[Buddha-l] Re: Jesus is Buddha?

[Benito Carral]

On Tuesday, January 24, 2006, Richard P. Hayes wrote:

> I  claim  we really don't have the faintest idea what
> the Buddha taught.

   What seems to me as complete nonsense.

> All  we  can  know  is  what  some people tell us the
> Buddha taught.

   If  by  "some  people" you refer to the followers of
the  Buddha, I would bet that they knew something about
the founder of their school.

> But  their  account  is  already an interpretation, a
> rewriting of history.

   I  don't  know  what  proofs  you have about this. I
think  that  the  followers  of  the  Buddha could well
memorize his sermons as they claimed they did. It seems
that  they  were  better  memorizing that we tend to be
nowadays.

> Everything  we  have,  and the only thing we can ever
> have, is a fictional representation.

   That's your belief.

> To prefer one fiction over another and to say THIS is
> the  original teaching, and all others are deviations
> from the truth, is to try to take a stand in the air.

   As  I  have already said, I think that this is plain
nonsense. Let me quote Conze here:

          Where  we find passages in which the texts of
          the  Theravaadins  and Sarvaastivaadins agree
          almost  word by word, we can assume that they
          were   composed  at  a  time  antedating  the
          separation  of  the  two  schools, which took
          place during AŽsoka's rule, roughly about 250
          BC.  Where  they do not agree, we may, in the
          absence  of  evidence  to the contrary, infer
          their post-AŽsokan date. In those cases where
          we  can establish a close similarty also with
          the  Mahaasanghika texts, we are carried back
          one  more century, to _c._ 340 BC, within 140
          years  of  the  Buddha's  Nirvana,  when  the
          Mahaasanghikas  separated  from the Sthaviras
          [...]

          (Edward Conze, _Buddhist Tought in India,_ p.
          31  in  my  copy of 1996 Munshiram Manoharlal
          Publishers' edition)


> [...] I have never met anyone who tried to teach that
> Buddhism has no doctrine of rebirth. Have you?

   Yes,  I  have,  and I have also met people who teach
that Buddhism has nothing to do with ethical trainings.


> [...]  if  one  subtracts  the  dogma of rebirth from
> Buddhism,   one  still  has  a  rather  powerful  and
> effective repertoire of psychotherapeutic tools [...]

   I  don't  know  if you are familiar with the studies
about    the    effectiveness    of    the    different
psychotherapies, they can be good food for thinking.

   Anyway,  rebirth is an integral part of Buddhism and
what  you  are really talking about is about using some
Buddhist techniques out of context.

   As  I have already explained, rebirth is key for the
meaning-giving  aspect  of  Buddhism,  and as Carl Jung
wrote in his _Modern Man in Search of a Soul:_

          About  a third of my cases are suffering from
          no  clinically  defineable neurosis, but from
          the  senselessness  and  emptiness  of  their
          lives.  This  can be described as the general
          neurosis of our time.

   So if one wants to take some Buddhist techniques out
of  context  and use them for making easier his life in
Samsara,  that's  OK for me, but it's not fair nor wise
to call it "Buddhism." Buddhism is not a kind of Prozac
for making easier our samsaric existence.

   Best wishes,

   Beni