Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Authenticity
RichardH
Veteran
It's interesting how we approach authenticity in Buddhism. It makes sense if we are debating the pedigree of this or that particular text, to cite sources. But when discussing practice, especially for a longtime practitioner, third party authentification is simply off the mark. We start out in practice seeking confirmation in texts and teachers, but with time the center of authenticity shifts to our own base of experience. When speaking from practice as Buddhists, who have taken formal refuge and center our lives in Sangha, we speak for Buddhism. You or I are not the final word of course, but we are a voice of Buddhism, a source. Online this is more sticky because anybody can say anything, and so we tend to ground our statements in our teachers, maybe even riding on there reputations, but this is passing the buck when it come to expressing practice IMO.
In the end we can only speak from where we are, and it either chimes with the practice of others or it does not. The search for authentic Dharma, and who speaks for the Dharma can easily become a circular game of checkers involving third party sources that has no end. If you are grounded in your practice, you speak up and thats that. If you have put in the time and commitment, that will come out. If you are being pretentious, that will come out. If you are confused, that will come out. I understand the dangers of a free-for-all and think a grounding in Lineage/Sangha needs to be demonstrated, but the the issue that seems to comes up again and again is people sounding unworthy of internalizing the Dharma, practicing it, embodying it, and speaking from it. The Dharma remains outside of their own experiencial authenticity and is always held up to external authority. At a certain point this has to give way.
Anyhow. Just talking
In the end we can only speak from where we are, and it either chimes with the practice of others or it does not. The search for authentic Dharma, and who speaks for the Dharma can easily become a circular game of checkers involving third party sources that has no end. If you are grounded in your practice, you speak up and thats that. If you have put in the time and commitment, that will come out. If you are being pretentious, that will come out. If you are confused, that will come out. I understand the dangers of a free-for-all and think a grounding in Lineage/Sangha needs to be demonstrated, but the the issue that seems to comes up again and again is people sounding unworthy of internalizing the Dharma, practicing it, embodying it, and speaking from it. The Dharma remains outside of their own experiencial authenticity and is always held up to external authority. At a certain point this has to give way.
Anyhow. Just talking
0
Comments
I agree, but in terms of authenticity the issue is deeper because we don't know when any source began, other than some time after the Buddha's death.
To me the notion of authenticity and authority in Dharma belongs with popes and kings dictators, not the truths that the Buddha discovered.
What would that sound like?
That view is not authentic, no soup for you.
But seriously.. You argue what you consider to be the authentic view, namely the the view you just stated. No?
It sounds like people seeking truth outside of their own immediate experience, perhaps in the authority of text, perhaps in the authority of a teacher. For Lay Theravadins it is often in the authority of the monastics. The monastics are real deal, they lay people look to them. It sounds like "who am I to say?"
No...
I don't think there can be any authentic view of Buddha's views, in the same was as there cannot be an authentic account of the Trojan War.
But we are lucky, because Dharma is there to be discovered by each of us in our own way. And though the views may differ, so long as they cohere with the noble truths, they are all Dharma.
I guess from different angles we agree on this; the only authority should be ones experience of the practice and understanding of the noble truths.
namaste
Sure the Four Noble truths are straightforward and foundational to all Buddhist traditions, or at least the main three. I think we can agree that for a teaching to be defined as Buddhist, it needs to grounded in the four noble truths.
And not a good one, as the Therevadan tradition didn't get started until aeons after the Buddha, and it was but one of many (20+?) schools, all of which are now lost to time.
That can be the only authenticity, but it is not transferable as authentic, only guidance, imho.
And not a good one,as the Therevadan tradition didn't get started until aeons after the Buddha, and it was but one of many (20+?) schools, all of which are now lost to time.
If we are referring to an aeon as in geology or astronomy we are talking a billion years - this is way off the mark for the Theravadin tradition beginnings. Even if we are referring to an aeon in the vernacular as "an age" this is still an overshot. It seems there is only about three centuries between the Buddha's death and the formal establishment of the Theravadin school. And the argument is simply a moot point in that the very translation of Tharavadin is "the doctrine of the elders" and is not lost in time at all but very vibrant in the present to which many militant Theravadins will attest. As such, their authenticity of tradition is unquestionable albeit not more authentic than Mahayana or Vajrayana traditions.
That can be the only authenticity, but it is not transferable as authentic, only guidance, imho.
That the authenticity of skillful means not be transferable flies in the face of the tradition of direct transmission of lineage (any lineage) and teaching with the noble example of spiritual living by which monastics as well as lay practitioners may gain merit. Guidance seems to have more inherent possibility for being inauthentic than tradition or lineage - depending on who is acting as guide. Ultimately authenticity must be in the experience of the skillful means by the practitioner both on and off the cushion but discounting the authenticity of the earliest account of the Buddha's teachings is like saying day is night, just for the sake of argument. There is a moderator that eschews "dharma lite" content but as inauthentic as that description sounds, it is, after all, just another path to the truth - maybe a slower more circuitous one, but a path nevertheless. What we "know" about the origins of the PC and Suttas is less important than the truths that are consistent within their texts - the very basis from which we are able to think about and have this discussion about authenticity within Buddhism.
I guess all I'm pointing to here is that even the decision to doubt the authenticity of the authoritative texts is part of the teaching therein an adherence to the authentic or traditional teaching, whatever lineage is discussed.
By "aeons" I meant a very long relative time. In literal terms its a few centuries (Third council?).
I very much disagree, but unto each of us our own.
That can be the only authenticity, but it is not transferable as authentic, only guidance, imho.
By "transferable" I mean that it cant be passed on as authentic. this is crucial to keep the dogma out of dharma:)
Exactly:) It seems the bulk of whats in the PC coheres without issue with Dharma. The same seems true of Zen et al, though i know much less of these.
That said, I think there are a couple distinct ways of talking about authenticity in Buddhist practice. We of course have the authenticity of lineage and scripture (as problematic as that may be). And the authenticity of practitioner experience. The practitioners experience can be authentic in that the original source of the dharma is our true nature in itself. Buddha experienced this original authenticity and it is available to us as well.
The true authenticity of Buddhist practice lies in our ability to witness and integrate with our own nature.
I could say I have practiced under such and such teacher for this many years, or quote this or that sutra, or just say the post stands alone.
The former is more convincing, but it could also mean I'm a dilettante with no experiential base. The latter depends on the post resonating with the reader. I don't see a neat resolution, but here we are posting about Dharma. Jostling at times, agreeing at other times.
A lineage helps in relation to Authentic-ness. Lord Tilopa was a realised well being before finding a physical teacher, those at the time were unable to accept this so he found some physical teachers to learn under, and people accepted this lineage and were able to listen to his teachings.
Cheers, WK