[Buddha-l] Re: Mahayana taught by the Buddha?

[Mike Austin]

In message <1119328081.8408.21.camel at localhost.localdomain>, Richard P. 
Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu> writes
>On Tue, 2005-06-21 at 10:54 +0700, Randall Jones wrote:
>
>> Question:  Are you suggesting that the beauty of Buddhism is what grounds
>> practice?
>
>It would be interesting to hear how different people answer this. I
>suspect it depends a lot of temperament. Some folks probably find
>Buddhism beautiful. Curt does, it would seem. I don't. I find it pretty
>effective for what it was designed to do. I also find a shovel pretty
>effective for what it was designed to do, but I rarely find myself
>thinking of shovels as beautiful. Similarly, while I love mathematics, I
>would never in a million years think of it as beautiful. Fun, yes.
>Interesting, yes. Useful, yes. But calling it beautiful is going too
>far. But then I can't think of much of anything I would call beautiful.

I tend to agree. To me, 'beauty' is associated with something unknown - 
something mystical even. As such, I find it the antithesis of dharma.

But I wonder whether it is just my choice of words.  Mathematics can, at 
times, be what I would describe 'elegant'. I think that could also apply 
to Buddhism, i.e. simple, natural, uncontrived and no nonsense.

-- 
Metta
Mike Austin