The uniqueness and validity of the Buddhist path

[Guest guest]

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~pushpasri/buddhism/budh_unique.html

[Guest guest]

Namaste:

 

I am happy to inform you all that the website below sited by Sri

Nanda Chandran is an excellent one. The actual title of the page is -

"Sarva Dharshana Samgrah - A Compendium of Philosophies" and I wonder

why Sri Nanda chose to name the thread title differently.

 

The homepage discusses Vedas, Upanishads, Gita, Dharmasastras and

Heterodox and Orthodox systems of philophies within the umbrella of

Hinduism. Honestly, I would question Nanda's subject title, "The

Uniqueness and validity of the Buddhist path" because all the systems

discussed in the homepage are unique and valid to the believers of

those systems!

 

The entire homepage is jointly prepared by Nanda Chandran and Vishal

Aggarwal and they have been developing the materials for the past

several years. The outcome of their effort is great and I am quite

confident that this homepage will serve as a ready reference for

those who seek clarifications. I have one suggestion for the authors

to consider - In the frint page, brief summaries of the content of

the materials on the discussed systems will guide the reader quickly

to the appropriate place of the homepage using hypertext.

 

Finally may I request Sri Nanda to post to this list with a couple of

pages summarizing the content of his homepage,

 

Warmest regards,

 

Ram Chandran

 

 

advaitin, "vpcnk" <vpcnk@H...> wrote:

> http://www.home.earthlink.net/~pushpasri/buddhism/budh_unique.html

[Guest guest]

> The actual title of the page is -

> "Sarva Dharshana Samgrah - A Compendium of Philosophies" and I

wonder

> why Sri Nanda chose to name the thread title differently.

 

Ram, I'd actually announced this website on this list a long time

back - 6 months back I think.

 

The current thread was a new piece I'd written recently. That's why I

posted about it now.

 

And the intent is not to say only the Buddhist path is valid. All

paths are valid to a certain degree. I merely wanted to point out the

unique features of Buddhism - its philosophy and path - that's all.

 

But there's a significant relation drawn to Advaita as well in the

article.

[Guest guest]

Namaste

 

Sri Nandaji. I thoroughly enjoyed (and was enlightened) reading

the cited webpage on Buddhism.

I read recently a book on the life and teachings of The Buddha,

which emphasized his previous lives and linked them to every

action of his in this life. For example, here is a paragraph

from the book:

---------------------------

It is important to realize that buddhahood is not just a mental

enlightenment experience, a realization of the Dharma, a

doctrinal truth. It is also a karmic achievement that is

accomplished and expressed somatically. Buddhahood must be

realized in the body just as surely as it must be realized in

the mind. What embodies the Buddha are the perfections he

practiced in his past lives. Thus the Pali text devoted to

describing the “great man’s” thirty-two physiognomic marks – the

marks of the wheel on the Buddha’s hands and feet, the

protuberance (uSnISa) on the top of his head, the circle of hair

(UrNA) between his eyebrows, his long tongue, etc.- tries to

explain how various marks result from various perfections. The

same thing is worked out in greater detail in a number of

mahAyAna texts which show how specific past actions of the

Buddha resulted in each of the thirty-two major and eighty minor

specific physical features of his body.

Karma is a two-sided coin, however, and while the jatakas

generally feature the positive side of the bodhisattva’s

accomplishments, they occasionally mention the negative. .....

The imperfections suffered by the Buddha in his final life as

Gautama – digestive problems, headaches, slight injuries, etc.

are but the tail-end karmic results of rather despicable deeds –

murder, false accusations – done by the bodhisattva in past

lives, deeds for which he had already reaped the karmic rewards,

by having been reborn in the hells for numerous lifetimes, but

which he had not completely exhausted.

pp.31-32 of The Buddha, a short biography. By John S. Strong,

Oneworld Publications, Oxford.

----------------------------

Nandaji, I would appreciate your comments on this view of

Strong, just for my own enlightenment on the life of The Buddha.

Thanks.

 

praNAms to all advaitins

profvk

 

 

 

 

=====

Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

My website on Science and Spirituality is http://www.geocities.com/profvk/

You can access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought Vision and

Practice, and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's manuscripts from the site.

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

>It is important to realize that buddhahood is not just a mental

>enlightenment experience, a realization of the Dharma, a

>doctrinal truth.

 

But even the latter is only a mental experience, no?

 

Nirvaana though expressed in phenomenal terms like "end of suffering"

or "elimination of kleshas" still has to be a metaphysical truth for

it to represent a permanent end to suffering. Shankara's dialectic

against Patanjala Yoga and the Svaatantra Vijnaanavaada Buddhists has

to be understood in this regard.

>Buddhahood must be realized in the body just as surely as it must be

>realized in the mind.

 

Sure – but it is to be noted that one needs the mind for the body

itself to work. And the mind is more acutely "conscious" than the

body. That's the reason the mind represents the gateway to nirvaana

and not the body.

 

Reality is not the psycho physical faculties. But on release it does

have its effect on the psycho physical faculties. So when talking

about liberation you can talk from the standpoint of the spirit or

you can talk from the standpoint of the psycho physical faculties.

Historically the differences we find in the darshanas is due to each

school talking about reality from its own preferred standpoint – for

eg while Advaita talks from the standpoint of the spirit

(atman/Brahman), Buddhism talks about it from the phenomenal sense as

end of suffering, elimination of kleshas etc, while yoga talks it

from the standpoint of the mind – chitta vritti nirodah.

>What embodies the Buddha are the perfections he

>practiced in his past lives. Thus the Pali text devoted to

>describing the "great man's" thirty-two physiognomic marks – the

>marks of the wheel on the Buddha's hands and feet, the

>protuberance (uSnISa) on the top of his head, the circle of hair

>(UrNA) between his eyebrows, his long tongue, etc.

 

Actually this is personally very surprising to me because right from

childhood I've had a circle of hair right between my eyebrows – this

was actually first noticed by an aanchaneya upaasakar (one who

preaches the tales and virtues of Lord Hanuman) and pointed out to my

grandfather as something auspicious, when I was a small baby.