[Buddha-l] Back to the core values?

[L.S. Cousins]

Joy,

>I find this hard to believe. As often, I haven't studied any direct 
>sources :-) but if something isn't pragmatic, it needs a good 
>explanation. Buddhism was still a fairly young movement. Its best 
>and perhaps only representatives at that time must have been 
>monastics. Why would one send out anyone else than a professional 
>Buddhist to promote Buddhism elsewhere? How can those envoys have 
>been anything else than missions conferred to monastics?

There is a mass of discussion about this, but I don't think there is 
any doubt that Asoka talks in his inscriptions about dha(r)mma 
officials and envoys who are royal servants. Moreover, their duties 
concerned all religious groups and the teachings they set forth are 
clearly intended to apply to all such groups.

The question is whether he also supported specifically Buddhist 
missions. The Pali chronicles attribute the missions to the Sangha. 
Obviously, Asoka could have supplied funding and knowledge of his 
sympathy could well have eased the way in many areas.

There can be little doubt that Asoka's support gave enormous impetus 
to the growth of Buddhism, but much of the resulting growth probably 
took place over the course of the subsequent century.

>I may have the wrong idea, but I see them as traveling alone or in 
>small groups.

In the early years. But it may have been different when the Buddha 
had been teaching for 10, 20 or 30 years. Tradition attributes to 
Devadatta the attempt to enforce a very strict practice of asceticism 
(rejected by the Buddha).

>  I don't know whether they had a personal close relationship to the 
>laity, but when practicing mendicity there must have been contacts. 
>I see it a bit as the laws of hospitality, one receives and helps 
>anyone, even those one doesn't have a close relationship with and 
>especially if they are religious practitioners and your religion or 
>customs encourage you to be generous towards them. Since they travel 
>from village to village in a relatively small area, one may of 
>course end up recognising some, becoming familiar with others and 
>even establish close relations with others again. But this is not 
>the only possibility.

I agree that it is not the only possibility in individual cases, but 
on a large scale it is inevitable. And must pre-date the time of the 
Buddha.

>Again I think so for pragmatic reasons. Think of a group of bhikkus 
>traveling from place top place, from hamlet to hamlet. It's easier 
>to travel and to find food in small groups. It is cute to believe in 
>a very charismatic person, the Buddha, to whom everybody wants to be 
>close to and everybody wants to travel with. But how could that work 
>in practice?

Think of it as like the arrival of a large fair.

>"2° Milieu magique.
>L'Inde ancienne considérait souvent le péché comme une impureté 
>d'ordre physique, une matière qui se colle à l'âme, un fluide qui se 
>communique par contact, une maladie qu'on prend sans le savoir. Donc 
>le péché peut être lavé par le bain ou « cuit » par la pénitence'. 
>Les actes sacrificiels agissent mécaniquement et par leur vertu 
>propre. La pénitence confère des pouvoirs surnaturels. La 
>malédiction des ascètes fait tomber des pluies de cendres; le 
>mendiant jeûne « contre le village » où il n'a pas été accueilli, et 
>la force de son jeûne attire sur les avares les pires catastrophes 
>(2).
>Le Bouddhisme nettoie ce « magisme ». etc.
>
>(2). Notes bouddhiques, dans Bulletin de l'Académie de Belgique 7 mars 1921.

I think LVP's Jesuit prejudices show a little here. But he is talking 
about the religious milieu, not about Buddhism. This is the kind of 
thing one finds in the Epics and similar contexts. Buddhism indeed 
grew up in a magical milieu and has often, even usually, survived in 
one.

But I don't believe that fasting to punish a village or bring down 
magical retribution is a common idea in Ancient (Indian) Buddhism. 
And LVP does not suggest that it is.

Lance