Search found 281 matches

by Lazy_eye
Sun Jul 09, 2017 7:04 pm
Forum: Academic Discussion
Topic: original buddhism
Replies: 319
Views: 61054

Re: original buddhism

Common Mahāyāna is precisely about renunciation. This is so well known there is no point in even arguing about it. Like Hinayāna, common Mahāyāna regards the five aggregates and their sense objects as something poisonous to abandon. The distinction may or may not be significant, but according to th...
by Lazy_eye
Fri Jul 07, 2017 6:00 pm
Forum: Academic Discussion
Topic: original buddhism
Replies: 319
Views: 61054

Re: original buddhism

The notion of 'history' on this level - that you can go back through records and linguistic comparison of this worlds Plai Suttas and determine all dimensions of the reality of the teaching, is not an idea that all Buddhism subscribes to. To me, that seems like an extreme and even absurd position t...
by Lazy_eye
Fri Jul 07, 2017 3:20 pm
Forum: Academic Discussion
Topic: original buddhism
Replies: 319
Views: 61054

Re: original buddhism

This is a really interesting discussion and I'm learning from it. FWIW, Malcolm's statement that emptiness is the distinctive Buddhist teaching (as opposed to 4NT, dharma seals, eightfold path) aligns with what I have heard/read from some Zen teachers. I still think that we're getting mired in seman...
by Lazy_eye
Thu Jul 06, 2017 9:58 pm
Forum: Academic Discussion
Topic: original buddhism
Replies: 319
Views: 61054

Re: original buddhism

My interest is in EBT (early Buddhist texts), be they Theravada, Mahāsāṃghika or other early schools. My analysis has shown me that contrary to what many Theravadins believe it is not as simple as Theravada = early; Mahayana = later. There were influences across a wide range of schools and other Sr...
by Lazy_eye
Thu Jul 06, 2017 6:42 pm
Forum: Academic Discussion
Topic: original buddhism
Replies: 319
Views: 61054

Re: original buddhism

He is using one historical approach. There are others. Sure, but (as far as I'm aware) there is no historical approach that finds the Avatamsaka Sutra represents Siddhartha Gautama's teachings more accurately than the nikayas and their Chinese equivalents. Do you know of any? The whole rhetorics of...
by Lazy_eye
Thu Jul 06, 2017 3:23 pm
Forum: Academic Discussion
Topic: original buddhism
Replies: 319
Views: 61054

Re: original buddhism

What standard are you using? Mahāyāna? In this case the original teaching of Śākyamuni Buddha would be the Avatamska Sūtra. Vajrayāna? In this case there are any number of tantras that will claim this position. Dzogchen? The answer is as above. Not a question of my standard, but rather David's. He'...
by Lazy_eye
Thu Jul 06, 2017 1:12 pm
Forum: Academic Discussion
Topic: original buddhism
Replies: 319
Views: 61054

Re: original buddhism

I still would not call this the original Buddhism. Buddhas do not teach according to some plan. Buddhas teach according to the needs of sentient beings. For example, the first buddha of this eon taught Dzogchen, not the 4NT and 8FP. But somehow, I do not think you are likely to accept this. Based o...
by Lazy_eye
Fri Jun 30, 2017 7:40 pm
Forum: Dharma in Everyday Life
Topic: Awakening is a collective venture
Replies: 73
Views: 13291

Re: Awakening is a collective venture

This is only an apparent contradiction for people who are desperately searching for a contradicition, and haven't really payed attention to what sort of "self" the anatman doctrine is refuting. Johnny, that's simply not true. The apparent contradiction/doctrinal difficulty has been a subj...
by Lazy_eye
Mon Jun 26, 2017 8:54 pm
Forum: Dharma in Everyday Life
Topic: Awakening is a collective venture
Replies: 73
Views: 13291

Re: Awakening is a collective venture

Isn't this just substituting one type of self-view for another? Instead of a static unchanging self, we get a continually fluctuating self. Is this really anātman , though? The Buddha has already allowed the conventional designation of the aggregates as a self. After, all, how many times in the sut...
by Lazy_eye
Mon Jun 26, 2017 8:08 pm
Forum: Dharma in Everyday Life
Topic: Awakening is a collective venture
Replies: 73
Views: 13291

Re: Awakening is a collective venture

For example, in this sutta , the Buddha explicitly rejects the view that "the one who acts is the one who experiences." On the other hand, according to this one , "I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as...
by Lazy_eye
Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:29 pm
Forum: Discovering Mahayana Buddhism
Topic: Do we have free will?
Replies: 49
Views: 10380

Re: Do we have free will?

