Dharma Wheel

Manjushri wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 1:49 pm Where can one find this translation, which company published it? Or are you referring to the one Kirtu shared above?

Since he's referring to a "recent" translation it must be Eijō's, linked by Kirtu. The others are Hakeda (1972) and Yamamoto (1993).

The full translation, co-translated with Lewis Lancaster, will be coming out with BDK next year. I understand that it will include their translation of the Diamond Sutra and maybe Kukai's commentary on the Heart Sutra. I would be very grateful if you could confirm the bit about Matt Osbourne and La...

Conze summarises vast sections Could you please clarify what you mean by this? Is it like Bhikkhu Bodhi's translations of the Pali canon which sum up the repetitive paragraphs? You can see the page numbers corresponding to Mitra's Sanskrit edition, it gives a good idea of where he is summarising (i...

Do you think it’s possible that some people come to it with a lot of background knowledge..sometimes over several generations, and then at some point take a different view to yours? Do you think that might happen? 🙂 I don't actually understand your question. Do you mean knowledge from previous live...

Nagarjuna would not agree of course. What we are seeing here is the contrast between Shin as a separate development of Dharma that is self referencing, and Shin as part of mainstream Mahayana rather than being eastern or western. That is not an "of course" matter. Nāgārjuna is interpreted in differ...

One thing I noticed is that Rev. Cirlea seems to quote from a number of different Buddhist sources. I remember in one of his books, he was talking about sexual misconduct, and he quoted Lama Je Tsongkhapa! Lama Tsongkhapa was born 94 years after Shinran Shonin passed away, and I wouldn't imagine th...

I have to agree that these are some what less defensible moves made by Cirlea and are not quite in line with the trend of separation between politics and religion in the Hongwanji which with Rennyo as expressed in his letter "On Norms of Conduct:" [D]o not slight the provincial military governors an...

Every buddhafield is established through the aspiration of the bodhisattvas who then appear there as buddhas. Some are "pure," some are not. But even here, the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa chapter on buddhafields both establishes this point and that also the Sahāloka is actually a pure buddhafield generated ...

Thanks. Are there English translations? Is there a source to learn about its history? There's a discussion here , which mentions the possibility that it was translated from Chinese. It appears to be a Tathāgatagarbha text. No sentient being is apart from suchness, yet not all sentient beings are bu...

I no longer accept that Amida is an actual entity out there somewhere in time and space. I realise that some other people do accept that literal interpretation and I wish them well. The problem is that while there is an aspect of Amitābha which is the formless Dharmakāya, there is also the form whi...

Do they really? Not being facetious, I'm not familiar with Japanese Pure Land. I'm kinda shocked wondering as to how they came to such a conclusion, is this something that happened in response to developments in Zen? It depends on what part you are asking about, but taking the nianfo as definitive ...

The various historical layers within the Pali Canon is readily recognised, not to mention post-canonical works. So there is a clear difference between current Theravada (Mahavihara) orthodoxy and what can be known of the so called pre-sectarian literature. The presence of layers does not provide is...

You don't need to be a complete literalist either, but believing that the spiritual significance of your scriptures is basically bunk can't be good for one's practice. I don't think that the value of the scriptures depend on believing in their attribution to the historical person of Shakyamuni, the...

The つ or ツ kana which is represented in romaji by tsu, when used in on-yomi (i.e. words borrowed from middle Chinese) was used to transliterate the final -t in middle Chinese, and thus was pronounced as a dental or glottal stop. ち, chi, is also used for -t but I'm not aware whether it was pronounced...

The latter is not being claimed.

The benefit of knowing past lives is repentance. Though it is unlikely we will know our past lives in this life, knowing our past deeds even from this life is important in developing the mind that aspires to birth: “If these sentient beings become aware of their past offenses and deeply repent with ...

I wanted to add something in an edit but the time ran out, so I'll put a new post: There are many details here, and I came across a couple of quotes in my morning readings that might be of relevance as I found they aptly summarise the point of this discussion. First, Tanluan writes, What is the caus...

My teacher says that Amida is an aspect of Mind and that the Pure Land can be accessed in this very second and is not a post-mortem “place”. This is I guess what is described as “modern” Shin teaching. It does not dismiss the supernatural. It says that dividing phenomena into natural and supernatur...

Dharmakara was a bodhisattva on the paths and stages, not a buddha. The point I am making is not that he was a Buddha, it is that he has characteristics and yet is not, fundamentally, apart from suchness. From the dharmakāya perspective, there is no need for characteristics. From the upāya perspect...

Your objection is not really valid. Why? Because there is only one dharmakāya, and only one teacher, the dharmakāya, since the dharmakāya of all buddhas is the same, that is, the dharmakāya of Amitabha is not different than the dharmakāya of Śakyamuni, etc. But it is nevertheless the case that no o...