Vivekanand and the Buddha

[Guest guest]

Hello Paresh,

I am new to this list and yet feel I might be able to address your questions a bit.

First of all I believe you are referring to Shakyamuni, Siddhartha Gautama, who upon his Awakening became known as The Buddha, right?

 

As I understand it, the most important thing to address in your queries are whether they come from your heart and have relevance to your life and the work to end suffering or are they merely academic questions. If they are just academic, then their value is quite limited. If, there is a need to understand the things that might unite these strands that might assist you personally, then there is value. Otherwise, I believe we waste all our time on fruitless speculation.

 

The Buddha´s Enlightenment was said to be Complete and thus his Awakening said to pierce through all illusory concepts. that includes concepts such as mind/body dualisms and "unity." I would say that he understood ego to be simply the admixture of the skandhas and karmic predelictions--and nothing more. Ego is the sense of I am that accrues to the skandhas based on past consequences coming to fruition and the constant grasping after things. to say then that ego is an illusion is not Buddhist. Ego is provisionally "real" and functionable. However, ther is no atman, no permanent self in Buddhism. Points one and two are then not really true.

 

The Buddha very carefully avoided concretizing any notion of Absolute Reality saying predominantly that nirvana was the elimination of all unwholesome tendencies, a state beyond description. there remains in Buddhism a tendecy to emphasize the negative descriptions partly because that is what he did--in order to avoid the trap of reifying concepts which lead to satic understanding, not a dynamic and living one. He did accept the noton of gods but they too were seen as subject to (merely longer) lifespans that end and suffering. He never referred to a "source" and what he "felt" in meditation is simpy speculative.

 

Thus points 3 and 4 are not correct.

I believe we owe it to ourselves to look carefully at the respective traditions we are interested in and listen to their viewpoints from "inside the corcle" as my old Zen teacher said. While I accept the notion that the end we seek is common, and I am a Buddhist, what that means for me is simply that we cannot understand the Absolute, which is apprehensible but not comprehensible. Thus all words and descriptions fail us ultimately. We should instead get on with the work of ending suffering and leading lives filled with Compassion and Wisdom. Intellectual speculation, even of the religious kind, was seen by the Buddha as not conducive to Liberation.

With palms pressed together,

José

[Guest guest]

Ramakrishna , Jose <nodozejoze> wrote:>

> I believe we owe it to ourselves to look carefully at the respective

traditions we are interested in and listen to their viewpoints

from " inside the corcle " as my old Zen teacher said. While I accept the

notion that the end we seek is common, and I am a Buddhist, what that

means for me is simply that we cannot understand the Absolute, which is

apprehensible but not comprehensible. Thus all words and descriptions

fail us ultimately. We should instead get on with the work of ending

suffering and leading lives filled with Compassion and Wisdom.

Intellectual speculation, even of the religious kind, was seen by the

Buddha as not conducive to Liberation.

> With palms pressed together,

> José

>

 

Namaste,

 

A series of postings appeared on this subjectin the advaitin

list, the first one at:

 

advaitin/message/9614

 

 

Regards,

 

Sunder