There doesn't seem to be any room for an unconditioned choice, unless one has broken the twelvefold chain and become a Buddha. I disagree. I think between the 7th and 8th links (Feeling > Craving) there is a potential gap. Feeling is a projected effect. Craving is an actualizing cause. The immediat...
by Lazy_eye
Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:25 pm
Forum: Discovering Mahayana Buddhism
Topic: Do we have free will?
Replies: 49
Views: 10380

Re: Do we have free will?

I think you're posing a false dichotomy between the 'wholly conditioned' and 'the wholly unconditioned', as if they're mutually exclusive. In reality, beings are not wholly conditioned; arguably, the tathagatagarbha is 'the unborn, the unconditioned' in all of us. OK, but are you then equating free...
by Lazy_eye
Mon Jun 26, 2017 1:51 pm
Forum: Dharma in Everyday Life
Topic: Awakening is a collective venture
Replies: 73
Views: 13291

Re: Awakening is a collective venture

What is the the answer to the charge that "individual mindstream" is just a semantic ploy intended to allow a self-concept back into the Dharma? For the life of me, I don't understand how this question trips people up the way it does. Can you watch a movie and understand it's being perfor...
by Lazy_eye
Sun Jun 25, 2017 5:05 pm
Forum: Dharma in Everyday Life
Topic: Awakening is a collective venture
Replies: 73
Views: 13291

Re: Awakening is a collective venture

Jay is glossing over the fact that while selves may be refuted, individual mindstreams are strongly defended in Mahāyāna. So, he is just deceptively waltzing down the Secularist path, i.e., "Buddhism" without rebirth. Since this is a recurring area of confusion, perhaps you would be willi...
by Lazy_eye
Sun Jun 25, 2017 3:23 pm
Forum: Discovering Mahayana Buddhism
Topic: Do we have free will?
Replies: 49
Views: 10380

Re: Do we have free will?

it is also true that our lives are not conditioned solely by the past, but also by present actions. As he says, "our hand can change at any moment," so fatalism is not justified My present action, the one I am perpetrating right now, will condition my future actions (and co-create "m...
by Lazy_eye
Sun Jun 25, 2017 1:03 pm
Forum: Discovering Mahayana Buddhism
Topic: Do we have free will?
Replies: 49
Views: 10380

Re: Do we have free will?

For the early Buddhists, karma was non-linear and complex. Other Indian schools believed that karma operated in a simple straight line, with actions from the past influencing the present, and present actions influencing the future. As a result, they saw little room for free will. Buddhists, however...
by Lazy_eye
Sat Jun 24, 2017 6:05 pm
Forum: Discovering Mahayana Buddhism
Topic: Do we have free will?
Replies: 49
Views: 10380

Re: Do we have free will?

Okay, perhaps more toward determinism. There is will / volition, but it is highly determined by our past kilesas, saṅkhāras, our conditioned consciousness, viññāna via paṭiccasamuppāda. I believe from a Buddhist perspective, the only way out of the determinism is by strong mindfulness and concentra...
by Lazy_eye
Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:43 pm
Forum: Discovering Mahayana Buddhism
Topic: Do we have free will?
Replies: 49
Views: 10380

Re: Do we have free will?

I think the parallel view in Buddhism would be the idea that 'all human actions are bound by karma, nobody can act in any way other than what their karma dictates.' And that is not what Buddhism teaches, obviously, because if it were true, then there would be no point in teaching! It seems to me Bu...
by Lazy_eye
Sat Jun 24, 2017 3:50 am
Forum: Discovering Mahayana Buddhism
Topic: Do we have free will?
Replies: 49
Views: 10380

Re: Do we have free will?

Don't see how there could be "free will" without a concept of Self. Without a self, whose "will" is it, exactly? I would think that from a Mahayana perspective all volitional action reflects causes and conditions, i.e. karma. Karma is at the wheel -- we only think we're driving ...
by Lazy_eye
Fri Jun 23, 2017 5:42 pm
Forum: Discovering Mahayana Buddhism
Topic: Do we have free will?
Replies: 49
Views: 10380

Re: Do we have free will?

Don't see how there could be "free will" without a concept of Self. Without a self, whose "will" is it, exactly? I would think that from a Mahayana perspective all volitional action reflects causes and conditions, i.e. karma. Karma is at the wheel -- we only think we're driving t...

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