Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

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ronnymarsh
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by ronnymarsh »

stong gzugs wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 6:25 pm There was a fair amount of diversity in what "atman" meant in the early pre-Buddhist Upanisads, especially around whether the atman functions as a doer (karta) or enjoyer (bhokta) or more of a witness (sakshi).

If you want a somewhat mind-bending read on how the atman was understood in the time of the Buddha, I'd recommend Kamaleswar Bhattacharya's The Atman-Brahman in Ancient Buddhism.
There are philosophical diversities about the role of Atman in the various Hindu perspectives, but all think of atman in the same fundamental terms.
This is the basics of human communication, a word can only admit a restricted number of meanings, and all of them are related, otherwise the word ceases to fulfill its communication function.

See, we can talk about "God" for example. But some societies believed/believe in a diversity of gods, others only believe in a single god, some think that the gods are emanations of a single god, and so on. In addition, there are diverse perspectives such as pantheism, panentheism, theism dualistic, and so on. But at the end of the day in all these perspectives the word "god" has the same meaning: something positioned hierarchically above the "created" world, that is, something that is above us.
There is no society that thought of gods inferior to human beings, for example, we are always the ones who need their help and they never need our help.
Even in Buddhism, when devas submit to the Buddha, they only do so when Bhagavan attains a higher position.

The same is with regard to the concept of Atman. We can discuss the nature of Atman, we can discuss the functions of atman, but all this can only be done by starting from a common meaning of the word.

Atman, in any view, is always something eternal, immortal, self-sufficient, essential, unconditioned, etc., which is supposed to exist in sentient beings according to the view of the vedas and upanishads.
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by Kim O'Hara »

ronnymarsh wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 11:46 am ...This is the basics of human communication, a word can only admit a restricted number of meanings, and all of them are related, otherwise the word ceases to fulfill its communication function.
:jawdrop:
Your confidence in your knowledge may not be entirely justified ...
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/570 ... -opposites

:thinking:
Kim

:focus:
stong gzugs
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by stong gzugs »

ronnymarsh wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 11:46 am There are philosophical diversities about the role of Atman in the various Hindu perspectives, but all think of atman in the same fundamental terms.
...
Atman, in any view, is always something eternal, immortal, self-sufficient, essential, unconditioned, etc., which is supposed to exist in sentient beings according to the view of the vedas and upanishads.
This is simply incorrect, which is why I said the book was a bit mind-bending, as the introduction alone goes through many Buddhist refutations of the ātman and shows how they are refuting very different things than we currently assume ātman to mean (typically, the version from Śaṅkarācārya's Vedānta). Another good read is Jones' The Buddhist self: On tathāgatagarbha and ātman which has sections going over some of these historical matters of what the "self" of the non-Buddhists was taken to mean at various points in Buddhist history. Keep in mind that the Jains also used the word, somewhat interchangeably with jīva, which also would have informed what early Buddhists were responding to. So the term ātman is clearly polysemic within and across traditions.

Kim is completely right. Language is complex. Especially religious/philosophical language. But that's enough from me on this tangent.
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by PeterC »

stong gzugs wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 6:25 pm There was a fair amount of diversity in what "atman" meant in the early pre-Buddhist Upanisads, especially around whether the atman functions as a doer (karta) or enjoyer (bhokta) or more of a witness (sakshi).

If you want a somewhat mind-bending read on how the atman was understood in the time of the Buddha, I'd recommend Kamaleswar Bhattacharya's The Atman-Brahman in Ancient Buddhism.
How does Bhattacharya explain the shift from a personal to an intrapersonal atman? What motivated that change - as it's a pretty big one?
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by ronnymarsh »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 1:05 pm
Your confidence in your knowledge may not be entirely justified ...
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/570 ... -opposites
Although this phenomenon exists in human languages, it is generated from the simple meaning of the term itself and does not apply in the case of atman.
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by ronnymarsh »

stong gzugs wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 2:48 pm (...)
Friend, there are two concepts that you are confusing.
Note the title of the work you indicated, it does not deal with the concept of "atman" but of "atman-brahman".

