hi, middle way as continuity and as no annihilation / eterna

[klqv]

hi,

not sure this is academic enough. it may well not be, but it's sssoooo important to me that i wanted to get the very best responses possible


i read that the middle way began aas the assertion against eternalism and annihilationism, and that with the abhidharma is began to mean the concept that each moment is er momentary but nonetheless there is continuity between them.


my question [and like i said, it's the big one for me] is if these two things were ever related to each other so that the latter implied the former: continuity so thought, implies that annihilation is impossible.

any helpful replies can't be more warmly greeted

cheers!

[Mr. G]

I don't understand the question you're asking.

[klqv]

hi, how were the two ideas - of the buddha and the abhidharma, related? i thought maybe there might possibly be something about the latter implying the former - that given the nature of the causal series, we cannot be annihilated at death.


if that's still not clear i'll have to look for a quote.

[Jikan]

One approach: check out Swanson's _Foundations of T'ien T'ai Philosophy_

[klqv]

hi,
i have and have read that book! do you have any passages or parts in mind?
and do you indeed mean the middle way in the sravaka sutras as compared to the sravaka abhidharma??

[Jikan]

Not talking about the shravakayana. The middle way you describe is the ekayana in my opinion.

[DarwidHalim]

If I understand the question correctly, there is a conflict here between the notion of moment by moment (momentary) and continuity. Is it the question?

[klqv]

i am asking about annihilationism.

at one point it meant there is no rebirth, then later it meant the denial of continuity - i think.

by annihilationism he meant the denial of an eternally existent self, together with the presumed consequence that the person goes out of existence after a relatively short duration 8...

8. In the Brahmajala sutra the Buddha descrobes the annihilationist as someone who believes we escpe the karmic consequences of our deeds at death. In early Buddhism, then, annihilationism is the view that the person endures for a single lifetime, but is annihilated upon death... It is only in the Abhidharma that it comes to mean the denial of any enduring subject whatever.

i was wondering about the development of the concept of annihilationism, and even if the abidharma refutation of it implied or subsumed the early buddhist one.



maybe it's a bad question...