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Who Was the Buddha?

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Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#41

Post by A_Parr »

weberc2 wrote: post #8
GuiA wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Reminds me of a similar example with Jesus, commonly thought to be a carpenter, but who was really a tektōn (At least according to the Gospel of Mark) which could be translated as carpenter or stonemason. Most houses in Israel at the time would appear to have been made of stone, and therefore stonemason seems like it’d be a more appropriate translation.

I've always been confused by the English definition of "carpenter". I always thought it was originally something like "woodworker" or a furniture smith, but it appears that most native speakers understood "carpenter" to mean "house builder". I wonder if at some time the same occupation referred to both or if I simply grew up misinformed?

The word carpenter originally referred to carriages or carts.

They just happened to be made out of wood and the people who made them were apparently willing to apply those skills to more than wagons.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#42

Post by kranner »

smadurange wrote: post #40

It's often hilarious when I hear western analyses of Buddhism and the Buddha. It's like a trying to understand general relativity using analogies and guesses. You feel like you understand it, till you get to the Mathematics of it. First of all drop your arrogance. And understand that your way of thinking is already shaped by deep underlying assumptions that often originated in a Christian backdrop, including western…

The person who wrote this article is a well-established Buddhist scholar who has actually spent years studying in schools, as you say one must, to study the history of Buddhism. Why wouldn't you say they were in a credible position to tell the world what is mythical about Buddhism?

Becoming an orthodox Buddhist even feels like it would be counterproductive if one's purpose is to investigate what is mythical about Buddhism.

In any case, what is being discussed here is the historical person known as the Buddha, not the experience of being raised as an orthodox Buddhist.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#43

Post by gerdesj »

smadurange wrote: post #40

It's often hilarious when I hear western analyses of Buddhism and the Buddha. It's like a trying to understand general relativity using analogies and guesses. You feel like you understand it, till you get to the Mathematics of it. First of all drop your arrogance. And understand that your way of thinking is already shaped by deep underlying assumptions that often originated in a Christian backdrop, including western…

"In orthodox Buddhism, like that in Sri Lanka, the path to understanding Buddhism is uncontroversial, difficult but uncontroversial."

Nice.

"First of all drop your arrogance."

Not nice.

"Of course when you attach a loaded word like "myth" to anything that you can't experience from when and where you are now, none of that matters anymore."

It was time to start listening instead of speaking before this paragraph was typed.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#44

Post by sombremesa »

alexmingoia wrote: post #2

The article is correct in that Buddha being a prince is a myth. The Pali canon (Tripitaka) does not assert he lived in a palace, depending on the translation used. It states he was born in bhavana (Sn. 685) which has in the past been translated as palace but it simply means a place. When Buddha talks about his fathers abode he just refers to a house or mansion or family complex, using the word nivasana (A.I 145) whic…

Are you sure about this? "Bhavana" most certainly does not mean "a place" in modern parlance (see: "Rashtrapati Bhavan", which is the president's residence), and a lot of the other words have extant meanings in Hindi which differ significantly from what you've said here. Either Hindi has diverged a whole lot from Sanskrit and the meanings have changed (vimana literally means flying vehicle, and I'm pretty sure it's the same in Sanskrit), or you have some dubious sources.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#45

Post by dkarl »

haecceity wrote: post #30

I wonder if he would have scorned all this idolatry and worship. I think he would have.

I think he would have seen much contemporary Buddhist observance as entirely disconnected from his teachings. That doesn't necessarily mean he would have scorned it. There is one sutta in which a follower of a rival teacher was convinced by his teachings and wanted to follow him, and the Buddha advised him to continue respecting his former master. There are also important suttas in which he stressed that his own teachings are not "true" in an absolute sense, and religious teachings should be valued according to the extent to which they are helpful. I don't know the historical status of those suttas, but historically it doesn't seem common for first-gen carriers of the faith to retroactively exaggerate the uncertainty and doctrinal pragmatism of the founder of their religion. Many modern Buddhist teachers (notably the Dalai Lama) express great respect for the ability of other religions, including Islam and Christianity, to inspire and nurture spiritual progress in their followers. So he might look at modern Buddhists reciting nembutsu or leaving offerings at Buddha statues and say, I can't see any connection between these practices and what I tried to teach, but they seem to be helping people a little bit.