These are two distinct words that identify two distinct "objects".

In the Sutras (even the Agamas and Nikayas) the Buddha refers to Nirvana/NIbbana in terms of unconditioned, blissful, eternal, among others, and even the "true atman" (but it is precisely in order to avoid misunderstandings that most common is to avoid using the term to identify this reality, and in Buddhist history we always prefer to elaborate other terms to identify it, such as Tathagatahgarba in yogacara thought or Madhyamaka in Tiantai's thought).

To repeat for emphasis: "atman-brahman" (atman-highest) is not necessarily the same thing as "atman" (although there are nondual philosophical perspectives that make this identification).

We can easily identify the concept of atman-brahman with other religious and cultural perspectives, such as the general notion of "Tao" in China, of "Ein Sof" in Kabbalah, the notion of "Madhyamaka" in T'ien-t'ai and Nichiren Buddhism, the general notion of Tathagatagarbha in Mahayana Buddhism and of Shunyata in the shengtong/yogacara perspective.

"Atman-brahman" is a Absolute Dimension with Qualities.

But when we talk about "atman" we are referring to the same concept that "Qi" expresses, or the other doctrines of different religions (spirit, and so on).

In Buddhism there is no concept of "sublimate essence (Jing) to transmute it into Qi (breath), sublimate Qi to transmute it into divinity (Shen), sublimate divinity to transform it into Tao", which is the core element of QiGong practices. This perspective of the Taoist religions is very close to the Moksha practices of Hinduism, in which it is intended to cultivate an eternal atman that exists in each person so that he reaches a kind of mystical union with the absolute divinity, and even from Christianity's orthodox perspective of the purification-contemplation-deification process - theosis.

None of this has a place in Buddhism, even if one assumes a position like that of Nichiren/Tendai Buddhism and the shengtong/yogacara perspective in understanding an absolute reality endowed with the qualities of atman, but not the process to transformation a eternal essence in beings.
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by stong gzugs »

PeterC wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:30 am How does Bhattacharya explain the shift from a personal to an intrapersonal atman? What motivated that change - as it's a pretty big one?
It's probably most accurate to say that the actual Upanisads have a diverse variety of views about the atman, that range along dimensions from active vs. passive, embodied vs. transcendent, and personal vs. transpersonal. The success of Śaṅkarācārya's Advaita Vedānta systematized these texts in ways that made the passive, transcendent, and transpersonal view of the atman the standard received view for many, even if that was just one such view in the texts themselves. It's important to keep in mind that the Upanisads were mystical and poetic texts that also held back on many teachings (including even the teaching of karma was thought to be inappropriate to put into writing because it was a secret oral teaching), not at all written in the same straightforward and transparent style of the suttas, so it's not all that obvious how to extract a systematized logical-philosophical system from them. Also, Śaṅkarācārya may have lived up to 1,000 years after the earliest Upanisads were composed.

Bhattacharya's book is more about looking into the refutations of the atman offered within Buddhism and showing that the refutations were about an active, embodied, personal self, not a passive, transcendent, transpersonal Self. The valid critique of Bhattacharya's book is already mentioned in the Amazon description, that failing to deny something isn't therefore affirming it. The introduction can actually be read here and is quite fascinating because it shows that even into the Mahayāna corpus, most of the refutations of the atman don't pertain to what most people today think of as the atman: the passive, transcendent, transpersonal Self advocated for by Śaṅkarācārya. The Jones book picks up on the thread moving forward into the Mahayāna of how Buddhism conceptualized a notion of a self in the tathāgatagarbha literature, while still refuting wrong ideas about a self and avoiding a slide into Vedānta.
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by Donny »

ronnymarsh wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 12:32 pm By the time of the Buddha and the Sramana movement, the Vedas had already spread and some of the oldest Upanishads had already been composed.
Hinduism is a religion that will only appear (as it currently exists) around the 17th - 18th century, but its bases are the concepts of Brahmanism that are based on the Vedas.
This notion of Atman, for example, is presented for the first time in the Vedas, and its proximity to ideas in other cultures possibly lies in the fact that the Aryan peoples, from Central Asia, settled in various parts of the world, and this notion it may even be older than the very formation of India as a "country".

