[Buddha-l] Mahayana taught by the Buddha?

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Wed, 2005-06-22 at 12:57 -0400, curt wrote:

> It is the contagiousness that is most important. I think that at any
> given time there are lots of nice people around - but there are very
> few who can manage to encourage niceness in others. Or at least
> there are very few whose ability to encourage niceness in others
> equals or matches the the Dark Forces that discourage niceness.

This has always been so, I think. It was certainly the case at the time
of the Buddha. He had a remarkably small effect on the events of his
day. He managed to gather 1250 disciples over the course of 45 years of
teaching. (It is not uncommon these days for a fair-to-middling
evangelists to gather flocks of 15,000 or more in five years.) Half of
the Buddha's disciples defected at one point. One of his most
influential disciples was beaten to death by thugs from another outfit.
Another trusted disciple tried to kill him. His community was rocked
with scandals and political failures. All said, I'm not sure the Buddha
was not a counterexample to the dictum about nice guys finishing last.

> For my money "simply being a nice guy" is woefully inadequate in such
> a situation - it is necessary to find a way to tip the balance towards
> more overall niceness. 

Necessary, yes. But possible? I have yet to see any evidence anywhere
suggesting that there is anything rational about hope for the human
race. Thank God we're only a very minor sideshow in the overall scheme
of things and won't take much of anything important with us when we go
out with either a bang or a whimper.

-- 
Richard Hayes
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes