[Buddha-l] Monk/nun or lay person

[Stefan Detrez]

Bruce Burrill wrote:

Possibly, but the real advantage of the Sangha is
> the preservation of the Dhamma by those who can
> devote their entire lives to it. Awakening was
> not limited to the monastic Sangha. We see in the
> Pali a suttas a shift in that, which is what make
> the suttas so very interesting.


Awakening was indeed not limited to the sangha, true. But the particularity
of laymen attaining Nibbana is a later development within the Canon. This
shift can be regarded both as doctrinal (Enlightenment outside the Sangha!)
and historical.

Well, given that by our standards women at that
> time were not much more than chattel, the
> admission of women was a radical move.


Most suttas dealing with layfolks have them eventually go forth, entering
the sangha. There, again, you have this condition that one must first become
monk/nun (and be it for as long as it takes) in order to realize Nibbana.

Comparing this "early" sutra to a genuinely early
> Mahayana sutra, such as the Ugra, we get a very
> different view. There is a reason Jan Nattier
> titled her study of the Ugra  A FEW GOOD MEN. The
> "Mahayana" -- as we see in the earliest Mahayana
> texts -- was a way of practice for the few
> monastic men who were willing to do the practice.


I'm not sure I understand your point. Jan Nattier's study actually proves my
point: layfolks realizing Nibbana is a later Mahayana development.
(http://www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v21n1/p23.html
<http://www.indiana.edu/%7Ercapub/v21n1/p23.html>)


The LS has nothing to do with the Theravada, and
> "Theravada" is not a substitute word for that bit
> of rank ugliness introduced by the LS, the
> word/concept hinayana.  (snip)
> It is highly unlikely that many laity that would
> be able to have access to the teachings that
> would make something such as the Vimala an accessible sutra to understood.
>


I take the LS as an early Mahayana scripture. It has to do with the
Theravada , because it's an implicit critique of its emphasis on the
monastic life. Hinayana, for that matter, is not a substitute for Theravada
but a compendium name for pre-Mahayana schools, who are Sangha-centered.
It's not ugly. It's a historical word just as we use 'the Third World' to
mean the whole of economically and socially un(-der)developped countries.
Maybe most folks didn't understand the Vimalakirti Sutra, but the fact that
a layman (an ill layman, come to think of it) can be superior to a monk or a
nun must've surely made it attractive and must have given the hope that in
order to get released from suffering, one doesn't have to go through the
whole curriculum of monastic life. And it's here, too, that layfolks
attaining Nirvana was a nice incentive. But this is, again, something one
shouldn't expect from the Theravada - the name of which already implies a
certain meritocracy in contrast to the 'Get yur Nirvana here and now,
folks!'-mentality of especially Mahayana texts.

>>So, what we see here is an
> anti-intellectualistic tendency particularly
> aimed at the scholasticism of the Theravada and a vulgarisation of the
> Dhamma<<
>
> Again with the inappropriate use of Theravada. As
> for the vulgarization of the Dhamma, the pretty much sums up the Lotus
> Sutra.


Correct. Faith has made its intro into the Teachings. Mappo avant la lettre,
perhaps. A people's revolution, toppling the bourgeoisie.

>>meaning a larger involvement of lay people
> into the issue of the attainment of nibbana. <<
>
> That is not necessarily so.


Please explain.

(snip)

>>about the continuity between Theravada and Mahayana.

>
> The Mahayana was a result of a "Buddha-ology"
> that arose after the death of the Buddha. What is
> interesting is that it derived from an already in
> place bodhisatta concept that was developed after
> the death of the Buddha by the Mainstream
> schools. We see in such genuinely early Mahayana
> texts as the Ugra a continuity with that, but to
> make the bodhisattva doctrine work, the emergent
> Mahayanists had to, as they did over a period,
> redefine virtually every central concept of the
> Buddhism – Buddha, arhat, nirvana, bodhi.


Correct. Buddhalogy is a good term (also used officially as is done with
'christology'). Pali texts (especially the Sangha-centered ones) hardly have
Arhats who are laymen. The Theris and the Theras from the Gathas are all
monastics, tautologically.

How early are you going to go, and do you really
> mean Theravada? The Theravada, early or late,
> does not need to define itself in terms of the Mahayana.


In this sentence I mean later-Theravada texts and early-Mahayana texts.
Let's say from AD 0 to 200-250. Maybe the continuity was interrupted when
Theravada monastics realized that the Dhamma was beginning to become
populist, urging them to swiftly write the whole thing done and close it.

The Mahayana was not, and is not,
> some great bastion of lay practice. It is, and
> always has been, a primarily monastic movement.


I never said it wasn't. I only state that laymen/women attaining Nirvana is
a late development in the texts. One should be careful to generalize from
one instance ('there's a layman attaining Nibbana, SO it is characteristic
of the whole of the Theravada teachings') way back to the earliest texts,
because it would be an anachronism. And we are not dealing here with some
divine inspiration urging us to see the Theaching as consistent or perfect.

Stefan


--
Born, never asked.

- Laurie Anderson
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