[Buddha-l] Jesus is Buddha?

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Tue, 2006-01-24 at 20:50 +0000, Robert Morrison wrote:

> Surely, just as we do not know what the Buddha actually taught, how can we
> say that what we have is nothing more than an interpretation, or a rewriting
> of history - surely we would have to know what he taught in order to make
> such a statement?

I don't think so. We do know this much: what is reported is a surely an
interpretation. That much is certain. What we do not know is how the
interpretation is. So we can know for certain nothing more than that we
have an interpretation.

> After all, I assume that as these early disciples weren't fishermen (aka
> Hume), they might be a bit more honest and reliable.

No one is questioning the honesty of either the people (the majority of
them brahmins) who preserved the Pali canon or of fisherman. I have no
reason to believe that Buddhist monks were any more or less reliable
than fishermen. Being an inlander, I haven't known enough fishermen to
make any estimates of their reliability. I have known just enough monks
to make me rather cautious of theirs.

Don't get me wrong. Like you, I vastly prefer the Pali canon to any
other Buddhist writings, with the possible exception of Śāntideva. But I
like the canon because of what it says, not because I imagine it to be
closer to what the Buddha actually taught. I would prefer it even it
could be shown somehow that the Buddha never existed and was the
literary invention of a drunkard gone insane with syphilis. I regard the
whole question of historical accuracy a red herring that distracts from
more important matters. To me, one of the more important matters is
reducing the amount of dukkha in the world, and I believe the Pali canon
offers some good suggestions on how to do that. Everything is a sideshow
really, designed for those who like to gawk at exotica (such as rebirth)
rather than coming into the big tent and watching the main attraction.

-- 
Richard