[Buddha-l] Monk/nun or lay person

[L.S. Cousins]

Alex Naughton writes:

>      Maybe this is a bit late, but I was under the impression that 
>one way this issue was addressed in the early literature was to 
>uphold the status of the ordained clergy by making the claim that 
>anyone who became enlightened had to either be a monk (or nun) 
>already, or become one pretty quick, the only other alternative 
>being to attain the nirvana without remainder, i.e., die.

It depends on what you mean by early literature. As far as I recall, 
this claim is only made in relatively late sources - Milinda (or late 
canonical). It also  depends on what you mean by enlightened. I would 
have thought that earlier the emphasis is on stream-entry or similar. 
This would be comparable to Zen.

>  But it seems to me that the figure of the pratyeka buddha is 
>interesting in this context as well, as someone who definitely has 
>some spiritual attainment or otherwise obvious religious charisma, 
>but is not necessarily affiliated with the existing Buddhist 
>community.

But they are usually set in the past.

>  If one wishes to insist that all valid realizations must proceed 
>from Buddhist teachings, then the only way to account for such 
>individuals is to assume they had contact with the Dharma in some 
>prior state of existence.

Well, no. One can assume that the religious life has laws which are 
open to discovery and they are discovered from time to time.

>     It's not at all surprising that the Pali literature is 
>inconsistent, given that the Book of Genesis and the Christian 
>Gospels are also inconsistent, and the process of canon formation is 
>apparently somewhat haphazard. The problem comes in trying to decide 
>how to distinguish earlier from later in Pali texts. One way is to 
>assume that anything that starts to look like something else does so 
>as a result of outside influence, meaning that original teachings 
>would tend to be those that are most idiosyncratic.

This amounts to the principle of lectio difficilior. Fair enough, but 
one needs to be aware that there was outside influence on the Buddha 
before ever he became a Buddha. Also, there was outside influence on 
the Buddhist community during the lifetime of the Buddha.

>  I did a little bit of work on this connected with the issue of 
>omniscience in Indian philosophy, and there is definitely a change 
>in approach towards this concept. But I don't want to go on too long 
>here, so I will stop.

Well, that is certainly something that undergoes development later, 
but what period are you talking of ?

Lance Cousins