Thus, as the Vedas and the first Upanishads already existed at the time of the Buddha, it is not possible to think that he was referring to an earlier notion.

Furthermore, the notion of Atman among the various Hindu schools is essentially the same, what is different is the understanding that each school has of the relationship between Atman and Brahma (dualist, non-dualist, monist perspectives, etc.).

(note: Brahma means "highest")

But all Hindu, Brahmanical and Vedic schools, without exception, always identify Atman as a reality separate from bodily and mental functions, whereas the analytical activity of Buddhism fails to find (either through rational methods or through practical methods) anything in addition to bodily (form) and mental (sensations, perceptions, volitions and consciousness) functions in sentient beings.

That is why it is called anatman/anatta. It does not mean that there is not an atman, the five skandas provisionally form an individual, so that it is not possible to deny their existence, however, as their existence is not self-sufficient, as it is not eternal, as it is conditioned, then "this" that exists it cannot be called an "atman", even though it is an "I", so the only proper name for what exists is "anatman", an "I" that is not an "I".

This is a "middle way" between nihilism and the notion of an eternal existence.
I always liked Aurobindo Ghoses interpretation of the issue discusses in this thread, that he expounded in his writing on indian history and his "Letters on Yoga".

For him the Buddha has to be situated in the cultural context of the Vedas and Upanishadic Vedanta. Yet he stands for a radical shift from metaphysics to a "psychological perspective" that is radically centered on soteriology.
“ (The Buddha maintainded, that the) Individual has no existence since what does exists in the world is a stream of impermanent consciousness from moment to moment and the individual person is fictitiously constituted by a bundle of samskaras and can be dissolved by dissolving the bundle.”

“His explanation of things was psychological and not metaphysical and his methods were all psychological, the breaking of the false association of consciousness which causes the continuance of desire and suffering, so getting rid of the stream of birth and death in a purely phenomenal [not real] world; the psychological method, the eight fold path developing right understanding and right action. His objects was pragmatic and severely practical and so were his methods; metaphysical speculations would only draw the mind away from the one thing needful.”
So Buddhism - for Aurobindo - is in it's essence very pragmatic, since it's almost exclusively focused on soterological matters, which are presented in a strict psychological and anti-metaphysical way. Of course there are basic metaphysics within Buddhism. But they are not presented as ontological truths but rather as psychological facts that have to be dealt with by the individual in order to "attain liberation".

For Aurobindo this was the strenght of early Buddhism and at the same time it's problem. Because a teaching that is so exclusively centered on liberartion doesn't translated very easy into everydal life. Or to put it differently: It's much harder to organize a society around the tenets of early buddhism then around the Vedas, which can be read on different levels of understanding and offer a ritualistic approach that can bridge the gap between a religious elite that understands the inner meaning of the ritual and the reality it is pointing at; and the common people who can at least apply the outer meaning of the ritual to their daily life.

For Aurobindo this is a struggle that struck with early Buddhism and that lead to the developement of Mahayana etc. and translated into an philosophical extreme in Shankaras Mayavada.

It's a reading that might not find many fans in this forum ;) I also have my problems with it. But a interesting one nontheless. And it gives an interesting perspective about how "Atman" is interpreted in Vedanta und Buddhism.
"To the sharp weapons of the demons, you offered delicate flowers in return. When the enraged Devadatta pushed down a boulder to kill you, you practiced silence. Son of the Sakyas, incapable of casting even an angry glance at your enemy, what intelligent person would honor you as a friend for protection from the great enemy, fearful samsara?"
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by Kim O'Hara »

:good:
Donny wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 11:29 am ... It's a reading that might not find many fans in this forum ;) ...
It makes perfect sense to me, but particularly as a way of looking at the teachings of the historical Buddha as preserved in the Pali canon ... which is not central to this forum, as you say.

Never mind. Remember the 84,000 dharma doors and all that.

:namaste:
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by Donny »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 1:02 pm It makes perfect sense to me, but particularly as a way of looking at the teachings of the historical Buddha as preserved in the Pali canon ... which is not central to this forum, as you say.

