[Buddha-l] A candid question

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Joanna,

>Joy, you wrote: 
>>...but the legend seems to be pretty clear about the outcome of the  
>>Buddha's practice, hadn't he stopped this "practice".  It seems to me that  
>>what the Buddha was trying to "practice" was simply to fast to death."< 
 
>Well, this outcome is not at all obvious to me. Isn't the generally accepted  
>rendering of this episode that the Buddha was trying to practice austerities  
>(e.g. starvation of the senses)  for the sake of moksha, as at that time he  
>was practicing as an ascetic Hindu along with 5 other Hindu ascetics. As he  
>finally realised that he was close to death, but no closer to bodhi (a point  
>against the idea that he initially tried 'fasting unto death'), he resolved  
>to give up this starvation practice, to the consternation of his fellow  
>ascetics; (but who also came around to his viewpoint later). As I understood  
>it, this episode was the start of his teaching of the middle way. 
>If I got this wrong, listmembers please let me know. 

That is indeed the generally accepted rendering, but I would at least like to try to look or think a bit further behind the legend. What is called "practising austerities" seems to lead to a certain death. It is like those who wanted to practice austerities had a very deep spriritual need and at the same time a very sharp sense (obsession?) of their lack of access to it. To simply kill oneself to obtain a better birth was out of question, but some ritualised ways of sacrificing (killing) onself were accepted. I also think of various stories (Vinaya?) of monks killing themselves, of Arhats turning into fire and... what we would call dying... Probably those ascetics who would put themselves to fire, burn themselves, were considered ipso facto Arhats and liberated. Couldn't this be a remnant of the very early days of Buddhism, where the "ascetics" sought liberation by incinerating themselves, starving themselves etc. And isn't the "Buddha" putting an end to the practice of sett!
 ing oneself to fire a sign of the movement's gradual awareness that this wasn't such a good solution, because too extreme? Aren't Chinese monks not still burning their pinkies? And by not going/wanting to go to this extreme anymore and perhaps compensating this by practises initially conceived rather for brahmins, they must have been seen as going beyond the rights of their varna.