[Buddha-l] Back to the core values?

[L.S. Cousins]

Bob Zeuschner,

>I may be mistaken about this, but I believe that immediately after 
>the awakening of the Buddha, he encountered many people and somehow 
>brought them to awakening -- but none belonged to any monastic order.

I think you have the sequence wrong here. Conversion of the group of 
five comes first. Also, some of the people converted later belonged 
to non-Buddhist 'monastic' orders.

>I believe the Buddha then went on to find his five friends, each of 
>whom was brought to awakening without belonging to any monastic 
>order.

True. They were, however, renunciants and probably renunciants of 
long-standing. But the point of the story is in part the 
establishment of the Sangha. This is understood to have immediately 
followed as the members of the group of five successively request 
full ordination.

Of course, many scholars consider the biographical accounts to be 
relatively late. If one takes that view, then the role of the Sangha 
seems central in nearly all the early evidence. Unless of course you 
take the view that centrality of the Sangha is proof that a text is 
not early.

>I conclude that the monastic order may be important to early 
>Buddhism, but if awakening is the essence of Buddhism, then 
>monasticism does not seem to be necessary, or sufficient in earliest 
>Buddhism.

We can agree that it is not sufficient. But I would have thought that 
it was clearly seen as necessary (except in very rare cases) for the 
higher stages of the path. Even those who are not members of the 
monastic order would have learned from monastics (as we call them in 
English).

The centrality of the Sangha seems clear for Indian Buddhism for the 
first thousand years of its development both in non-Mahaayaana and 
Mahaayaana contexts. And, in India at least, it only diminishes a 
little after that.

Lance Cousins