authority in buddhism

Anavasesa

What are your favourable books on buddhism?

OneSunTemple

I don't think the word "authority" fits well here since buddhism is personal discovery or the study of self through life experience which places you as the last authority and only authority. Who knows you better then you ?

Lately .. I've been reading Dali lama books and "The Compass Of Zen" and a simple good read is "Osho On Zen"... Osho's work is a great short simple motivational very clear introduction to zen. A good first work on zen.

Read all you must but buddhism is beyond the written word. So no writings are all that important in the final analysis.

Good Day ...

Jason

Avavasesa,

Some of my favorite books on Buddhism are: Abhidhamma Studies, Abhidhammatha Sangaha, Anguttara Nikaya, Being Dharma, The Biography of the Venerable Acariya Mun, Blooming in the Desert, The Buddha's Ancient Path, Clearing the Path, Dhammapada, Digha Nikaya, Food for the Heart, Gifts He Left Behind: The Dhamma Legacy of Ajaan Dune Atulo, Heartwood of the Bodhi Tree, In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, Khuddaka Nikaya, Majjhima Nikaya, The Mind Like Fire Unbound: An Image in the Early Buddhist Discourses, Navakovada, Patipada or the Mode of Practice of Venerable Acharn Mun, Samyutta Nikaya, A Thinker's Notebook, Vibhanga, Vinayamukha: The Entrance to the Vinaya, Visuddhimagga, What the Buddha Taught, The Wings to Awakening: An Anthology from the Pali Canon.

Jason

Anavasesa

Elohim,
some of them i also like - ajahn mun(althoug i havent yet read it all), then books from Thanisaro, of course dhammapada

But have you found f.e. that visuddhi magga assent to your experiences?

Jason

Anavasesa

Elohim,
some of them i also like - ajahn mun(althoug i havent yet read it all), then books from Thanisaro, of course dhammapada

Good, glad to hear it.

But have you found f.e. that visuddhi magga assent to your experiences?

No problems as of yet.

Jason

Bobby_Lanier

Dharmakirti (7th c. CE), a famous Buddhist teacher, had are rather interesting definition of an 'authority'.

“We assert that someone is an authority who has cognition (jñâna) of what is to be apprehended and rejected, together with the methods.”

If we think about what Dharmakirti said, his definition does not quite exclude false authorities. Indeed, there are teachers even within the various circles of Buddhism who claim to be authorities, but who teach different doctrines that don't often chime with the Buddha's words in important discourses.

Often it is the case that in modern Buddhism one is an authority, not because he or she knows what is to be apprehend and rejected, as effecting complete liberation from samara, but because they are told they are an authority after having completed a course of study or tenure.

The influences of modern culture in the form of rationalization have, in some cases, confused the boundaries of what constitutes a true authority in Buddhism in which the sensory intellect dominates. To be sure, the gnostic side of Buddhism (i.e., knowing and seeing) which directly apprehends the unconditioned, has recently taken a sharp turn towards faith in rationalization which is the organizing principle of the Western world.

This opens the door to one necessary element in the definitional requirements of an authority in Buddhism. A genuine authority must have apperceived the unconditioned and know and see it in contrast with the conditioned. Short of this, one is in the world of dogma with it dogmatists. Dogma, to sum it up, is just what one believes is true. There is no gnosis, in other words, by which he or she might "know and see" the untrammeled unconditioned.


Love ya'll,

Bobby