Dependent Origination

[RongzomFan]

The early Upanishads pre-date the Buddha. So do the Hindu Shramana traditions and so do the Rig Vedas.

 

So yes, you are just not reading properly because I think you might actually be 12 years old and hopped up on candy bars and gummy bears right now?

 

 

Wow, did you read the first part of the fucking paragraph. THe part you didn't highlight.

 

What a dumbass.

 

"A concept of karma (along with samsara and moksha) may originate in the shramana tradition of which Buddhism and Jainism are continuations. This tradition influenced the Brahmanic religion in the early Vedantic (Upanishadic) movement of the 1st millennium BC."

 

Dude, like I said, you aren't knowledgeable about jack shit, especially buddhism like you purport to be.

Edited February 8, 2011 by alwayson

[Vajrahridaya]

Where does it say that?

 

Dude you are clueless.

 

Wow... :lol:

 

You poor kid. I've got better things to do right now. You take care... stay off the ice cream and I hope your parents don't let you drink Chai. You've gotta calm down and actually read what your quoting my dear boy... sloooooowly.

 

It's common knowledge that the term "karma" which means action, and the concepts of reincarnation are not the Buddhas inventions.

[RongzomFan]

Wow... :lol:

 

You poor kid. I've got better things to do right now. You take care... stay off the ice cream and I hope your parents don't let you drink Chai. You've gotta calm down and actually read what your quoting my dear boy... sloooooowly.

 

It's common knowledge that the term "karma" which means action, and the concepts of reincarnation are not the Buddhas inventions.

 

 

You are a clueless ass. Btw, who is talking about reincarnation? We were talking about karma.

 

Again read what you are quoting very slowly.

Edited February 8, 2011 by alwayson

[Vajrahridaya]

Wow, did you read the first part of the fucking sentence. THe part you didn't highlight.

 

What a dumbass.

 

"A concept of karma (along with samsara and moksha) may originate in the shramana tradition of which Buddhism and Jainism are continuations. This tradition influenced the Brahmanic religion in the early Vedantic (Upanishadic) movement of the 1st millennium BC."

 

Dude, like I said, you aren't knowledgeable about jack shit, especially buddhism like you purport to be.

 

When the sentence says, "buddhism and jainism are continuations of..." that means that they post date the invention of the concept of karma. That means they come afterwards, they are continuations of something pryer.

 

Seriously young one, calm down. This is why we don't consider much of what you say as holding weight. You might have read Namdrols posts, who is yes, a real scholar and a knowledgeable one, but it turns out that you are still learning how to read properly to begin with, and your ability to understand what you read is undernourished. Gain some humility and respect those that have been around for longer than you and have a better grasp of the English language than you. As this is what we're reading here, and pryer on E-Sangha.

[Sunya]

[RongzomFan]

When the sentence says, "buddhism and jainism are continuations of..." that means that they post date the invention of the concept of karma. That means they come afterwards, they are continuations of something pryer.

 

 

--->But how does that make karma vedic?<----

 

Jesus fucking christ.

 

And didn't I say this about 5 pages ago. Do I really have to quote myself?

 

And my point was that buddhism invented karma when it took the prototype from shramana. Jesus fucking christ.

Edited February 8, 2011 by alwayson

[Vajrahridaya]

But how does that make karma vedic?

 

Jesus fucking christ.

 

And didn't I say this about 5 pages ago. Do I really have to quote myself?

 

From Wiki concerning the origins of the concept of karma:

 

"Brahmins wrote the earliest recorded scriptures containing these ideas in the early Upanishads."

 

Brahmins are Vedic based. You can also be a Hindu Shramana who believes in the Vedas but are a wandering ascetic. You don't make the connections very well as I think your brain is still developing, this is not an insult. It's just that you are still a growing young lad.

[RongzomFan]

Buddhism came up with karma as we know it. In fact isn't that one of Buddha's big innovations? He went from this sramanic idea of "karma", which was not really karma, to real karma.

 

 

I quote myself

[goldisheavy]

Dude seriously, you must be dyslexic. You are utterly clueless.

 

Stop posturing and read some Pali Cannon at least. I know you think it can be ignored, but perhaps if you read it, you wouldn't be making absurd statements.

 

Take for example Tittha Sutta. How would this Sutta make any sense if the ideas of kamma were brand spanking new, introduced by Buddha? The only reason these conversations between Buddha and sectarians can take place is because the sectarians already have their own ideas of kamma, which disagree with Buddha's ideas. So Buddha used the same term, kamma, tweaked and clarified its meaning. It was not an entirely brand new idea. If it was, then there would be no basis for conversation with anyone outside the Buddhist fold.

