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

[Vicente Gonzalez]

Jim Peavler wrote:

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

not with my matches, I hope.

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

Well, I think that's not a tool to avoid the clarifying of the
teaching. In any way. Also Buddha said "leave home and go to the
forest" and we don't do it. Talking it's a good thing when we don't
have an impulse so strong.

I agree fully with the text as everybody here, I suppose.
Buddha is very focused in teaching the non-self as the real practice,
and outside gains from intellectual truths.

If we would be able to develop the Buddha teaching as we suppose their
disciple did, we will be focused in patticasamuppada and ignoring
these useless doubts. However, it is not in that way.
Therefore, the talk about phenomena are a normal thing to polish the
knowledge about the goal of practice. It appears many times in the
Sutras and it is normal thing.

What is our common reaction when we realize that non-rebirth is a
falsehood in a final of point of view and according patticasamuppada?.
To affirm the existence of non-rebirth in a *conventional* point
of view.
I think it is an strong error, because non-rebirth in such
conventional point of view also it's a falsehood. It is also illogical
and not able to be inserted inside the Buddhist philosophy.
On the contrary, in this same conventional point of view, only rebirth
becomes possible. For this reason, Buddha only talks of rebirth when
he is contemplating the arising and perishing of beings. Here the
beings arises in a causality thread because the actions and thoughts
of the previous ones.

Therefore, I think that we understand a little more patticasumappada
not only when we are able to realize that rebirth is false, but also
when we are able to realize that also non-rebirth is false.


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

I think it is the same problem. Before starting the practice, Buddha
always demand the requisite of forgetting previous certainties about
what is life, death, etc... Same of that "empty your cup" in Zen.
I think that we should put the things in his own context. There is not
any contradiction. 

There is not utility in talking about rebirth and non-rebirth because
it is a lost of time regarding the practice. I think it is just part
of any preliminary to the practice; when the conversations can be a
help to understand better patticasamuppada and the way to the cease.
And it is what we one makes here; endless preliminaries.

Although also they are useful to clarify things; in this case the
false notion of the existence of death as a cause of the cease of the
-self. 

I think the rest of the examples are similar.


JP> bear always in mind what it is that I have not elucidated, and what
JP> it is that I have elucidated.:

So it is my point. Buddha never elucidates death as the cease of the
-self. And also we know that Buddha talks of rebirth in the
conventional side. Well, I'm trying to explain exactly the same thing.
I think it is not something of another planet.

best regards,