Theravada and Mahayana

[RongzomFan]

No....I respect Theravada not love it.

 

You talk about the Pali Canon or Theravada in every post.

[林愛偉]

The monk was asked specifically about differences

 

 

This is a good approach because you can keep an open heart and cultivate what resonates with you

 

Nonetheless, principles are theory... and only practice matters.

 

I will explain this idea with an historical example.

Christianity as it is known today was born by the hard work of St. Paul and some friends.

The original idea was very simple and could be considered as the "core" of Christianity:

"There's just one God and people cannot worship other deities, otherwise it's a sinful act.

But since God has no image, you should worship Jesus because not only he have a form, but he retains his physical body in the Heavens"

 

But people were not happy with this: they had thousands of deities. One God is just not enough.

So, it was established devotion to Saints, Martyrs and Virgin Mary in replacement of the old pantheon.

The old shrines were transformed in accordance with the new religion and the old gods became Saints: same functions, same roles, very similar rituals and beliefs ... but names changed.

The theological argument was "You can pray them and they can perform miracles, but those miracles are not from their own: when you pray to them, they ask to God in turn. And God may intercedes in your favor."

 

The principles is "There is just one God".

The practice instead, is a nice polytheism because there's no difference in the way one worships a Saint or God.

 

Personally, I think that a similar thing happened with buddhism: people were not happy in having no Gods... so, it was established the cult of bodhisattva.

The principles are different from other religions.... but practice is the same since people worship bodhisattvas and Buddhas as Christians worship God and the Saints.

 

Christian theory " I worship because in this way I will go to heaven"

Buddhist theory "I worship because in this way I will be a bodhisattva and then a Buddha"

 

But, since fundamentally they are doing the same thing, how could they expect different results?

 

Oh I did not see this before, sorry Dao...

 

Well, principles and theories are totally different. Theories speak on possibility, whereas Principle speaks from a foundation.

A theory must be put to use before it can become a fact, thus a principle can be spoken of which leads one to their goal. Principle is the foundation of application: Here is a mannerism to apply, thus your goal would be inevitable.

 

Both must be practiced, or they would be useless. When I speak on focusing on principles, it is in light of applying them, rather than worrying about who did what some time after the Buddha entered nirvana.

 

I take from whatever sutra comes my way and within it, whatever teaching makes sense. It is all Buddha-dharma within the Buddha's teachings.

 

Ven. Ananda compiled the sutras, began each sutra with "Thus I Have Heard". He questioned the Buddha about the discourses he spoke of prior to Ananda's leaving of the home life. Thanks to him, we have sutras to read and contemplate.

 

Mahayana, Hinayana...not important, but said to be so to get living beings to develop a caring heart towards each other, instead of bailing out. Does it matter to stick around? Yes, because there is truthfully no where to go, and no where to remain.

[joeblast]

Theories speak on possibility, whereas Principle speaks from a foundation.

Awesome

[stefos]

You really need to read Nagarjuna's Reason Sixty.

No, I really don't. Shankaracharya made mincemeat out out the Madhyamika's.

 

You should read "Self Liberation through seeing with Naked Awareness" by Guru Padmasambhava

 

You talk about the Pali Canon or Theravada in every post.

It's because they are the only ancient school left around and I use them as a de facto example, that's all.

 

Theravada needs to clean up a lot of disjointed things (meditation practice wise & philosophically) that they hold.

 

I respect Theravada but not the ultra-rationalism...The Buddha did talk about devas, maras, bodhisattas, etc.

 

Stefos

[RongzomFan]

No, I really don't. Shankaracharya made mincemeat out out the Madhyamika's.

 

 

Did he? He only had one criticism towards Madhyamaka. You do realize that Advaita is derived from Madhyamaka right?

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=sx12hxoFVqwC&pg=PA88&dq=The+Method+of+Early+Advaita+Ved%C4%81nta+It+is+not+a+matter+for+dispute+whether&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wr8ZUZ7iGceR0QGHuID4Cw&ved=0CDMQuwUwAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Method%20of%20Early%20Advaita%20Ved%C4%81nta%20It%20is%20not%20a%20matter%20for%20dispute%20whether&f=false

Edited February 15, 2013 by alwayson

[stefos]

Did he? He only had one criticism towards Madhyamaka. You do realize that Advaita is derived from Madhyamaka right?

