A question for Vaj the Buddhist

[goldisheavy]

The Buddha didn't teach the triple gem for no reason. It is a club, the club of the liberated, and not the club of the bound. So yes, one does take up membership.

 

There are those humans of course that use religion as an excuse for all sorts of things in the political sense. This is just human conditioning.

 

Buddha taught many diverse things. One of the things Buddha also taught was not to take anything he taught without independently performed critical analysis. Everyone was running around with a club membership so Buddha, not being terribly creative, started his own club. Golly-jee-whiz. How unexpected. Buddha also re-used concepts like karma and rebirth and so on. Buddhism is more of an evolution than a breakthrough. But the evolution is not over yet, and it never will be.

[ralis]

Buddha taught many diverse things. One of the things Buddha also taught was not to take anything he taught without independently performed critical analysis. Everyone was running around with a club membership so Buddha, not being terribly creative, started his own club. Golly-jee-whiz. How unexpected. Buddha also re-used concepts like karma and rebirth and so on. Buddhism is more of an evolution than a breakthrough. But the evolution is not over yet, and it never will be.

 

Last night I was reading about how the Greeks et al, influenced the Buddha.

 

ralis

Edited June 28, 2010 by ralis

[goldisheavy]

Last night I was reading about how the Greeks et al, influenced the Buddha.

 

ralis

 

I'm interested. Can you provide me with a trail to follow if I also want to read about it?

[ralis]

I'm interested. Can you provide me with a trail to follow if I also want to read about it?

 

When I get a chance. I am in the middle of tiling our bedroom floor now. LOL!!

 

ralis

[voidisyinyang]

Udana 68-69: We give a version of this well-known Indian tale from the Buddhist canon, but some assert it is of Jain origin. It does illustrate well the Jain doctrine of Anekanta, the manysidedness of things. Cf. Tattvarthaslokavartika 116, p. 806. Mihir Yast 10.2: Cf. Analects 15.5, p. 1020.

 

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rywang/berkeley/258/parable.html

 

"Just so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and unseeing.... In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus."

 

Oops it's not Buddhism it's Jainism! haha. Jainism is older.

 

http://jainfriends.tripod.com/books/jiblcontents.html

Edited June 28, 2010 by drewhempel

[ralis]

I'm interested. Can you provide me with a trail to follow if I also want to read about it?

 

Here is a small start. Heraclitus seems to be of some influence.

 

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/marlow.htm

 

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/philosophy-metaphysics-heraclitus.htm

 

Drew may have better sources.

Edited June 28, 2010 by ralis

[Vajrahridaya]

Buddha taught many diverse things. One of the things Buddha also taught was not to take anything he taught without independently performed critical analysis.

 

Of course. If you had any idea of how I came to the Buddhadharma... you would not use this argument. I fought tooth and nail for my unitarian universalist perspective that all you people share. But the Buddha just didn't teach this and my experience doesn't reveal this. My experience of Rigpa transmission revealed the nature of the 6 realms both internally and externally, the ramifications of them and the 31 realms and all the different Jhanas and their meaning, how beings get stuck in them, the secret meaning of dependent origination and conceptual meaning. All experientially, not conceptually, or rather both instantaneously.

 

Everyone was running around with a club membership so Buddha, not being terribly creative, started his own club. Golly-jee-whiz. How unexpected. Buddha also re-used concepts like karma and rebirth and so on.

He clarified them. He revealed more flexibility as well as the depth of their seeming bonding power with more lucidity than anyone before him in our era.

 

I've explained so much here. If you didn't get it. I apologize for not being the one to teach you clear and open dharma. The Buddha wasn't a universalist unitarian in the sense of spiritual paths, only in the sense of Buddhahood understands the nature of all things universally.

 

Buddhism is more of an evolution than a breakthrough. But the evolution is not over yet, and it never will be.

 

No, it's a break through. His revelation of inter-dependent origination/emptiness did not exist before him in this era. He didn't cling to a universal self existence that underlies everything. He did say these things in no uncertain terms.