[RongzomFan]

From Wiki concerning the origins of the concept of karma:

 

"Brahmins wrote the earliest recorded scriptures containing these ideas in the early Upanishads."

 

Brahmins are Vedic based. You can also be a Hindu Shramana who believes in the Vedas but are a wandering ascetic. You don't make the connections very well as I think your brain is still developing, this is not an insult. It's just that you are still a growing young lad.

 

 

You are not even quoting the whole sentence. What an ass. Maybe you should grow up.

[goldisheavy]

Buddhism came up with karma as we know it. In fact isn't that one of Buddha's big innovations? He went from this sramanic idea of "karma", which was not really karma, to real karma.

 

Argg... so you basically admit that Buddha has co-opted the term kamma. Fuck. What an idiot. Talking with you is a waste of time.

[Vajrahridaya]

 

And my point was that buddhism invented karma when it took the prototype from shramana.

 

Shramanas pryer to Buddhism... were mostly Hindu following the early Chandogya Upanishad, Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana and the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad all associated with the Sama Veda which is more than a thousand years older than the Buddha.

 

So, yes... all I was saying is that the concept of karma is originally Vedic. Karma and the concept of reincarnation go hand in hand like white on rice.

[RongzomFan]

Shramanas pryer to Buddhism... were mostly Hindu following the early Chandogya Upanishad, Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana and the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad all associated with the Sama Veda which is more than a thousand years older than the Buddha.

 

So, yes... all I was saying is that the concept of karma is originally Vedic. Karma and the concept of reincarnation go hand in hand like white on rice.

 

 

All Upanishads are post Buddha *******.

Edited February 8, 2011 by Apech
Mod Action - personal insult

[RongzomFan]

Argg... so you basically admit that Buddha has co-opted the term kamma. Fuck. What an idiot. Talking with you is a waste of time.

 

 

The term kamma meant nothing like what we talk about karma. Just the word, doesn't mean shit.

[Vajrahridaya]

Stop posturing and read some Pali Cannon at least. I know you think it can be ignored, but perhaps if you read it, you wouldn't be making absurd statements.

 

Take for example Tittha Sutta. How would this Sutta make any sense if the ideas of kamma were brand spanking new, introduced by Buddha? The only reason these conversations between Buddha and sectarians can take place is because the sectarians already have their own ideas of kamma, which disagree with Buddha's ideas. So Buddha used the same term, kamma, tweaked and clarified its meaning. It was not an entirely brand new idea. If it was, then there would be no basis for conversation with anyone outside the Buddhist fold.

 

We are dealing with either a pre-teen or a new teen of some very young age I'm sure. Maybe fresh out of high school at best.

[Vajrahridaya]

All Upanishads are post Buddha dumbass.

 

Actually the ones I just named are pre-Buddha... well known to be. The Chandogya Upanishad considered the oldest is most likely 500 to 700 years older in fact.

 

"The Chandogya Upanishad is one of the "primary" (mukhya) Upanishads. Together with the Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana and the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad it ranks among the oldest Upanishads, dating to the Vedic Brahmana period (probably before first millennium BCE)."

Edited February 8, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[RongzomFan]

 

We are dealing with either a pre-teen or a new teen of some very young age I'm sure. Maybe fresh out of high school at best.

 

"This tradition influenced the Brahmanic religion in the early Vedantic (Upanishadic)"

 

Ok its saying that the karma concept in the shramana tradition influenced the Vedantic tradition, yet you still claim the Upanishadic tradition is first.

 

EPIC FAIL

 

If I am a pre-teen, you must be a preschooler, since you don't understand the english language.

Edited February 8, 2011 by alwayson

[Vajrahridaya]

So anyway... we have Karma, and it's dependently originated add infinitum. The Buddha didn't invent the concept, nor the reality of it, but he most definitely clarified it for our sake... thank goodness. Who cares when he did it, but he did it!

 

We're all so happy now... YAY!!

 

Let's make some good karma together... shall we?

[RongzomFan]

"This tradition influenced the Brahmanic religion in the early Vedantic (Upanishadic)"

 

Ok its saying that the karma concept in the shramana tradition influenced the Vedantic tradition, yet you still claim the Upanishadic tradition is first.

 

EPIC FAIL

 

If I am a pre-teen, you must be a preschooler, since you don't understand the english language.

 

 

will you respond?

 

By the way, where are the links for these wikipedia quotes?

 

And yes the Buddha invented the concept of karma, just not the word.

Edited February 8, 2011 by alwayson

[Vajrahridaya]

"This tradition influenced the Brahmanic religion in the early Vedantic (Upanishadic)"

 

Ok its saying that the karma concept in the shramana tradition influenced the Vedantic tradition, yet you still claim the Upanishadic tradition is first.

