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If you read the “Inquiry of Ugra”, you’ll see that the ideal layperson is nothing like the average American Buddhist. The layperson is supposed to live like a m
by realreality 4y ago
If you read the “Inquiry of Ugra”, you’ll see that the ideal layperson is nothing like the average American Buddhist. The layperson is supposed to live like a monk and hope to be reborn as a proper monastic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugraparipṛcchā_Sūtra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugraparipṛcchā_Sūtra
- rg111 4y agoThis is just an answer to one person's enquiry. I have read another which I cannot remember the name for. Buddha, with the help of ten directions, tells a layman to do his ten-fold duties. One of them is keeping his wife happy, another one is about having friends, another one is about earning money and growing wealth. Please read Walpola Rahula's "What the Buddha Taught".
- realreality 4y agoI think it's folly to try to essentialize "the Buddha", when it's likely that Siddhartha Gautama never even existed. My point in bringing up Ugra was to show that many/most sects of Buddhism have been predominantly focused on monasticism. In the sutras, advanced lay people are the exception, not the rule. And the surrounding societies understand that there's a difference. But in the west, lay people have higher expectations for spiritual attainment...