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Buddhism is a living tradition and always has been. Theravadins have no monopoly on "true" Buddhism - the Pali canon was transcribed hundreds of years after the

Buddhism is a living tradition and always has been. Theravadins have no monopoly on "true" Buddhism - the Pali canon was transcribed hundreds of years after the death of Gautama Buddha and the authorship and authenticity of many parts of the canon remain disputed within the Theravada tradition. Perhaps more to the point, a quotation from Nanda-manava-puccha (as translated by Thanissaro Bhikku): "Whatever brahmans & contemplatives describe purity in terms of views & learning, describe purity in terms of precepts & practices, describe purity in terms of manifold ways: none of them, living there in that way, I tell you, have crossed over birth & aging."

emptysongglass 7y ago
What? The Buddha is speaking very specifically in the quote you've mentioned of a class of religious priest, the brahman, and the contemplative engaging in jhanic meditations that do not lead to the ending of suffering. You're right, the words of the Buddha weren't written down for hundreds of years after but across those earliest texts flung across space and time, we find an astonishing harmony. Look, I'm seeing calls to end my supposed promotion of sectarian strife: I love Three Pillars of Zen, have obsessively studied the Mahayana epic the Surangama Sutra, and washed myself in the pure poetry of the Complete Reality school. But I cannot stress enough, and neither did the Buddha, in the importance of incisive, unequivocal language when it comes to identifying right view. Vajrayana, the deeply mystical arm of Buddhism, stresses the importance of a guru relationship to the disciple, fraught with a history of sexual manipulation. Unquestioned power structures do this. We have thousands of years of history to support this. Mahayana Buddhism gave birth to Zen, perhaps the cleanest strain to emerge but which sacrificed an essential tenet: that a monk should not grow their own food; should rely on the continuing generosity of the people to survive. It is further compromised by the trappings of rites and rituals, which the Buddha of the early texts rejected. And what of Nichiren who famously declared that enlightenment was impossible in such a fallen world? The same enlightenment the pre-Mahayana Buddha stressed was for everyone?
- Annatar 7y ago
  "And what of Nichiren who famously declared that enlightenment was impossible in such a fallen world?" Nothing, or better yet, no thing. They're just wrong.

emptysongglass 7y ago

What? The Buddha is speaking very specifically in the quote you've mentioned of a class of religious priest, the brahman, and the contemplative engaging in jhanic meditations that do not lead to the ending of suffering. You're right, the words of the Buddha weren't written down for hundreds of years after but across those earliest texts flung across space and time, we find an astonishing harmony. Look, I'm seeing calls to end my supposed promotion of sectarian strife: I love Three Pillars of Zen, have obsessively studied the Mahayana epic the Surangama Sutra, and washed myself in the pure poetry of the Complete Reality school. But I cannot stress enough, and neither did the Buddha, in the importance of incisive, unequivocal language when it comes to identifying right view. Vajrayana, the deeply mystical arm of Buddhism, stresses the importance of a guru relationship to the disciple, fraught with a history of sexual manipulation. Unquestioned power structures do this. We have thousands of years of history to support this. Mahayana Buddhism gave birth to Zen, perhaps the cleanest strain to emerge but which sacrificed an essential tenet: that a monk should not grow their own food; should rely on the continuing generosity of the people to survive. It is further compromised by the trappings of rites and rituals, which the Buddha of the early texts rejected. And what of Nichiren who famously declared that enlightenment was impossible in such a fallen world? The same enlightenment the pre-Mahayana Buddha stressed was for everyone?

Annatar 7y ago
"And what of Nichiren who famously declared that enlightenment was impossible in such a fallen world?" Nothing, or better yet, no thing. They're just wrong.