[Buddha-l] Re: Attan.com

[L.S. Cousins]

Malcolm Dean would like more information:

>I'd like to parse the content of http://www.attan.com a little more
>before we dismiss the subject. This kind of source is sometimes useful
>in promoting further discovery, so, for those interested, let's
>explore. (Others may prefer to return to politics.):
>
>For example, the author claims that the earliest books are doctrinally
>distinct from those that follow (mainly, I gather, in his assertions
>regarding "soul"). Is this distinction generally agreed or not?

Well, yes and no. We have almost no means other than doctrinal 
differences to determine  which texts are earlier and which later. If 
you assume that such a large body of literature must have been 
produced at different times, then you will attempt on that basis to 
identify layers. But there is little agreement on how to do this. 
What agreement there is is probably the result of having relatively 
few scholars working in the field. There is also no agreement as to 
how long the process will have taken. One could assume that the 
Buddha added teachings and explanations during the course of a long 
lifetime. One could also suppose that some material was added by his 
surviving pupils and their followers over the next fifty years, but 
that the main body of the discourses in the four Nikaayas was extant 
in the fourth century B.C. Others favour extremely long time-scales 
with the bulk of the discourses being produced in the third to first 
century B.C. and the collections as we have them perhaps even later. 
All sorts of intermediate positions are possible and exist.

Since this is the methodology being used, one is bound to discover 
that early texts have a simpler teaching than later ones. The 
application of this to the teachings of anatta is that the Buddha 
himself might originally have taught only a simple teaching of not 
being attached to ideas of who or what we are. This is clearly 
possible but far from proven.

>Where
>are the dividing lines? Are there good books or papers on this topic?

Yes. Just avoid most of the ones mentioned on this website :-)

>The author provides a lengthy list of quotations regarding "soul." Is
>his translation correct, or are there divergent opinions?

On the term atta:
It can mean some kind of transcendent spiritual reality. It can refer 
to our ordinary sense of self or ego. It can be a simple reflexive 
pronoun. If you conflate these usages (most of which exist in English 
too), you can produce something like the translations suggested. I 
would personally consider many of the translations given  to be just 
plain wrong.

>If correct,
>how are we to understand a set of early writings which can be
>interpreted as diverging from later teachings?

It would be an extraordinary anticipation of certain 19th and 20th 
century ideas. There would be no parallel to this in the history of 
mankind.

>The author offers a low opinion of the PTS dictionary. Is he correct?

No.

>If not, why not?

It was a considerable achievement at the time. It could be superceded 
now -  three quarters of a century or so later. Indeed Margaret 
Cone's ongoing work will do that,  although she generally avoids 
doctrinal or philosophical issues. The website author dislikes it 
because Stede successfully debunks the kind of mistranslation he 
wants to put forward.

>The author provides a number of books in PDF form. Some are clearly
>Theosophical, others appear to be reference volumes or translations.
>What is the quality of these works and translations?

Variable, but any student who read all of these and nothing else 
could probably be guaranteed a virtual failure in any Buddhism course 
taught by me.

>Do any have
>interesting stories behind them?

I don't know.

>Beside the details provided about the author in the previous post,
>does anyone herein know him personally, or where he lives and what he
>does for a living?

Unknown.

Looking at the site, however, it seems to evidence extraordinary 
arrogance combined with a vituperative hatred of different views.

Take for example:
  "The truth being that those demonic 'Buddhists' who cannot, who have 
not seen the Light of their inner nature which delivers both wisdom 
and blissful grace without equal or description, these people are 
morbid little demons that have forced themselves by will to become 
sleazy whores of superficial morality, inwardly rotten and outwardly 
pure."
This is explicitly applied to the whole of Buddhism today i.e. to 
hundreds of millions of people whom the author has never met. Such a 
judgment is pretty stupid and very arrogant. The use of expressions 
like 'morbid', ,'sleazy', 'demonic', 'whores', 'rotten' and the like 
is simply an external expression of (probably unacknowledged) hatred. 
The author is clearly in desperate need of a little more 'superficial 
morality'.

On the positive side, we may say that there is much that needs to be 
understood about 'no self' in its classical form.

Two points seem important:

1. It is primarily a meditative technique. As such, you have to do it 
to understand it.

2. There is no teaching of no self. The point is that there is no 
unchanging or permanent self. Rather there is a process. Viewing this 
either in terms of continuing permanence or as some kind of 
annihilation completely misses the point. Rather the idea is not to 
rely on anything within or without.

Lance Cousins