Pulsar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:45 amTo make long story short, I had noted that it was a clever (but transparent) cut and paste job, (EA 17.1) by the Dharmaguptakas, not that all their suttas are like this. It is a hybrid of MN 62 "The Greater Discourse of Advice to Rahula" and a fragment of an Awakening sutta, (the meditations you mention). I can point it out later, too many issues.
It is compiled differently from the Pāli versions, for sure. Because I do not consider the Pāli suttas to be "the original versions," I don't agree necessarily that this is a cut-and-paste hybrid of two Pāli suttas, even if the material present in two different Pāli suttas is present in this one āgamasūtra.
Pulsar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:45 am- Patton's translations have have much merit
again I will refer to that later.
Where did I say this? Perhaps I'm having a bad memory in the morning, but I don't think that was typed in this thread. I
do think that his translations have much merit, but I don't think that I said as much.
Pulsar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:45 amBut you have an ability to dig into things like a scholar at times, just as much as DooDoot brought us fragments of Buddha's teachings like a scholar.
I personally disagree that that user would present fragments "like a scholar." I don't think it was scholarly at all. My analyses are also unscholarly, and they wouldn't be published in a journal of repute.
Pulsar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:45 am- You often imply Mahayanists are capable of things that Theravadins are incapable of, based on the suttas or whatever.
As a general rule, my opinions on the Dharma are off-topic for this forum and are unshared. A handful of times, generally in "Connections" but sometimes not, I have shared my own personal take on the Dharma, but I make an effort to stick to talking points easily traceable to particular texts for the sake of this forum. That being said, I think that you have seriously misunderstood what I meant when I said "Not possible AFAIK in Theravāda." The Theravādin stance is not that these feats are impossible for them but possible for the Mahāyānika. Their stance is that such things are impossible full-stop and that, if the Mahāyānikas (or anyone else) claim to be doing them, they are either self-deceiving or lying or wrong in some other way I haven't listed.
Pulsar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:45 amHow do you define Theravada?
The sect of Buddhism normative in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka (as well as whichever other countries I may have forgotten) that is also practiced by a handful of Westerners (that is, "a handful" compared to the "entire population," more or less, of former Siam, for instance). It has three baskets, suttas, vinaya texts, and Abhidhamma texts, and a particular orthodoxy in how they interpret these three baskets. Some of the particular features of the school include a lack of belief in the antarābhava, that bodily sensation is absent in the first dhyāna, and that smṛti is impossible from within a dhyānic state, amongst other beliefs, such as that Yāmarāj is a kind of ghost and not a kind of deity and that there is only one Supreme Buddha active at a given time. There are all Theravāda beliefs that separate it from Mahāyāna, but Theravāda does not deserve to be exclusively compared to wider Mahāyāna trends. It is a particular school that ought to be particularly treated, IMO.
Pulsar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:45 amI consider myself Theravada even though I don't subscribe to commentaries and Abhidhamma notions and suttas manufactured around the 3rd council and later. Even MN 43 and MN 44 that many here quote, I reject, cause they are very late fabrications like DN 22.
You are free to call yourself whatever you feel that you are. I disagree with your textual hermeneutics. I think that DN actually has some of the oldest Buddhist material in it, such as the Aggaññasutta, etc., which I view as a pre-Buddhist story adapted by the Buddha. But I have no proof of such. Earlier, I explained that I don't share my personal opinions concerning the Dharma on this forum because they are off-topic. I
do however share speculations about Buddhist history, which is what you are also doing when you say with confidence something that is not known with confidence, i.e. that those three suttas are definitely "manufactured around the 3rd council." Just like there is no proof that the Aggaññasutta is very ancient material adapted fresh by the Buddha, there is no proof that those three scriptures are definitely fabrications and weren't always redacted like that (i.e. "remembered like that") by the forerunners of the Theravāda sect. If their memorizers didn't preserve the Dharma well enough or not, thus resulting in misremembered sermons identified as manufactured anomalies, that is another issue entirely.
Pulsar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:45 amMy simple question to you is when do you think Theravada came to be called Theravada? I've been researching this.
- The word did not appear in the literature until 1800's. Before that it was called Hinayana.
But this opens up another can of worms. Hinayana is a reference to "Hearers" or "Sarvastivadins".
Are you
quite sure that the Theravādins used to identify
themselves as Hīnayāna? I don't think they ever have. I think they've used names like "Mahāvihāravāsin," in reference to the monastery from which contemporary Theravāda pseudo-orthodoxy springs forth. They currently (and in the past) have called themselves the Pāli version of "Sthaviravāda" (i.e. "Theravāda"), the sect they trace themselves to from the fabled "first schism," but they haven't always done so, as you point out. They've also called themselves Vibhajyavādins, after their parent sect. I think they've also been called "Tamraparṇiyas," after the island of Sri Lanka, Tamraparṇi. It's also been called Śrāvakayāna, but only by Mahāyānikas. I don't think anyone knows exactly when it became popular to render "Sthaviravāda" into Pāli as a school name. Likely they'd been doing it for quite a while and at some point "Theravāda" comes to replace the other names.
Why would they call themselves "the smaller and/or inferior vehicle?" That is what the "hīna-" in that word means. It doesn't just mean "smaller," though it also can have that neutral sense. Typically, it is used by Mahāyānikas looking down at Śrāvakas.
Pulsar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:45 amBut Sarvastivadins had 18 sects. Do you know from which sect of the above, the Sri Lankan theravadins came from? Even Sri Lanka was not called so, before 1975. It was Ceylon.
Are you sure that the Sarvāstivādin sect alone had 18 sects, or did Buddhism at one point have loosely 18 sects? I don't think the Theravādins came from the Sarvāstivādins at all. They have an ancient schism. Sarvāstivādins don't even consider themselves Vibhajyavādins AFAIK, meaning that that schism is very old.
Pulsar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:45 amAre the Sri Lankan Theravadins the Vibajjavadins, who broke off from original Sarvastivada "Hearers"
Are you confusing "Sarvāstivāda" and "Śrāvakayāna" because they both begin with an "S?"
Pulsar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:45 amSince the truth is, when you say "Theravadins do not understand a certain meditation" does it make sense?
I've never actually said this. I'm rather careful to try to avoid criticizing Theravāda unfairly on this forum and to phrase my disagreements with it as reasonably as possible.
Pulsar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:45 amDo you understand my problem? And the sutta you present to prove your point EA 17.1 is a pure cut and paste job.
I'm not proving "my point." I'm showing that EĀ and in particular its Ānāpānasmṛtisūtra is redacted very differently from any Pāli equivalent. This would make sense, since the Mahāsāṃghikas and Sthaviravādins constitute an even older schism than that between the Sarvāstivādins and Vibhajyavādins. It would make sense that their scriptures would be strikingly differently compiled, because they are strikingly different.
Pulsar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:45 amIf anyone here can help solve my dilemma, it is only you, since you have faith in Mahayana. It is nice to have you around. You are the only one capable of breaking my faith.
With love
I don't know what you mean by "breaking my faith" and why you would want it broken.
With love.