[Buddha-l] Critiques of Buddhism

[Bruce Burrill]

At 11:12 AM 11/14/2005, you wrote:
>Probably one of the strangest web sites on someone's idea of Buddhism I
>have found recently is http://www.attan.com/ , which sports the largest
>collection of swastikas I have found on any one page. It might be a
>little difficult to spend more than three minutes looking at that site
>without becoming mentally ill.


This is Ken Wheeler's site. He is good friends with Zenmar aka Ardent 
Hollingworth the founder and master debater of Dark Zen. Wheeler is a 
self proclaimed "Doctor of Buddhology" and also goes by the Ven 
Shakya Aryanatta (self ordained).

Here is is his Amazon.con review of Steven Collins' SELFLESS PERSONS:


4 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Horrific. In contradiction to the Suttas. Inaccurate, September 26, 2001
Reviewer: 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/cm/member-glance/-/A1G1DDXZSRS7WM/1/ref=cm_cr_auth/104-3371039-2775126?%5Fencoding=UTF8>"kenleew" 
(United States) - 
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1G1DDXZSRS7WM/ref=cm_cr_auth/104-3371039-2775126?%5Fencoding=UTF8>See 
all my reviews
This book would presume by its cover to prove that Buddhism is 
nihilism, but since there is no evidence as such in Sutta, this book 
has nothing within it but opinions and has nothing from the Suttas 
(Nikayas) to back up the authors missguided sectarian false views in 
contradiction to the corpus of Buddhism.

Nowhere within the Scriptures of Buddhism is the True Self denied, 
but only that is must not be identified with the transitory and 
ephemeral aggregates of phenomena. Such that forms, feelings, 
perceptions, impulses, and mental machinations of the mind are 
temporal, unreal, arise and pass, and are of the realm of phenomena 
and cannot be construed as what is everlasting, best, real, and most 
dear of the True Self and therefore must not be identified with the 
Attan as such.

Even now the world standard for Pali-English translation reference 
being the new "A Dictionary of Pali" by Margaret Cone states about 
the Attan (atta): [Sanskrit Atman], The self, the soul, as a 
permanent unchangeable, autonomous entity; p.70, Pali Text Society

Without an entity that fares on, there are no grounds for rebirth, 
nothing which could be perfected, and Buddhism flies apart at the 
hinges without a basis. Since there is nothing of any substance of 
the aggregates which can recollect previous lives, and nothing 
everlasting within such temporal phenomena to be perfected to dwell 
within Perfection;

There cannot be assumed even loosely that Buddhism can exist without 
the concept of the Attan, so offhandedly rejected by sectarian 
nihilism which runs contrary to sutta.We are more interested in what 
the Buddha said than what he didn't say, and as it pertains to the 
Attan, nothing is rejected but temporal aggregates, not the Attan.

The greatest mistake made after the passing of Gotama Buddha was the 
arising of the non-doctrinal notion that Buddhism somehow preaches 
empirical-extinction. The much discussed doctrine of Anatta [an (not) 
Atta (True Self)] which occurs a little more than 240 times in the 
entirety of the Buddhist Nikayas is used only to describe that which 
cannot be identified with or clung to as genuinely real and 
everlasting, or possessed of the True Self in its proper identity.

In some secular translations, the Atta has been translated in its 
various forms and compounds as a reflexive, i.e. oneself, himself, 
themselves; but no such reflexive terminology exists within the Pali 
language in which the Buddhist canon is recorded. The Atta (True 
Self) or the Attan, both in standalone and compound occur more than 
23,000 times within scripture.

DN 2.157 Therefore Ananda, stay as those who have their True Self as 
the illumination, as those who have their True Self as supreme 
refuge, as those who have no other as the refuge; as those who have 
the true law Dharma as the illumination, as those who have the Dharma 
as refuge, as those who have no other refuge.

KN 3.78 And whoever, Ananda, either now or after my end will stay as 
those who have the True Self as the illumination, as those who have 
True Self as refuge, as those who have no other as the refuge...they 
among my bhikkhus shall reach the peak of immortality, provided they 
are desirous of training their True Self.

AN 1.81 There is monks, an unborn, an unoriginated, an unmade, and an 
unformed. If there were not monks, this unborn, unoriginated, unmade 
and unformed, there would be no way out for the born, the originated, 
the made and the formed.

There is no evidence within the Suttas to support the author and 
10,000 passages to refute him to the contrary and no intelligent 
person could confuse this diatribe for the teachings of Buddhism

...Dr. of Buddhology