Never mind. Remember the 84,000 dharma doors and all that.

:namaste:
Kim
That's the point. Its a good obersvation about early Buddhism. And a not so good generalisation for all of Buddhism.

:namaste:
"To the sharp weapons of the demons, you offered delicate flowers in return. When the enraged Devadatta pushed down a boulder to kill you, you practiced silence. Son of the Sakyas, incapable of casting even an angry glance at your enemy, what intelligent person would honor you as a friend for protection from the great enemy, fearful samsara?"
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ronnymarsh
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by ronnymarsh »

Donny wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 11:29 am I always liked Aurobindo Ghoses interpretation of the issue discusses in this thread, that he expounded in his writing on indian history and his "Letters on Yoga".

For him the Buddha has to be situated in the cultural context of the Vedas and Upanishadic Vedanta. Yet he stands for a radical shift from metaphysics to a "psychological perspective" that is radically centered on soteriology.
Modern Indian perspectives on the Buddha are almost always a justification in an attempt to validate the Vaishnava perspective on Gautama.

Vaishanvist Hindus understand that Sidartha Guatama would be an avatar of Vishnu who manifested on this earth with the purpose of returning to the original cosmic order that had been shaken with the rise of the Ashuras when they conquered "Dharma".

Thus, the Buddha preached his "erroneous" (from the orthodox Vedic point of view) teaching with the intention of deceiving the Ashuras, and returning them to the ignorant condition that would be fundamental within this cosmic order.

These Vaishnavist perspectives are "conservative" perceptions that understand that everything must be in its proper primordial place following this hypothetical cosmic order, so what they understand as "salvation" is this return to order, and the place that the Buddha would have in that system is as an agent in that direction.

However, it is important to say that the whole Hindu perspective is later than the formation of Buddhism. At the time of the Buddha what existed was Brahmanism and the various opposing movements that we group together and call Sramanas.

Brahmins accepted the undisputed authority of the Vedas while only Sramanas were adherents of skeptical perspectives, focused on their own experience as a method of validating claims.

In the face of the Sramana ascension, the Brahmins went into decline, and thus remained totally eclipsed for about a millennium, giving way to Jainism and Buddhism, however, without completely disappearing.

During this millennium (between 600 BC and 600 AD approximately), the Brahmins assimilated elements from other peoples and cultures. In the Vedas, for example, the main deity is Indra, but in the meantime they ended up developing the concept of "highest" (Brahma), a more philosophically developed perspective.

The moment of greatest flowering occurred at the end of this period, between 300 AD and 600 AD, with the Gupta dynasty, which protected Brahmanism and persecuted Buddhists and Jains. It was during this period that the last Buddhist patriarch lived and was murdered (Simhaboddhi), as well as the time of composition of the purunas.

That is, when Hinduism began to form, all the complexity of Mahayana thought had already been developed - Simhabodhi is the 24th patriarch in a lineage where Vasubhandu is the 22nd, Aryadeva the 15th and Nagarjuna the 14th.

So the direction is opposite. It is not Hinduism that helps to understand Buddhism, but ancient Buddhism that helps to understand the developments of Hindu thought.
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by Donny »

ronnymarsh wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 2:49 pm So the direction is opposite. It is not Hinduism that helps to understand Buddhism, but ancient Buddhism that helps to understand the developments of Hindu thought.
Yes, that is percisely Aurobindos position. Only that he tries - on the one end - to go further back and has his very own reading of the Vedas and their meaning in indian culture, while - on the other end - to go beyond "Hinduism" to propose a evolutionary, integral Yoga that integrates the diverse perspective within the different developments of indian realigion.

He is also quite critical with the legacy of the Buddha. Not with the "spiritual teachings" of the "historic Buddha" which he is clearly quite fond of and which he sees as one of the purest approaches to the "Spirit" in Indian history. (Whatever that might mean ;) ) But with the social and cultural impact of Buddhism and a certain strand of negation of life and overemphasized focus on trancendence, that got infuse into Indian culture. Not by the Buddha per se, but by the reading of buddist teaching sand the way the got integrated into later "Hinduism". For him the most extreme example of this development is Shankaras Mayavada which he is always very polemical about. For him Shankara is making a very profound "psychological experience" - that of the Buddhas Nirvana - into a metaphysical system and an ontological truth, that is very theoretically unbalanced and leaves no conncetion to everyday life.

