[Buddha-l] Refuge in what?

[Joy Vriens]

I will be able to answer you more precisely once I know all your favourite
dogmas. If you allow me I will make an attempt to summarize them for you and
you correct me when I go wrong? So I walk into your room and sit at your
table and imagine I am you.

<Begin channelling session>
"The Buddha is the Pali Buddha. There are no other Buddhas than the
historical figure to which this title was attributed in the context of Pali
Buddhism. The words of the historical Buddha have been recorded in the Pali
suttas (and vinaya?). If we want to know what the historical Buddha taught,
we have to read those texts, especially the Tevijja Sutta. In order to take
refuge in the Buddha, the real one, we have to read what he taught in the
Tevijja Sutta etc. To take refuge in the Buddha is to read (and follow?)
scriptures like the Tevijja Sutta. Any other type of 'refuge in the Buddha'
can be amusing, but is only a phantasm and non-Buddhist."

In the meanwhile, I will try and answer your other questions. I am afraid I
will have to ask you to think of/ imagine the Buddha as he would/could have
been, minus the Pali spin (imaginaire). A difficult excercise because we
don't know the Buddha, nor what he really said, and we can't determine for
sure what exactly would qualify as possible Pali spin in this "work of
countless thousands of hands, voices and minds" (Nirvana and other buddhist
felicities p.77.)

So can we assert that **the Buddha** taught there is a difference between
Buddhism and non-Buddhism? What he taught *was* simply different in many
aspects. I am not sure the Buddha was aware of "Buddhism" or of a certain
set of instructions (systemised by himself) that he would call his. I am not
sure either whether he was intentionnally teaching *the difference* between
"his system" and the systems of others. Obviously the schisms and the
defensiveness and offensiveness of Buddhist scriptures that do teach the
differences and react to different unorthodox interpretations are very much
aware of them. But how sure can we be that the Buddha himself taught the
differences?



How can we say that the only way to take refuge in the Buddha is to read and
study the Tevijja Sutta etc. and that the other ways of taking refuge in the
Buddha are phantasms and non-buddhist? If the Tevijja-Sutta etc. is indeed
the "work of countless thousands of hands, voices and minds", who knows how
many non-Buddhist phantasms (sorry for the pleonasm) they may contain?
Besides if the real Buddha is the historical Pali Buddha, then what other
access do we have to him than through a phantasm?


A last point before I leave you to confirm or to distantiate yourself from
the dogmas that popped up during my channelling. If Buddhism is "a religion
and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices,
largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known
as the Buddha (Pāli/Sanskrit "the awakened one")" then "Buddhists" must be
people following stuff attributed to "the Buddha", and "Buddhistic" (every
–ist and –ic and –ish that's added makes things more and more misty at every
addition) must be stuff related/attributed to people following stuff
attributed to the Buddha. In that case to say that nothing can be more
"Buddhist" or "Buddhistic" than the questions  asked by the Buddhist (see
definition above) called "Nāgārjuna" (who had quite a lot of stuff
attributed to himself as well) is a bit vague. How Buddhist(ic) was
Siddhartha Gautama himself?


Joy