[Buddha-l] Akālika Forum

[Path Press Administration]

NEW: Forum for those who have sole interest in the Pali Suttas and is a
concern for his own welfare.

http://nanavira.top-talk.net

The aim of this forum is to reflect on the teachings of the Buddha and
writings of Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera. It is presented by individuals whose lives
were significantly affected by an encounter with the teachings, in the hope
that others, too, might appreciate the right-view guidance which is offered
therein. It suggests an alternative approach to the Buddha's original
Teaching, and perhaps serve as a useful eye-opener for those seeking an
understanding of its more fundamental principles. It can also communicate
the attitude of earnestness towards Dhamma practice, which is regarded not
merely as a matter of choice but rather an existential necessity. For
without this basic attitude, the practice of Buddhist meditation will remain
in the worldly sphere and will never be able to bear the fruits of noble
insight leading to liberation from the 'world'.


 Ñāṇavīra Thera:

“The principal aim of these *Notes on Dhamma* is to point out certain
current misinterpretations, mostly traditional, of the Pali Suttas, and to
offer in their place something certainly less easy but perhaps also less
inadequate. These *Notes* assume, therefore, that the reader is (or is
prepared to become) familiar with the original texts, and in Pali (for even
the most competent translations sacrifice some essential accuracy to style,
and the rest are seriously misleading). They assume, also, that the reader's
sole interest in the Pali Suttas is a concern for his own welfare. The
reader is presumed to be subjectively engaged with an anxious problem, the
problem of his existence, which is also the problem of his suffering. There
is therefore nothing in these pages to interest the professional scholar,
for whom the question of personal existence does not arise; for the
scholar's whole concern is to eliminate or ignore the individual point of
view in an effort to establish the objective truth -- a would-be impersonal
synthesis of public facts. The scholar's essentially horizontal view of
things, seeking connexions in space and time, and his historical approach to
the texts, disqualify him from any possibility of understanding a Dhamma
that the Buddha himself has called *akālika*, 'timeless'. Only in a vertical
view, straight down into the abyss of his own personal existence, is a man
capable of apprehending the perilous insecurity of his situation; and only a
man who does apprehend this is prepared to listen to the Buddha's Teaching.
But human kind, it seems, cannot bear very much reality: men, for the most
part, draw back in alarm and dismay from this vertiginous direct view of
being and seek refuge in distractions. “