[Buddha-l] Monk/nun or lay person

[Stefan Detrez]

2006/3/2, Knut Heidelberg <knut_heidelberg at yahoo.com>:
>
> I tend to believe that anyone may attend Nibbana here and now. Lay persons
> doing everyday's work are just as capable of Nibbana as any monk or nun. My
> argument is that the method described in Mahasatipattana Sutta is a direct
> way to Nibbana and may very well be used by anyone and in any situation and
> for the disiplined mind every hour of the day. It may be it is easier for a
> monk or nun to disipline the mind but nobody needs to become a monk or nun
> in order to have a dispilined mind. The same goes for the ethical dimension
> of Buddhist practise.


The idea of 'here and now'-nibbana is not found in the Theravada tradition,
it's a Mahayana understanding of Nirvana.  The  Mahasatipattana  Sutta
mentions no 'here and now' Enlightenment, in fact, it follows the older
conception of the /holy/ life of the Canon, as exemplified in the suttas
dealing with the necessity of sustained striving and gradual development.
Only in later texts in the Canon appears the idea of laymen attaining
Nibbana, interestingly, conceptually (and probably historically in its
formation) coinciding with the emergence of the Mahayana understanding of
laymen and the possibility of realizing Nirvana. Regarding your belief, your
are right when you observe that if it doesn't take one to enter a monastery
to realize Nibbana, one might as well stay a lay person. However, this
particular sutta is aimed at monks (nuns were absent) as an in depth
instruction for monastics. If you check suttas addressed to lay people
you'll find an emphasis on doing good deeds for merit. and a lot less
technical terminology than as contained in that sutta.

The issue has also been dealt with in terms of distinguishing Kammatic  and
Nibbanic Buddhism (a distinction introduced by Melford Spiro). Kammatic is
the Buddhism of 'good deeds', leading to merit for its actors (and by
extension, for others), while Nibbanic Buddhism sees the monastic life as
conducive to Nibbana. In the /ideal/ life there is a further distinction of
emphasis put on either studying the Dhamma (like Bhikkhu Bodhi with
translational work), or meditation (Goenka).

Stefan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/private/buddha-l/attachments/20060302/34d6f17a/attachment.html