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

[Jim Peavler]

On Jan 29, 2006, at 9:19 AM, Benito Carral wrote:

> On Sunday, January 29, 2006, Jim Peavler wrote:
>
>> Belief systems are not necessary.
>
>    For  what they are not neccesary? Why do you believe
> so?

Here is why (I tend to post this about twice each year so if you have  
already read it feel free to move on):

from Sutta 63 of the Majjhimanidaya (I hope this is an old enough  
text to be taken seriously and not burned)

Part 1: The eternal questions.
Many years ago I met my friend Lucien Stryk, who a couple of years  
before had published an anthology of Buddhist writings called World  
of the Buddha. He and I spent many hours talking about Buddhism and  
poetry (he is primarily an outstanding poet). I, a person who had  
failed to find any “religion” to which I could whole-heartedly pledge  
my troth, was fascinated by the practicality of Buddhism.

One of my favorite chapters of World of the Buddha was Chapter VII,  
titled “Questions Which Tend Not To Edification”. The text  
constitutes Sutta 63 of the Majjhimanidaya. Not having to worry about  
the answers to these questions opened the whole world of Buddhism to  
me, which I have basked in for about 35 years.

The main character, Malunkyputta, has been in the Buddha’s sangha for  
some time, but is uneasy of mind about several big questions. He  
decides that if the Buddha can’t answer these questions then he is  
not worth following any more, so he resolves to ask the teacher to  
answer the questions: Is the world eternal or not eternal?; is the  
world finite or infinite?; are the soul and body identical, or is the  
soul one thing and the body another?; do saints exist after death or  
do not exist after death, or both exist and do not exist after death  
or neither exist nor not exists after death? These, Mal. complains,  
the The Blessed One has not elucidated. So one evening he sits down  
beside the blessed one and says “If the blessed one knows [the  
answers to these questions] elucidate these to me.”

Part 2: The metaphor of the arrow wound.
The Blessed One replies, “Pray, Malunkyputta, did I ever say to you,  
‘Come, Malunkyputta, lead the religious life under me, and I will  
elucidate to you [the answers to these questions]?” Or did you ever  
say to me, ‘Reverend Sir, I will lead  the religious life under  
Blessed One, on condition that The Blessed One elucidate to me [the  
answers to these questions]?”

At this point The Blessed One uses the extended simile of the arrow:  
“It is as if, Malunkyputta, a man had been wounded by an arrow  
thickly smeared with poison, and his friends and companions, his  
relatives and kinsfolk, were to procure for him a physician or  
surgeon; and the sick man were to way, ‘I will not have this arrow  
taken out until I have learnt whether the man who wounded me belonged  
to the warrior caste, or to the Brahman caste, or to the agricultural  
caste, or to the menial caste, …or learnt the name of the man who  
wounded me and his clan, . . . or if he were tall, short, or of  
middle height,’” and on and on.

“In exactly the same way, Malunkyputta, any one who should say, ‘I  
will not lead the religious life under The Blessed One until The  
Blessed One shall elucidate to me either that the world is eternal or  
that the world is not eternal,. . . [and so on] or that the saint  
neither exists nor does not exist after death’; That person would  
die, Malunkyputta, before The Tathagata had ever elucidated this to  
him “

Part 3: The Religious Life
The  Blessed One: “The religious life, Malunkyputta, does not depend  
on the dogma that the world is eternal; nor does the religious life,  
Malunkyputta, depend on the dogma that the world is not eternal.  
Whether the dogma obtain, Malunkyputta, that the world is eternal, or  
that the world is not eternal, there still remain birth, old age,  
death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief, and despair, for the  
extinction of which in the present life I am prescribing.

“The religious life, Malunkyputta does not depend on the dogma that  
the soul and body are identical. . .the dogma that the saint exists  
or does not exist, “…. etc. through each of the questions.

“Accordingly, Malunkyputta, bear always in mind what it is that I  
have not elucidated, and what it is that I have elucidated. And what,  
Malunkyputta, have I not elucidated? I have not elucidated that the  
world is eternal; I have not elucidated. .. . .” and on through the  
questions of Malunkyputta.

“And what, Malunkyputta, have I elucidated? Misery, Malunkyputta,  
have I elucidated; the origin of misery have I elucidated; the  
cessation of misery have I elucidated; and the path leading to the  
cessation of misery have I elucidated. Any why, Malunkyputta, have I  
elucidated this? Because, Malunkyputta, this does profit, has to do  
with the fundamentals of religion, and tends to aversion, absence of  
passion, cessation, quiescence, knowledge, supreme wisdom, and  
Nirvana; therefore have I elucidated it. Accordingly, Malunkyputta,  
bear always in mind what it is that I have not elucidated, and what  
it is that I have elucidated.: