[Buddha-l] Another One Bites the Dust

[Joy Vriens]

The only possible element that I can think of is the story of
Cincamanavika
(http://www.tipitaka.net/tipitaka/dhp/verseload.php?verse=176).One could
see this story as a case of damage control, a cover up. Accusations of
this type could have been made against the Buddha or his monks. And this
story could then have been used to discredit the alleged victim and/or
as a means to dissuade any possible future accusers. Any woman coming
forth with this sort of accusations could then be referred to as a woman
with evil intentions like Cincamanavika.Good devout souls would probably
not even need a story to prove the purity of the Buddha and his monks.
Non Buddhists could still have been convinced because of Sakka's
intervention or by the cracking and fissuring swallowing up by the
earth.But for modern readers, the intervention of Sakka and his four
rats and the opening of the gates of Hell are a very suspicious Deux ex
machina, rather pointing to a clumsy cover up attempt.

If one believes the Buddha is a fictional character, then it doesn't
make sense the literature about the Buddha would mention sexual abuse or
other misdemeanors and misconduct by the Buddha.

Le 04/03/2013 08:11, Richard Hayes a écrit :

> As an aside, when the world-famous Jémez Thunder (the fortnightly
> newspaper of Jémez Springs, NM, the village of 250 human denizens
> where Sasaki-owned Bodhi Manda Zen Center is situated) ran a story on
> Sasaki-roshi on January 1, 2013, it said that this problem was nothing
> new in Buddhism. After all, said the story, the Buddha himself
> reportedly sexually abused his disciples. This was news to me, and I
> wondered where on earth the writer of the story got that idea. What
> was written in what book that could be misremembered or misinterpreted
> in such a way that it became that claim? Any speculations? Richard
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