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So your point is that anyone who hold what you call "orthodox" is wrong?
No, my point is that anyone who holds and orthodox view and is not prepared to question it as much as they can is wrong, in the Wrong View, Wrong Effort, Wrong intention and perhaps some other Noble Senses too.
I would say the vast majority of the beliefs I hold about Buddha's teachings are very much orthodox and all very resilient to doubt.
You then neglect the voluminous epistemological writing of the various buddhist traditions in favour of a simplistic "Doubt everything" principle.
I will state my points as clearly as and simply as I can and invite your polite and wise refutation of any of them in any sense:
1)You say refer to the fact that I "neglect the voluminous epistemological writing of the various Buddhist traditions"
I haven’t neglected them, I have tried to understand them. I have read more books on Buddhist Philosophy than I would imagine most Buddhists. Philosophy has been my passion long before Buddhism. I don’t think they make sense. But that is not why I have given up on them.
I gave up on them because when I started reading about the history of Buddhism it was soon apparent demonstrably, historically, logically, chronologically that these later doctrines like the Ahibdharma almost certainly were not in right existence after the Buddha's death.
If you want to believe anything is anything i will not interfere, but if you tell me I should believe an orthodox view because it is just that, especially when it seems false to me and especially when it seems to contradict with what I see ass a key principle of dharma (questioning everything), sorry, but you will need to have something more important than an opinion or plea to some other claim.
I would be silenced on this , for example, if you could show me in simple terms what I have failed to see, what I have neglected about all these things you have been mentioning.
To the next point:
2) You say "in favour of a simplistic "Doubt everything" principle."
Firstly yes, given a choice between two candidate explanatory principles or guides, one simple and elegant and clear and the other complex, bloated and hard to grasp, I would go with the simple one.
As would most people, from east or west. This is a key principle of foundations.
After all, we have many simple truths in Dharma. There are the three simple truths that are true of all things. There are the four simple truths about human experience. There is the simple set of truths about how to live ones inner and outer life. I would say it is only when you start to look at the way the most simple truths condition the less simple, but still beautifully simple truths , that things start to get complex. The Buddha recognises this, he gives us the simple truths but in order to see how it all fits together, in order to see the structure we need to understand interdependence. He even says something like "When ones sees interdependence one sees dharma" as I am sure you know. I digress....
So simple is best for me yes. But as to the actual claim you seem to disparage so, what is it you don’t like about it?
Doubt everything, be your own light.
It seems so perfect to me. Let's expand it with the help of the kalama suttra
No matter where the belief originates from, be it testimony, experience or reason, doubt it. Try to show that that belief is wrong, if you cannot then you must know yourself that that this belief may not be true, but is worthy to hold onto.
Expansion makes it clumbsy.
What is wrong with that view?
Or
What is better about the view you clearly have?
"So the onus is on your reader to find where you are quoting from rather than spending the extra five seconds to attribute?"
I have been a KS bore on this forum for longer than I have been on it. Im sure you will find other times I have posed it if you do a search. I posted it much like I might type out the four noble truths without attributing. It was clearly a quoting. We are done on this issue now.
So instead of looking to the substance of the arguments, you would rather just dismiss them as legends? That's a curious approach.
In virtue of the fact they were written down for hundreds of years after the time of the Buddha death, in a place fifteen hundred miles from where the Buddha is said to have died and in a language and script that absolutely the Buddha would not have spoken, I think my approach is the reasonable one.
This doesn’t at all mean I don’t respect them, value them, they are holy to me as much as anything is, but I am pretty sure a lot of it is later embellishments.
I only believe the stuff in it which I cant doubt. That is most of it, all the central claims and everything that I can see connected with the four noble truths. Isn't this exactly the instruction of the kalama sutra?
If you have not tested them in the laboratory of your own mind and merely dismiss them because they don't agree with your cherished notions, I believe you have missed the intent of the Kalama Sutta.
Oh I agree, it should all be tested in the mind. You assume I haven’t.
I am surprised that I need to point out that dismissing a point of view without actually reading it and understanding it is just foolishness.
I have dedicated my life to Dharma. There is so much to do and try and see within it. I do not wish to spend any of my time trying to understand what I think are augmentations added many centuries after the Buddha. I just don’t have the time to watch sequals.
If that is foolish then please, as I asked above simply tell me, clearly, what it is I am missing. If you cant do that then what should I do?
You also confuse what I spoke of earlier. I was speaking of understanding of the disciplines of cognitive psychology and quantum physics, both of which move so quickly that it is nearly impossible to stay on top of developments in them without being engaged in an academic setting or in daily praxis.
Dharma is simple, deep and hard, but simple.
So provide your evidence that what he taught is something different. Such speculation without evidence is of little point in a forum with opposing viewpoints. Lay your principles and evidence on the table.
All causes have many effects.
All effects have many causes.
All causes are effects.
All effects are causes.
Negative causes have negative effects
Positive causes have positive effects.
Now please explain how it is spurious.
Because it isn’t needed to understand life and dharma. Because it doesn’t appear in the first sutras, that I hold likely to be closest to Buddha and Dharma. In fact I think its fair to say that there is no single place it is listed with 12 links all in singular place.
Maybe I am wrong about it, which sutra do you recommend I read to get sold on the 12 nids?
Again, you state your claim without evidence. What evidence do you have that the Buddha did not teach the twelve nidanas as all extant buddhist traditions believe?
The two reasons I just said:
1) It isn’t needed to explain dharma.
2) It isn’t stated singularly in the key sutras.
I can add:
3) It doesn’t seem how it can fit into the 4 noble truths, whereas interedependent causation in the simple sense does, in the second and third truths.