[Vajrahridaya]

Udana 68-69: We give a version of this well-known Indian tale from the Buddhist canon, but some assert it is of Jain origin. It does illustrate well the Jain doctrine of Anekanta, the manysidedness of things. Cf. Tattvarthaslokavartika 116, p. 806. Mihir Yast 10.2: Cf. Analects 15.5, p. 1020.

 

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rywang/berkeley/258/parable.html

 

"Just so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and unseeing.... In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus."

 

Oops it's not Buddhism it's Jainism! haha. Jainism is older.

 

http://jainfriends.tripod.com/books/jiblcontents.html

 

Jainism still takes up a view as transcendent and ultimate which everything is one with, thus it's not the viewless view of Buddhahood. The Buddha did debate the truth of this from a state of Buddhahood.

 

The reality is one thing but multifaceted view is a Samsaric view. Thus liberation from Samsara is seemingly unnatural to you. Most just want a higher quality of Samsara or a higher and altered state of mind about it. This is what most paths teach.

[ralis]

In reading one of the suttas last night, I was fascinated as to how the Buddha debated. More like Aristotelian discourse. This will probably never happen here, especially from Vajraji.

 

Here is what I am talking about.

 

http://www.palicanon.org/index.php

 

 

 

 

ralis

Edited June 28, 2010 by ralis

[goldisheavy]

I fought tooth and nail for my unitarian universalist perspective that all you people share.

 

Who is this "all you people"? I hope you don't lump me into that big pile of yours.

[goldisheavy]

Here is a small start. Heraclitus seems to be of some influence.

 

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/marlow.htm

 

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/philosophy-metaphysics-heraclitus.htm

 

Drew may have better sources.

 

Thank you kindly.

[ralis]

Who is this "all you people"? I hope you don't lump me into that big pile of yours.

 

 

I was just going to ask the same thing. He is a master of sweeping generalizations.

 

 

ralis

[Vajrahridaya]

Last night I was reading about how the Greeks et al, influenced the Buddha.

 

ralis

 

The Greeks were subjective idealists. Also realist meta-physicists. Basically equating everything with a primary causeless cause that everything is one with. Thus their non-duality was based upon a primary and singular non-substantial/substantial origin. I use paradox to show that their non-duality was based upon 2 equals one experience.

[Vajrahridaya]

I was just going to ask the same thing. He is a master of sweeping generalizations.

 

 

ralis

 

The unitary universalist club that says all paths lead to the same goal. No matter how variant your expressions of the same conclusions are, this is a basic primary view of... "all you people".

[ralis]

The Greeks were subjective idealists. Also realist meta-physicists. Basically equating everything with a primary causeless cause that everything is one with. Thus their non-duality was based upon a primary and singular non-substantial/substantial origin. I use paradox to show that their non-duality was based upon 2 equals one experience.

 

Have you read the Greek philosophers?

 

ralis

[ralis]

The unitary universalist club that says all paths lead to the same goal. No matter how variant your expressions of the same conclusions are, this is a basic primary view of... "all you people".

 

I guess you are realized and the rest of us know nothing. You really are arrogant!.

 

ralis

[C T]

Fabulous detour. Enjoy the view, and try not to get lost...

[Vajrahridaya]

Have you read the Greek philosophers?

 

ralis

 

Ok, to your defense not all of them were but they also weren't seeing dependent origination with clarity. Though some of them came close.

[Sunya]

Here is a small start. Heraclitus seems to be of some influence.

 

Heraclitus lived after the Buddha, so there could not have been an influence. There weren't even any Greeks in India till Alexander came strolling in.

 

I have noticed the similarities though. Heraclitus is my favorite Pre Socratic, second to Parmenides.

[ralis]

Heraclitus lived after the Buddha, so there could not have been an influence. There weren't even any Greeks in India till Alexander came strolling in.

 

I have noticed the similarities though. Heraclitus is my favorite Pre Socratic, second to Parmenides.

 

They lived around the same time. Born around 20 yrs. apart. Indeed, there are similarities.