His attitude might also depend on how seriously he took rebirth, which was widely believed in his time and place and takes a central place in some of his teachings. It's a point of great controversy among contemporary Buddhists: was rebirth a part of the teachings because it was coincidentally an accepted view in the time and place where Gautama taught? Is it an inseparable part of Buddhism? Both, neither? Can you reject rebirth and still preserve the essence of Buddhism? If Gautama showed up in the present day and said, "Oh, practically nobody believes in rebirth anymore? No matter, I can teach everything I know to people who don't believe it," that would rock the world of Buddhism. But vice-versa probably wouldn't make much of a difference, and neither is going to happen anyway so we'll have to live with the controversy regardless.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#46

Post by smadurange »

kranner wrote: post #42
smadurange wrote: post #40

It's often hilarious when I hear western analyses of Buddhism and the Buddha. It's like a trying to understand general relativity using analogies and guesses. You feel like you understand it, till you get to the Mathematics of it. First of all drop your arrogance. And understand that your way of thinking is already shaped by deep underlying assumptions that often originated in a Christian backdrop, including western…

The person who wrote this article is a well-established Buddhist scholar who has actually spent years studying in schools, as you say one must, to study the history of Buddhism. Why wouldn't you say they were in a credible position to tell the world what is mythical about Buddhism? Becoming an orthodox Buddhist even feels like it would be counterproductive if one's purpose is to investigate what is mythical about Bud…

The issue I had with the original article is the way it starts by shedding what the author considers as myths.

As I mentioned, to understand Buddha's story, it should be done in the context of the most important teachings of Buddhism which I'm not going to go into here. Its almost like axioms in Mathematics. You don't pick the results you understand, and she'd the axioms that don't make sense to you. You can do it, but you are going to run into contradictions.

Buddhism is highly internally consistent despite the story being so old and informal in the sense of western philosophies. The danger of what she is trying to do here is that after you shed all the "myths", what you are going to end up with is mindful exercises for corporate events.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#47

Post by 8bitsrule »

This discussion has been going on for thousands of years. Considering the difficulties, and the shortness of life, one has to wonder how many of the discussers actually had the time to find liberation.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#48

Post by nabla9 »

smadurange wrote: post #40

It's often hilarious when I hear western analyses of Buddhism and the Buddha. It's like a trying to understand general relativity using analogies and guesses. You feel like you understand it, till you get to the Mathematics of it. First of all drop your arrogance. And understand that your way of thinking is already shaped by deep underlying assumptions that often originated in a Christian backdrop, including western…

> In orthodox Buddhism, like that in Sri Lanka, the path to understanding Buddhism is uncontroversial, difficult but uncontroversial.

After reading the memoirs of Bhante Henepola Gunaratana (the author of Mindfulness in Plain English) I get the impression that Sri Lankan Buddhism was degraded into pointless rote learning and empty rituals. When Bhante G. became a monk in 1940's monks didn't even practice meditation.

When religion becomes so ingrained into culture like it has in Asia, it seems that it becomes just empty conservative power structure, not different form Catholic Church in the west.

Sri Lanka and Burma have supremacist monks who advocate hate. Western Buddhists go to Burma and Asia to train with those few meditation teachers who know their stuff and learn from them while most Asians just see Buddhism as cultural tradition.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#49

Post by yumraj »

wefarrell wrote: post #10
jimhefferon wrote: post #5

> the modern mindfulness movement, inherited from fairly recent Burmese innovations I had not heard that. I had understood it to have something to do with interest in Zen, which had a revival in the West starting in the mid 1900's. But I admit I don't really know anything about it. Does someone have a reference?

Zen and Vipassana are the two major Buddhist practices which had revivals in the 20th century and gained popularity in the west. Vipassana was originally popularized amongst westerners by S. N. Goenka[1] who was a Hindi expat in Burma, where he learned the practice. Many of his western students went on to be prominent teachers[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._N._Goenka [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego…

> Hindi expat in Burma

Hindi is a language. I think you meant Hindu.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#50

Post by kranner »

smadurange wrote: post #46
kranner wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person who wrote this article is a well-established Buddhist scholar who has actually spent years studying in schools, as you say one must, to study the history of Buddhism. Why wouldn't you say they were in a credible position to tell the world what is mythical about Buddhism? Becoming an orthodox Buddhist even feels like it would be counterproductive if one's purpose is to investigate what is mythical about Bud…

The issue I had with the original article is the way it starts by shedding what the author considers as myths. As I mentioned, to understand Buddha's story, it should be done in the context of the most important teachings of Buddhism which I'm not going to go into here. Its almost like axioms in Mathematics. You don't pick the results you understand, and she'd the axioms that don't make sense to you. You can do it, b…

I still don't understand why one needs to know the teachings of Buddhism to understand the biographical details of Siddhattha Gotama. What sort of contradictions could arise?

The article does not discuss any kind of mindfulness exercises at all, or any other kind of meditation practice.

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