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=sx12hxoFVqwC&pg=PA88&dq=The+Method+of+Early+Advaita+Ved%C4%81nta+It+is+not+a+matter+for+dispute+whether&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wr8ZUZ7iGceR0QGHuID4Cw&ved=0CDMQuwUwAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Method%20of%20Early%20Advaita%20Ved%C4%81nta%20It%20is%20not%20a%20matter%20for%20dispute%20whether&f=false

Yes, he did because ALL Buddhist schools, not the Pali texts & not Dzogchen...perhaps Mahamudra, believe in "momentariness"....Guess what? you can't even have skhanda's or a "mind stream" without continuity or "Non-momentariness"...Hence the reason why the Alaya-Vijnana concept was thought up by later Buddhists which is nothing but Brahman without calling it so.

 

For your information, read "The Brahma Sutras" by Swami Sivananda: Chapter 2, Section 2 Sutras18-32.....

You'll see how the Vaibashika, Sautrantika, Yogachara & Madhyamika get "addressed".....and subsequently denied via their own logic.

 

Dzogchen & Theravada never operated on the above lines....Smart....

All the above schools are later so-called Buddhists embellishments....The don't even acknowledge the Pali texts.

I've yet to see a Tibetan school not down the Thera's as "Hinayana"....Why? Don't they know that they're 2 different schools?

 

Lastly, I don't think you "believe" in anything (probably quasi-"Buddhist") but are here to just rage out and be polemic.

Check yourself and your belief system.

 

That's my last statement to you buddy...Take care....Drop the hate. No more communication from me to you at all.

Stefos

[RongzomFan]

Its funny that you cite people like Swami Sivananda and Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna cult.

[9th]

An unregistered Rohingya child draws on the wall of a classroom provided by the charity democracy icon and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi as a human rights activist for Burma’s Buddhists. Suu Kyi, he said, is “only interested in the human rights of the Buddhists because they are human beings and the Muslims are not.”

While the emotion behind the statement is understandable, there is a political calculus at play. Aung San Suu Kyi has little to gain from speaking out against the treatment of the Rohingya Muslims. She is no longer a political dissident, she’s a politician and her eyes are fixed on a prize: winning the 2015 election with a majority Buddhist vote.

Prior to his lecture in Brunei, Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu sent a letter to Suu Kyi on behalf of OIC in which he pressed the National League for Democracy (NLD) leader to use her enormous awza, or earned societal influence, to help stem the tide of Buddhist racism against the Rohingya and the Muslim population at large. The letter was met with silence. In failing to decry the human rights abuses against the Rohingya, Burma’s iconic leader—who is seen in some Burmese Buddhist circles as bhodhi saddhava (“would-be Buddha”)—has failed to walk the walk of Buddhist humanism.

Over the course of the past few years an extremely potent and dangerous strain of racism has emerged among Burma’s Theravada Buddhists, who have participated in the destruction and expulsion of the entire population of Rohingya Muslims. The atrocities occurring in the name of Buddhist nationalism in Burma are impossible to reconcile with the ideal of metta. Buddhist Rakhine throw young Rohingya children into the flames of their own homes before the eyes of family members. On June 3, 10 out-of-province Muslim pilgrims were pulled off a bus in the Rakhine town of Taunggoke, about 200 miles west of the former capital Rangoon, and beaten to death by a mob of more than 100 Buddhist men. The crime occurred in broad daylight and in full view of both the public and local law enforcement officials.

[stefos]

Its funny that you cite people like Swami Sivananda and Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna cult.

 

Look, Swami Sivananda did what he did.....Swami Prabhupada did what he did.

I just used what was easily available.....whatever.

 

You want to research, you can but you are too intellectually lazy to do so and therefore wanted me to drone endlessly about things.

 

Sorry, It isn't going to happen anymore.

 

Stefos

 

P.S. Stop trolling and live your Buddhism......

You're not a Buddhist....therefore I choose to dismiss you permanently along with your petty comments.

Post grown up posts and don't waste peoples time again.

Edited February 22, 2013 by stefos

[Simple_Jack]

Buddhism tends to take on the cultural flavor of the countries it's disseminated into. Looking at China, we can see how it adapted and evolved into a distinct Chinese form of Buddhism (such as the Pure Land sect, Ch'an, Tien-Tai, etc.) If I recall correctly, there was a Ch'an abbot (eh, can't recall his name right now) who made a major change to how the monastic system operated. This is what led to the monastic communities becoming agricultural based, which ultimately allowed them to accommodate the growing number of people who joined the monasteries.

 

You can read about this in Nan Huaijin's "Basic Buddhism: Exploring Buddhism and Zen." It also goes over the general development of Buddhism throughout it's history in China (Nan Huaijin's "The Story of Chinese Zen," deals more specifically with the development of Ch'an in China.)

Correction: This was Ch'an master Baizhang, dealing with the formation of the Ch'an monastic system.

 

Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baizhang_Huaihai