[Buddha-l] The authentic Buddha

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Franz,

> You ask a brave question in a brave way. And you've received the 
> unusually open and non-combative answers your honesty deserves.

I had already started a philo blabber answer to John's question, when I 
saw Wong Weng Fai's answer "In your heart" and thought yes it's all 
there, there's nothing more to add and then I packed up my stuff again.

> Maybe genuine relativists shouldn't go looking for blessings, even from 
> Buddhas. But a breezy practice is at least an open practice. And if 
> there's no absolute Buddha out there, we can still bow to our lovely 
> longing for it.

Whether there is an absolute Buddha out there, whether there is a God 
out there, the following sentence applies to all of us indistinctively, 
believers and relativists alike. It's one of those sentences that got 
stuck in my head like a mantra ever since I read it (only recently). 
It's from The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians 4:7

"And what do you have that you didn't receive?"

Note how beautiful the "you didn't receive" is. "And what do you have 
that hasn't been given to you?" would not have had the same effect on me.