledge that anyone anywhere has ever said that is dangerous to the no self doctrine since its nonsensical. Anyone who hears the possibility that nibbana is the true self will accept that unless they cling hard to illogic.
You are mistaken. In the Thai language there is a 450-page critique called Koranii thammakai (The Dhammakaya Case) by Phra Prayudh Payutto (Bangkok 1999).
I meant in English. In order to sustain the claim that Buddhism is about there not being a self before the English speaking world, the propagansdists pushing that view must hide the existence of Asian groups who disagree from the English speaking public. (Although I have actually seen an English translation of the book you mention.)