 

EPIC FAIL

 

The Shramana tradition and the Upanishad tradition is the same. The Shramanas of that time were mostly by and large Hindus... they are not their own religion. Shramana just means wandering sadhu, or wandering mendicant, or renunciate.

 

There isn't the Shramana religion, these were just types of people who adhered to either Jain, Buddhist, Hindu or Ajivika which is basically just another kind of early hinduism. Since we are talking post Buddha and post Mahavira the starter of the Jains... they were Hindu.

 

Anyway...

Wiki link for Shramana

Edited February 8, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[RongzomFan]

The Shramana tradition and the Upanishad tradition is the same.

 

 

 

No its not.

 

Thats why you don't have a fucking clue. They are not the same. Shramanas don't accept the Vedas as authority. And Sharamanas were way earlier.

 

I win. You lose.

 

 

 

There isn't the Shramana religion, these were just types of people who adhered to either Jain, Buddhist, Hindu or Ajivika which is basically just another kind of early hinduism. Since we are talking post Buddha and post Mahavira the starter of the Jains... they were Hindu.

 

 

Shramana is pre all those things. You JUST argued with me about that?

 

Dude all this stuff we are discussing is documented in Khecharividya of Adinatha by James Mallinson. You are a complete moron.

Edited February 8, 2011 by alwayson

[Vajrahridaya]

No its not.

 

Thats why you don't have a fucking clue. They are not the same. Shramanas don't accept the Vedas as authority. And Sharamanas were way earlier.

 

I win. You lose.

 

Some did accept the Upanishads and the Vedas, some without the caste system others without any of the Brahmin interpretations, some after the advent of Buddhism were Buddhist, as shramana and bikshu are synonymous. There were all types of Shramanas.

 

Regardless, the first ones to talk about the concept of karma were Vedic, were Brahmins as far as what was written down. Who knows what people talked about pryer to things getting written down. It's just that the first to write it out and talk about it in written form, were Vedic Rishis.

Edited February 8, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[Sunya]

From: http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/study/history_buddhism/buddhism_india/indian_society_thought_time_buddha_.html

 

Alexander Berzin, born in 1944 in Paterson, New Jersey, received his B.A. degree in 1965 from the Department of Oriental Studies, Rutgers University in conjunction with Princeton University; and his M.A. in 1967 and Ph.D. in 1972 from the Departments of Far Eastern Languages (Chinese) and Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University. From 1969 to 1998, he resided primarily in Dharamsala, India, initially as a Fulbright Scholar, studying and practicing with masters from all four Tibetan Buddhist traditions. His main teacher was Tsenzhab Serkong Rinpoche, the late Master Debate Partner and Assistant Tutor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He served as his interpreter and secretary for nine years, accompanying him on several world tours. He has also served as occasional Dharma interpreter for His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

 

The Paurava Empire began to decline in the eighth century B.C.E., after a great flood caused the relocation of its capital. Slowly, the Empire broke into many smaller states. Some were kingdoms; others were republics. These major changes in Indian society marked the beginning of a period of philosophical and religious speculation.

 

The final portion of the Brahmanas was the Upanishads, a body of literature that developed, more fully, the philosophical basis for Brahmanism.Writ­ten over several hundred years, beginning around the end of the seventh century B.C.E., twelve of the Upanishads predated Buddha. Although each of the twelve presented slightly different teachings, they shared many general themes.

 

From the Brahmanic idea of the parallel between human beings and the primal giant, the Upanishads developed the assertion of the identity of atman – the individual self or “soul” –with Brahma. Further, they explained that, as the primary cause of the universe, Brah­ma periodically created the world out of himself and retracted it back into himself. Depending on the specific Upanishad, this process occurs in one of two ways. Either Brahma evolves into the universe and all the living beings in it; or the universe and all its living beings are merely the ap­pearances of Brahma. In either case, the true reality is the unity of everything and everyone as Brahma. The world of appearances of separate objects and individual beings is illusion (Skt. maya). Individual at­mans, or souls, are all, in fact, identical with Brahma.

