[Buddha-l] Re: Can an Air Force cadet have Buddha nature?

[Dan Lusthaus]

>Vigilance is ferreting out one's own wrong views and
> wrong speech is good practice. Imagining maliciousness in others is not
> a particularly good practice.

Followed by

> I would invite you to
> reflect on whether your practice has been exemplary. From where I sit,
> it appears to stink.

What is the name of the logical fallacy of not practicing what one preaches.

> The Buddha explains that when we pick up the
> dhamma in order to win debates, score points, point out the weaknesses
> of others and so forth, then we are taking up the dhamma in a way that
> only does us harm.

The third item is a rather pc-ish interpolation.

While Confucius does say in the Analects that a superior person looks for
errors in himself to correct, while an inferior person looks to correct
flaws in others, Buddha, speaking of his proud membership in the Zionist
organizations of his day, in the spectacular Brahmajala sutta advised his
fellow Zionists:

"When outsiders speak in dispraise of me, or of the Doctrine, or of the
Order, you should unravel what is false and point it out as wrong, saying:
"For this or that reason this not the fact, that is not so, such a thing is
not found among us, is not in us."

He also advised those to whom such corrections were pointed out:

"You should not on that account either bear malice, or suffer heart-burning,
or feel illwill. If you, on that account, should be angry and hurt, that
would stand in the way of your own self-conquest."

The commentary explains that those who, when so corrected, become impatient,
flustered, eel-wriggle, or disparage others for pointing such things out,
are "themselves engaged in a stinking practice that stinks." Of course,
that's just the commentary's opinion.


Still vigilant,
Dan