 

ralis

[voidisyinyang]

http://www.hinduwebsite.com/24principles.asp

 

The Samkhya Philosophy and 24 Principles of Creation

 

By Jayaram V

 

....

 

In Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism we find traces of Samkhya philosophy. While we cannot say authoritatively, for we have no evidence, that they derived these concepts from the Samkhya school, we cannot fail to notice some striking similarities such as the Jain and Buddhist concepts of the aggregates and the denial of an efficient and primary cause as the source of creation. It is possible that these divergent paths reflect the turmoil and confusion of the times in which they took share and man's earliest and intelligent effort to make sense out of an overwhelmingly enigmatic nature of the material universe.

 

Oops Samkhya is from 1500 BCE and kicks the ass of Buddhism!

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ih2aGLp4d1gC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=buddhism+comes+from+Samkhya&source=bl&ots=DEaf3-P4Iy&sig=rcALPG4xlbSphUAepJiEcRXMLDY&hl=en&ei=kF4pTM7iEYaKlwfL_cmjAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBsQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=buddhism%20comes%20from%20Samkhya&f=false

Edited June 29, 2010 by drewhempel

[Sunya]

They lived around the same time. Born around 20 yrs. apart. Indeed, there are similarities.

 

ralis

 

And this leads you to think that Heraclitus influenced the Siddhartha? Actual dates are unknown by the way, but most estimates of Heraclitus' timeframe are after the Buddha. Even if they were contemporaries, there's no known link between India and Greece until Alexander invaded India.

 

I love seeing similarities in philosophy and religion, but that doesn't mean that there was direct influence. Early shamans all had a very similar view of reality, but that doesn't necessitate them directly communing with each other. I think links point to common lines of thinking.

[Sunya]

 

Oops Samkhya is from 1500 BCE and kicks the ass of Buddhism!

 

 

I really don't see how you came to that conclusion.

 

Samkhya is a dualistic philosophy that viewed consciousness as pure and the world (matter) as impure. This is why India has a long history of ascetics that would punish their bodies. The goal was to overcome the body (the impurities) to have realization of the pure. Buddha did experiment with this sort of asceticism but ultimately came to the conclusion that it was wrong and does not lead anywhere. His philosophy was not dualistic as he saw no separation between consciousness and matter, in fact he dismissed both notions as incomplete concepts.

[Vajrahridaya]

http://www.hinduwebsite.com/24principles.asp

 

The Samkhya Philosophy and 24 Principles of Creation

 

By Jayaram V

 

....

 

In Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism we find traces of Samkhya philosophy. While we cannot say authoritatively, for we have no evidence, that they derived these concepts from the Samkhya school, we cannot fail to notice some striking similarities such as the Jain and Buddhist concepts of the aggregates and the denial of an efficient and primary cause as the source of creation. It is possible that these divergent paths reflect the turmoil and confusion of the times in which they took share and man's earliest and intelligent effort to make sense out of an overwhelmingly enigmatic nature of the material universe.

 

Oops Samkhya is from 1500 BCE and kicks the ass of Buddhism!

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ih2aGLp4d1gC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=buddhism+comes+from+Samkhya&source=bl&ots=DEaf3-P4Iy&sig=rcALPG4xlbSphUAepJiEcRXMLDY&hl=en&ei=kF4pTM7iEYaKlwfL_cmjAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBsQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=buddhism%20comes%20from%20Samkhya&f=false

 

I studied Samkhya with real scholars, Sanyasins and meditation masters who see the derivatives of this extending into Advaita Vedanta and Trika philosophy. the Samkhya Karika is from 200 BCE. So, you are wrong and it's highly dualistic as well.

 

Also... not entirely related, but partially so... Advaita Vedanta is a philosophy that is highly influenced by hindu scholars stealing from Nagarjuna. Your information about Samkhya pre-dating the Buddha is quite incorrect.

Edited June 29, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[voidisyinyang]

 

Asia has the highest levels of human slavery.

 

I guess that's a coincidence -- is Nepal Buddhist or Hindu? Well see their human slavery epidemic featured in this vid.