[Buddha-l] Refuge in what?

[Dan Lusthaus]

> Isn't refuge in the Pali Buddha a bit limited?

Non-Pali Buddhas are not Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Jain, Carvaka, 
Ajivika, Hopi, Shingon, Daoist, Confucian, or French (well, maybe there will 
be a French Buddha someday).

They are Buddhas. They are not tīrthikas, (The Chinese translation of 
tīrthika is instructive: 外道 wai-dao, a follower of "outsider ways").

Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, declared there was no such thing as a 
Hindu or a Moslem. He discovered that trying to be neither made him a third 
entity, which came to be called Sikh. Within five generations Sikhs had to 
carry knives (and make that a religious obligation for all males) to protect 
themselves from Muslims.

Universals are never as universal as proponents believe. Buddhists (but not 
Hindus, Muslims, et al.) say that.

Dan