[Buddha-l] A friendly Quaker-Buddhist debate

[Curt Steinmetz]

It is a common misconception that the Buddha himself decided that he was 
enlightened, and that that was that.

In fact, the Buddha sat at the feet of the two (count 'em, two) 
different gurus, both of whom "certified" that he had learned everything 
they had to teach. But even after that he went and practiced austerities 
until he had managed to reach the point where he was about to physically 
die, and he was able to see in his own mind that he had no fear of 
physical death or attachment to his body at all. But even after that he 
continued meditation practice until he reached the point where he was 
finally "almost there", by his own estimation. And then at that point 
Mara let him have it with everything all at once. And then the Buddha 
called upon the Earth Goddess, and She obligingly obliterated Mara and 
his demon hordes, AND THEN, well, as the old saying goes, a miracle 
occurred (http://ofgodandlogic.com/morality/miracle/images/math.gif).

So if we are to follow the Buddha's example properly, we should first 
get the approval of TWO living masters and (very politely) reject them 
both as insufficient, and then practice austerities to the point of 
death, and then practice meditation until the Gods Themselves show up 
and do terrible battle right there in front of us.

Curt Steinmetz

On 6/10/11 4:34 PM, Richard Hayes wrote:
> Jesus Bodhisattva! I write a blog post suggesting that Buddhism would be great if only the community were organized along Quaker lines, and the only person who responds is a Quaker, who tells me Quakerism would be great if only there were something more like Zen masters to be found in the midst of Friends. There's no point arguing with someone who thinks like that. Still, I never could resist a friendly disagreement. So I responded at http://bit.ly/ju0r5S
>
> Richard
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