[Buddha-l] Re: Where does authority for "true" Buddhism come from?

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Chris schreef:

> (Corrected for spelling!)
>
> On 1/28/06, *Chris* <castanford at gmail.com 
> <mailto:castanford at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     On 1/28/06, *Benito Carral* <bcarral at kungzhi.org
>     <mailto:bcarral at kungzhi.org>> wrote:
>
>
>           I'm going to quote the Buddha:
>
>      
>     Tell me, Benito, by what authority are you "going to quote the
>     Buddha"?
>      
>     Did Sidartha actually tell you in person what you are quoting? Did
>     you hear those exact words straight from the Buddha's mouth - with
>     your own ears? And were you able to construct an accurate
>     transcript of what you thought you heard him say?  Or are you in
>     fact not just repeating what someone else wrote about what *he*
>     thought the Buddha might have said, and only done so some several
>     hundred years after Sidartha died? (If in fact he ever lived.)
>
>     I really need to get a handle on your definition of 'evidence' in
>     this rather protracted debate. Can you help me out here?
>
>
>
So this turns into a question of pramaana's. Are the words of the Buddha 
sufficient evidence? Could he ever be wrong or outdated? What did the 
Buddha really mean to say and is this without contradiction? Do we want 
a reasonable Buddhism or a beliefsystem?
More important: what does it mean to believe in reincarnation nowadays? 
Can the concept still have meaning and function in our discourse, which 
is dominated by science?

Erik


www.xs4all.nl/~jehms