Sectarian propoganda?

questZENer

A member of this board posted a link to Buddhanet. Under one of the articles, there was a link about Bodhidharma. I can't understand all of it, but it levels some claims against Ch'an/Zen as "worshipping" Bodhidharma. There's a lot of philosophical distinctions referred to that I can't really understand. It seems to try to discredit Ch'an/Zen.

I had understood Buddhanet to be a fairly reliable source of information on Buddhism in general, but I see that perhaps everything should be questioned. Can anyone make sense of this page? I'm curious as to what all this is about--this is supposed to be the 'founder' of a major school of Buddhism.

zenmonk_genryu

It's misinformation and Buddhanet should have been more careful. The authors were two hindus who tried to misrepresent Buddhism to suit their own purposes, much as 'Dark Zen' does, using the same mistranstlations and deliberate twisting of the truth.

_BeautifulSpringtime

zenmonk_genryu wrote:

It's misinformation and Buddhanet should have been more careful. The authors were two hindus who tried to misrepresent Buddhism to suit their own purposes, much as 'Dark Zen' does, using the same mistranstlations and deliberate twisting of the truth.

Still carrying that woman after having crossed the river?

Abraham

*BeautifulSpringtimeFist* wrote:

Still carrying that woman after having crossed the river?

It is all well and good to quote this famous allegorical story, however I believe that is misleading and possibly a little "Trite". Zenmonk maybe guilty of being "Purist" but I am sure that is happy to be guilty as charged! Too many people throughout the ages have sought to re-write and plainly misinterpret sutras, scriptures and teachings.

This is the culinary equivalent of "Fusion" cooking and as such should be made plainly clear to the reader. A degree more honesty and integrity is required in certain quarters!

Frizzer

I guess that's the link that I put up.

To be honest I hadn't even read the bit about Bodhidharma. I just thought that being as Buddhanet is a well acknowledged source of info, a description of the lineages provided on the site would be quite good useful.
Having read the bit about Bodhidharma it seems to be a bit out of place (baring in mind the content of the article) in a section introducing Buddhism to beginners. Mind you, my alarm bells started ringing when I read this paragraph :

"After years of studying Ch'an/Zen, the authors of this excerpt are presenting a different and radical perspective. This work does not place emphasis on merely the historicity of Bodhidharma [Ta Mo in Chinese and Daruma Daishi in Japanese]. Instead this work emphasizes on the metaphysical sense of the said propounder of Ch'an or Zen Buddhism."

questZENer

I don't want to point fingers as no one here is responsible for the content of all the links we provide--if that was the case, I'd be in big trouble...

I was very grateful for an otherwise interesting and well-balanced presentation of some key differences between traditions. That was nice!

I was just curious about that particular link within the Mahayana blurb. It seemd very odd and I wanted to make sure I understood what I was reading was something akin to sectarian slander. Nothing more... It seems that my antenae were working after all...

_BeautifulSpringtime

Abraham wrote:

Too many people throughout the ages have sought to re-write and plainly misinterpret sutras, scriptures and teachings.

Indeed and they've well and truly made their own beds to lie in. I was just asking my dear friend not to jump in there with them too!