 

The Upani­shads also introduced the assertions of karma and rebirth. These assertions accord with their explanation that the universe undergoes repeated cycles of creation and destruction over huge spans of time. Similarly, indivi­dual souls experience repeated birth and death over countless lifetimes. This cycle of repeated rebirth (Skt. samsara) occurs be­cause of their unawareness of the identity of themselves and Brahma. Moreover, it is driven by the force of their “karma” -- their actions based on their unawareness that all is illusion. When one realizes what has always been the case, namely the basic unity between oneself and Brahma, with the separa­tion between the two being a total illu­sion, one attains liberation (Skt. moksha). The path to liberation involves developing detachment and cultiva­ting a correct understanding of reality through hearing, think­ing, and meditating about the unity of the universe. The usual course of human spiritual development, however, passes through four life stages:

 

leading the celibate life of a student (Skt. brahmacharya),

becoming a married householder (Skt. grhastha) and raising a family,

retiring to the forests (Skt. vanaprastha) and living as a hermit,

renouncing everything (Skt. sannyasa) and, while still living alone in the forests, following intensive spiritual practice for gaining liberation.

 

Thus, the Upanishads emphasized that the universe is understandable and that to gain liberation from the sufferings of repeated rebirth due to unawareness and karma, one must see the true nature of reality and experience it for oneself. Buddhism and many of the other later Indian philosophical and religious systems accept these premises.

 

There were two main spiritual groups offering paths to liberation in response to this difficult situation.

 

The brahmanas were the orthodoxy, who stayed with the old Brahmanic rituals. They followed the Upanishads as their philosophical basis, but within the context of first leading a life of duty within society and only becoming celibate renunciates after retiring. They were exclusively from the brahmin caste and pursued their path to liberation as solitary ascetics living in the forests.

 

The shramanas were wandering mendicant spiritual seekers. They came from castes other than the brahmins and sought liberation by leaving society from the start. They lived together in the forests, with no caste differences, as a spiritual community (Skt. sangha), rather than as solitary ascetics. They organized their autonomous communities on the model of the republics, with decisions made by assemblies. Moreover, all of them rejected a supreme god, such as Brahma, or any other form of a creator. Although the shramana communities had no caste differences within them, the laypeople who followed their teachings to a lesser extent and supported them still lived with the structure of the caste system.

 

The Five Main Shramana Schools

 

When Shakyamuni Buddha renounced his princely life, he joined the shramanas. Accordingly, after his enlightenment, he organized the spiritual seekers who followed him into autonomous communities along the same lines as other shramana groups. Thus, Buddhism became the fifth of the five shramana schools of the time.

 

[see: The Life of Shakyamuni Buddha.]

 

The five shramana schools and their basic views were as follows:

 

The Ajivika School, founded by Gosala, was deterministic and thus rejected the causal process of karma. They asserted that the constituent elements of the universe – earth, water, fire, wind, happiness, unhappiness, and living souls (Skt. jiva) – are uncreated, partless atoms or monads that do not interact with each other. Because everything is predetermined, although actions do occur through the atoms of these constituents; nevertheless, neither the actions themselves nor the atoms actually cause anything to happen. Living souls pass through an enormous number of rebirths and, after experiencing every possible life, they automatically enter a state of peace and are thus free of rebirth. Liberation, therefore, does not depend on what anyone actually does.

 

The Lokayata or Charvaka School, taught by Ajita, also rejected karma. Not only that, it also rejected rebirth and any such thing as a living soul. It advocated hedonism, teaching that all actions should be spontaneous and should come from one’s own nature (Skt. svabhava) – in other words, they should be natural. The aim of life was to experience as much sensual pleasure as possible. This school rejected all forms of logic and reasoning as valid ways of knowing anything.

 

The Jain or Nirgrantha School, founded by Mahavira, broke away from the Lokayata School as a strong reaction against it. It therefore asserted living souls undergoing rebirth through the force of karma. Jainism, still existent as today as one of the major Indian religious systems, teaches extremely strict ethical behavior and, in fact, extreme asceticism as the means for gaining liberation.

The Ajnana School of Agnostics, led by Sanjayin, asserted that it was impossible to gain conclusive knowledge about anything through philosophical speculation or debates based on logic. It advocated living in celibate communities that placed their emphasis merely on friendship.

 

Buddhism developed as a shramana school that accepted rebirth under the force of karma, while rejecting the existence of the type of soul that other schools asserted. In addition, Buddha accepted as parts of the path to liberation the use of logic and reasoning, as well as ethical behavior, but not to the degree of Jain asceticism. In this way, Buddhism avoided the extremes of the previous four shramana schools.

 

 

Alwayson, it's fine to disagree with people, but could you stop acting like a spoiled little child?

Edited February 8, 2011 by Sunya

[RongzomFan]

Regardless, the first ones to talk about the concept of karma were Vedic, were Brahmins.

 

 

By the way, do you acknowledge that karma is not in the Vedas?

Edited February 8, 2011 by alwayson

[Vajrahridaya]

How is that possible? Explain this to me. The Upanishads were post Buddha.

 

By the way, do you acknowledge that karma is not in the Vedas?

 

Just read what Sunya posted and put it to rest.