So in his narrative the Buddha is not an Avatara of Vishnu - he accepts the Idea of Avatars but not in the traditional Vaishnava sense - but rather a necessary step in the "evolution of consciousness". Aurobindo is a very interesting read - but his is in the end a eternalist and his conclusions are way too far out for my taste. But - as I said - I like his take on the historic buddha and early Buddhism.

But all of this is quite off topic, since this thread started with a discussion on Alchemy and Mahayana and moved to Atman in early Buddhism and "Hinduism". I only wanted to introduce Aurobindos input on the latter topic - so I'll better leave it there ;)

:namaste:
"To the sharp weapons of the demons, you offered delicate flowers in return. When the enraged Devadatta pushed down a boulder to kill you, you practiced silence. Son of the Sakyas, incapable of casting even an angry glance at your enemy, what intelligent person would honor you as a friend for protection from the great enemy, fearful samsara?"
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by PeterC »

Donny wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 2:32 pm
Kim O'Hara wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 1:02 pm It makes perfect sense to me, but particularly as a way of looking at the teachings of the historical Buddha as preserved in the Pali canon ... which is not central to this forum, as you say.

Never mind. Remember the 84,000 dharma doors and all that.

:namaste:
Kim
That's the point. Its a good obersvation about early Buddhism. And a not so good generalisation for all of Buddhism.

:namaste:
The supposed antiquity of 'early Buddhism' is an academic construct. That bears saying because the term suggests that this is somehow the original and authentic Buddhavacana, which is not an accurate representation.
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by Donny »

PeterC wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:12 am
Donny wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 2:32 pm
Kim O'Hara wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 1:02 pm It makes perfect sense to me, but particularly as a way of looking at the teachings of the historical Buddha as preserved in the Pali canon ... which is not central to this forum, as you say.

Never mind. Remember the 84,000 dharma doors and all that.

:namaste:
Kim
That's the point. Its a good obersvation about early Buddhism. And a not so good generalisation for all of Buddhism.

:namaste:
The supposed antiquity of 'early Buddhism' is an academic construct. That bears saying because the term suggests that this is somehow the original and authentic Buddhavacana, which is not an accurate representation.
Yes, but thats not how I understood it. It's simlpy factual that Buddhism - like any other movement - had a time where it's originator was still alive and had at some point to deal with his departure. So on a simple timeline there will always be a "early buddhism".

But I agree, injecting the idea of authenticity - whatever that might be - in this question is not helpful at all and in the most cases it might be driven by an agenda.

:namaste:
"To the sharp weapons of the demons, you offered delicate flowers in return. When the enraged Devadatta pushed down a boulder to kill you, you practiced silence. Son of the Sakyas, incapable of casting even an angry glance at your enemy, what intelligent person would honor you as a friend for protection from the great enemy, fearful samsara?"
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by PeterC »

Donny wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:52 am
PeterC wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:12 am
Donny wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 2:32 pm

That's the point. Its a good obersvation about early Buddhism. And a not so good generalisation for all of Buddhism.

:namaste:
The supposed antiquity of 'early Buddhism' is an academic construct. That bears saying because the term suggests that this is somehow the original and authentic Buddhavacana, which is not an accurate representation.
Yes, but thats not how I understood it. It's simlpy factual that Buddhism - like any other movement - had a time where it's originator was still alive and had at some point to deal with his departure. So on a simple timeline there will always be a "early buddhism".

But I agree, injecting the idea of authenticity - whatever that might be - in this question is not helpful at all and in the most cases it might be driven by an agenda.

