Questions and Answers with Keluarga Mahasiswa Buddhis

[Tibetan_Ice]

Doesn't believe in the virgin birth of Jesus.

 

Says that Edgar Cayce found old bibles that contained information about reincarnation. Talks about One of Edgar's previous lives when he lived in Egypt.

 

Said that the first 500 years after Buddha would have the pure dharma. After that, the teachings would become corrupt, like Vajrayana..

 

Edited September 27, 2015 by Tibetan_Ice

[taoguy]

I like the timeline on this site. It shows that the Mahayana was established in the 2nd century (after Gautama's death) and Vajrayana was developed after the 3rd century.

 

There are huge contradictions between Mahayana (even Theravada) and the original Pali Canon. From what I understand, the original suttas are something many monks do not even read. They simply pick a few suttas, commentaries and base their practices off it, so this was a delightful video to watch, since he does demonstrate good knowledge of the Pali Canon.

 

But I did have some issues with what he says as "using his physical body to fly, separate to many bodies, dive deep, etc". The actual Pali Canon did not say "physical body". It was more likely the mano-maya (mental body), which is akin to what people call the astral body (or Yin shen in taoism), which would make a huge difference to the whole interpretation, since in the mano-maya, you can certainly do all of these siddhis. But then again, there is the concept of the Yang-shen emanation in Taoism, which is of physical nature.

 

Another thing is that the Mahayana do have a Chinese Tripitaka, meaning that they actually do have translations of the actual Pali Canon, so it is not that their suttas do not match the Pali Canon, but that they have extra suttas such as the Diamond/Heart/Surangama suttas (also: yogacara). Their explanation is that the Buddha taught his disciples to the level of Arahants, but when he started talking about "mahayana path", many of the arahants got up and left because they "clung to their emptiness". According to the Theravadans, they do not have these records.

 

It might be worth noting though - There is a master I know who talks about how some liberated beings continue to come back to help others get liberated as well (reminiscent of the Bodhisattva concept in Mahayana). He is a strong advocate for the original Pali Canon and treats Vaj and Mahayana as distorted teachings though.

 

I know Nan Huai Jin, a Zen/esoteric master, talks about the importance of the Pali Canon and how if even this foundation is not accomplished, one cannot even hope to utilize the Mahayana teachings (or something like that).

 

Thank you for sharing. _/\_

Edited September 30, 2015 by taoguy

[MooNiNite]

a different teacher also talks about how buddha's teachings losing purity after 500 years also

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Obviously Mahayana and Vajrayana weren't taught by Shakyamuni. However, there is a lot of brilliant material in there. If you learn/apply the early stuff well first, you can get a lot more out of the later stuff IMO. You also have to look to the spirit and symbolism behind the words.