4) It just seems bloated. The Dharma truths that have changed our lives, all of us Buddhists, they are not these complex man made things that make you stumble, they are simple. Often hard to grasp, but not because of their complexity.
I spent years not getting the four noble truths, I don't really get them all now, I would say, but this isn’t because they are too complex for me. If anything they are too clear and simple to grasp.
We should be able to converse without checking our sense of humour at the door. Please don't take the "thick" part of your monicker so literally.
Ok, agreed. Its often hard to judge tones on here:)
Didn't read thread, but. It's not that "you" exist or don't exist. You certainly do not, however, exist independently. So it's not that you don't exist, it's that you only exist in dependence on many other factors.
The body is impermanent but it still has a temporal existence, so it is not completely an illusion. The cycle of births is infinite so long as there is craving, but when craving is extinguished there is that which is beyond body: nirvana.
Comments
No, my point is that anyone who holds and orthodox view and is not prepared to question it as much as they can is wrong, in the Wrong View, Wrong Effort, Wrong intention and perhaps some other Noble Senses too.
I would say the vast majority of the beliefs I hold about Buddha's teachings are very much orthodox and all very resilient to doubt.
I will state my points as clearly as and simply as I can and invite your polite and wise refutation of any of them in any sense:
1)You say refer to the fact that I "neglect the voluminous epistemological writing of the various Buddhist traditions"
I haven’t neglected them, I have tried to understand them. I have read more books on Buddhist Philosophy than I would imagine most Buddhists. Philosophy has been my passion long before Buddhism. I don’t think they make sense. But that is not why I have given up on them.
I gave up on them because when I started reading about the history of Buddhism it was soon apparent demonstrably, historically, logically, chronologically that these later doctrines like the Ahibdharma almost certainly were not in right existence after the Buddha's death.
If you want to believe anything is anything i will not interfere, but if you tell me I should believe an orthodox view because it is just that, especially when it seems false to me and especially when it seems to contradict with what I see ass a key principle of dharma (questioning everything), sorry, but you will need to have something more important than an opinion or plea to some other claim.
I would be silenced on this , for example, if you could show me in simple terms what I have failed to see, what I have neglected about all these things you have been mentioning.
To the next point:
2) You say "in favour of a simplistic "Doubt everything" principle."
Firstly yes, given a choice between two candidate explanatory principles or guides, one simple and elegant and clear and the other complex, bloated and hard to grasp, I would go with the simple one.
As would most people, from east or west. This is a key principle of foundations.
After all, we have many simple truths in Dharma. There are the three simple truths that are true of all things. There are the four simple truths about human experience. There is the simple set of truths about how to live ones inner and outer life. I would say it is only when you start to look at the way the most simple truths condition the less simple, but still beautifully simple truths , that things start to get complex. The Buddha recognises this, he gives us the simple truths but in order to see how it all fits together, in order to see the structure we need to understand interdependence. He even says something like "When ones sees interdependence one sees dharma" as I am sure you know. I digress....
So simple is best for me yes. But as to the actual claim you seem to disparage so, what is it you don’t like about it?
No matter where the belief originates from, be it testimony, experience or reason, doubt it. Try to show that that belief is wrong, if you cannot then you must know yourself that that this belief may not be true, but is worthy to hold onto.
Expansion makes it clumbsy.
What is wrong with that view?
Or
What is better about the view you clearly have?
I have been a KS bore on this forum for longer than I have been on it. Im sure you will find other times I have posed it if you do a search. I posted it much like I might type out the four noble truths without attributing. It was clearly a quoting. We are done on this issue now.
In virtue of the fact they were written down for hundreds of years after the time of the Buddha death, in a place fifteen hundred miles from where the Buddha is said to have died and in a language and script that absolutely the Buddha would not have spoken, I think my approach is the reasonable one.
This doesn’t at all mean I don’t respect them, value them, they are holy to me as much as anything is, but I am pretty sure a lot of it is later embellishments.
I only believe the stuff in it which I cant doubt. That is most of it, all the central claims and everything that I can see connected with the four noble truths. Isn't this exactly the instruction of the kalama sutra?
Oh I agree, it should all be tested in the mind. You assume I haven’t.
I have dedicated my life to Dharma. There is so much to do and try and see within it. I do not wish to spend any of my time trying to understand what I think are augmentations added many centuries after the Buddha. I just don’t have the time to watch sequals.
If that is foolish then please, as I asked above simply tell me, clearly, what it is I am missing. If you cant do that then what should I do?
Dharma is simple, deep and hard, but simple.
All causes have many effects.
All effects have many causes.
All causes are effects.
All effects are causes.
Negative causes have negative effects
Positive causes have positive effects.
Because it isn’t needed to understand life and dharma. Because it doesn’t appear in the first sutras, that I hold likely to be closest to Buddha and Dharma. In fact I think its fair to say that there is no single place it is listed with 12 links all in singular place.
Maybe I am wrong about it, which sutra do you recommend I read to get sold on the 12 nids?
The two reasons I just said:
1) It isn’t needed to explain dharma.
2) It isn’t stated singularly in the key sutras.
I can add:
3) It doesn’t seem how it can fit into the 4 noble truths, whereas interedependent causation in the simple sense does, in the second and third truths.
4) It just seems bloated. The Dharma truths that have changed our lives, all of us Buddhists, they are not these complex man made things that make you stumble, they are simple. Often hard to grasp, but not because of their complexity.
I spent years not getting the four noble truths, I don't really get them all now, I would say, but this isn’t because they are too complex for me. If anything they are too clear and simple to grasp.
Ok, agreed. Its often hard to judge tones on here:)
namaste