[Buddha-l] Enlightenment as dogma

[JKirkpatrick]

Plus, there are already so many different schools, texts and
commentaries that it seems to me recourse to dogmas of any sort
would seem to be meaningless, even if they (or it) are so-deemed
by this or that school...unless one enjoys endless argumentation.


Joanna 

____________


I would have to ask, what do you mean by "enlightenment"?

I prefer the definition along the lines of "cessation of duhkha,"
and in that case, we ask, "what do you mean by duhkha?"
There are several forms of duhkha, as I recall.

I don't know how this sort of historical question could be
settled, even if we agreed on definitions.

Bob
__________

> a friend of mine asked me whether the Buddha's enlightenment
should be 
> seen as a Buddhist dogma. As I'm not a specialist in this area,
or any 
> other for that matter, I promised to ask for an academic
opinion. 
> Also, what 'proof', excepting the his own testimony, is there
for 
> Siddharta Gautama to have attained enlightenment.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Stefan