:namaste:
If you’re saying that “ Its a good obersvation about early Buddhism” then you’re making assumptions about what “early Buddhism” was that is similar to the academics and theravedins who use that term. Of course there was a timeline, but the different lineages disagree about what was taught at different times, and the textual evidence is equivocal.
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by Donny »

PeterC wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 12:23 pm
Donny wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:52 am
PeterC wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:12 am

The supposed antiquity of 'early Buddhism' is an academic construct. That bears saying because the term suggests that this is somehow the original and authentic Buddhavacana, which is not an accurate representation.
Yes, but thats not how I understood it. It's simlpy factual that Buddhism - like any other movement - had a time where it's originator was still alive and had at some point to deal with his departure. So on a simple timeline there will always be a "early buddhism".

But I agree, injecting the idea of authenticity - whatever that might be - in this question is not helpful at all and in the most cases it might be driven by an agenda.

:namaste:
If you’re saying that “ Its a good obersvation about early Buddhism” then you’re making assumptions about what “early Buddhism” was that is similar to the academics and theravedins who use that term. Of course there was a timeline, but the different lineages disagree about what was taught at different times, and the textual evidence is equivocal.
If you want to see it this way. I was commenting on Sri Aurobindos ideas about the historic Buddha in a discussion about the meaning of Atma in Buddhism and Hinduism. Aurobindos statements aim at the characteristics of Buddhism in the wider context of indian religious traditions. That I called it "early Buddhism" was just a device to make clear that he is not talking about Mahayana or "Buddhism" in general, because he is simply not commenting on these traditions. Of course any specualtion about these times will include a construct that is heavily influenced by culture, history, ones own religious affiliation etc. And of course Aurobindos ideas are not free from these constructs - he was a Hindu Nationalist and part of the freedom movement and presented indian history according to that agenda. His main "opponents" in writing about these matters were Indiologists that were - at that time - writing from a colonialist standpoint that was heavily patronizing and dagrading. He is taking part in a academic discourse and you won't be able to communicate within this discourse without relying on conceptual constructs.

Yes, i think that his observations make an interesting thesis, when you look at the context of Vedic Brahmanism und Upanishadic Vedanta. Thats why I called it a "good observation". Thats all. In never said that these ideas are free from any bias. I did not introduce the idea of authenticity or claimed that things should be read in this way. That I say i see something as plausible - or better: useful - is not the same as me saying, that is "authentic", authoritative or the only way it could be looked at.

In the end, even your reading of my answer is as much a construct and an assumption as the constructions and assumptions of scholars, theravadins and whoever might say anything about anything.

:namaste:
"To the sharp weapons of the demons, you offered delicate flowers in return. When the enraged Devadatta pushed down a boulder to kill you, you practiced silence. Son of the Sakyas, incapable of casting even an angry glance at your enemy, what intelligent person would honor you as a friend for protection from the great enemy, fearful samsara?"
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by PeterC »

Donny wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 1:12 pm ….
Honestly can’t figure out what you’re trying to say here
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by Malcolm »

stong gzugs wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 3:48 pm
Also, Śaṅkarācārya may have lived up to 1,000 years after the earliest Upanisads were composed.
More like 1500, if we take the earliest composition circa 800 BCE. Śankara is circa 700 CE.
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by Donny »

PeterC wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 5:36 pm
Donny wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 1:12 pm ….
Honestly can’t figure out what you’re trying to say here
That's ok. I think our conversation is anyways way to far off from the OP to contribute anything. So let's just leave it at that.

:namaste:
"To the sharp weapons of the demons, you offered delicate flowers in return. When the enraged Devadatta pushed down a boulder to kill you, you practiced silence. Son of the Sakyas, incapable of casting even an angry glance at your enemy, what intelligent person would honor you as a friend for protection from the great enemy, fearful samsara?"
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Re: Qigong / Chinese Alchemy in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism?

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Donny wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:06 pm
PeterC wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 5:36 pm
Donny wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 1:12 pm ….
Honestly can’t figure out what you’re trying to say here
That's ok. I think our conversation is anyways way to far off from the OP to contribute anything. So let's just leave it at that.

:namaste:
It has been an interesting digression though - thanks.
I was thinking of switching hats to split the topic but if you're all done, let's just go back to topic.

:namaste:
Kim
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