[Buddha-l] 9. Attadiipaa Sutta (Joy Vriens)

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Joanna,
The evidence of the traditional reading given by Lance Cousins seems
quite compelling, but the metaphor doesn't work for me. I don't find
it convincing at all.

E.g. the island as a metaphor for refuge. Especially in the case of a
river island amidst two floodwaters. Imagine the water level is
rising, a little island is left in the middle which is supposed to
serve as a secure refuge? What a strange advice! I would say get away
from that river.

And a temporary refuge when one is surprised by a sudden waterflood?
This temporary refuge being the only refuge?  Moreover, the comparison
between crossing Samsara and crossing a river?

Perhaps an island in the middle of the ocean? With the rising sea
level and tsunamis etc.? With no other refuge than that (Ananna
Sharana)? Doesn't look very safe to me. Certainly not the first image
of a refuge to pop up. A mountain would be more like it, say the
summit of Mount Meru. And even then. Why would one pick a metaphor of
a geographical item belonging to a planet that one knows will be
destroyed, reappear, destroyed again? Light on the other hand...

Next the metaphor of Dhamma as an island. Paticcasamuppāda as an
island? Isolated from everything? What about its notion of
interconnectedness?

I remember a metaphor in the Saddharmapundarikasutra, where merchants
go to fetch jewels, become exhausted in the middle of their journey
and lose hope in the middle of the desert. Their leader then creates a
magic city (Las Vegas) for refuge. Not exactly an island, but
something similar and with a negative connotation.

And then, as you say, the recommendation to be like islands given to
members of the Sangha at the moment of the Buddha's death, when unity
is required.

I am not convinced. Couldn't it be that with commerce over sea being
more developed at the time the Sanskrit commentaries were written, and
dvipa being a very common word, that this meaning came to mind first?
The first meaning at a given time is not necessarily the first meaning
at another time.

That will make four cents with yours,

Joy