[Buddha-l] Bourgeous Buddhism: 'Buddhist' Identity

[Artur Karp]

Dear All,

The Mahaparinibbana-sutta and Cullavagga present quite a large
inventory of personages  demonstrating diverse attitudes and stances
toward the Buddha's teachings.

To my mind, the most bourgeois of them was the attitude shown by one
Subhadda, who in CV XI, 1 says: "Enough, Sirs! Weep not, neither
lament. We are well rid of the great Samana. We used to be annoyed by
being told, 'This beseems you, this beseems you not.' But now we shall
be able to do whatever we like; and what we do not like, that we shall
not have to do." [Transl. by T. W. Rhys-David and Hermann Oldenberg,
1885]

The second place, as far as their bourgeois-ity is concerned, should
definitely go to the notorious 'six-pack monks' (chabaggiya-bhikkhus,
pardon my attempt at translation), whose constant carping and
nit-picking must have surely annoyed everybody around, not excluding
the Buddha himself.

Regards,

Artur Karp