Philosophy

There seems to be some fad these days in which buddhism has got a rarefied appeal specially in western nations whereby wearing robes makes one spiritual enough regardless of the fact whether they even believe in renunciation (nekkhamma) Lots of so called monks even start a website dhamma in which they solicit for cash donation which is forbidden in vinaya ( reasons which I shall explain) as well as inviting others to come join them in retreat again a rubbish notion as nowhere in pali texts buddha went out in villages exhorting others to join him or visit him in one of his vassas ( rainy retreat). These monks should be known as puthujjana bhikkus or worldly bhikkus, as such was the case as well during time when buddha was preaching. A late Pitaka book has even the coined term " average-good-monk " ( puthujjana - kalyanaka- bhikkhu ), the first adjective having been earlier applied only to the common man of the world. Buddha also talked about the difference between Puthujjana ...

There seems to be lots of interpretation regarding Anatta ( pali not self).some interpret Anatta to be Nihilism, some interpret it to mean as lack of self in phenomena only therby deducing some universal self. To understand Anatta one has to first understand atta/atman and its meaning in Indian brahmanical thought. Atta in pali is same as Atman in sanskrit both denote 'essentialhood'. Vedic philosophy was based on agni/fire oblation sacrifical rituals. In the Vedas , Agni is called Jata-vedas or the knower of all births as he knows the births of all creatures as their indwelling Self(atman). Fire or agni therefore is a metaphor in brahmanical philosophy so as to denote dynamism principle of creation and therefore the idea of motion or cosmos.Fire was considered to have manifested as well as unmanifested(avaykta) state, the manifested was the one with form(akhara) and was the medium to communicate with the Brahman( unmanifested). That unmanifested(avyakta) or Brahman is the es...

A certain young man a rhetorician came to see Epictetus, with his hair dressed more carefully than was usual and his attire in an ornamental style; whereupon Epictetus said: Tell me you do not think that some dogs are beautiful and some horses, and so of all other animals. "I do think so," the youth replied. Are not then some men also beautiful and others ugly? "Certainly." Do we, then, for the same reason call each of them in the same kind beautiful, or each beautiful for something peculiar? And you will judge of this matter thus. Since we see a dog naturally formed for one thing, and a horse for another, and for another still, as an example, a nightingale, we may generally and not improperly declare each of them to be beautiful then when it is most excellent according to its nature; but since the nature of each is different, each of them seems to me to be beautiful in a different way. Is it not so? He admitted that it was. That then which makes a dog ...

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if you will ever dig. The art of life is more like the wrestler's art than the dancer's, in respect of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unexpected. Take care not to feel towards the inhuman, as they feel towards men. Everything material soon disappears in the substance of the whole; and everything formal (causal) is very soon taken back into the universal reason; and the memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time. How many after being celebrated by fame have been given up to oblivion; and how many who have celebrated the fame of others have long been dead. Be not ashamed to be helped; for it is your business to do the duty like a soldier in the assault on a town. How then, if being lame you cannot mount up on the battlements alone, but with the help of another it is possible? When you have done a good act and another has received it, why d...

A short post on that dependent origination chain, a good scholarly article by polish author joanna jurewicz in which she tries to relate how each element of that chain was an attempt by buddha to reinvent the brahmanism karmakanda or yajna process from birth to death known is the 16 samskrtas or rites of passage, good work .

Thats a great question and my answer is yes in bits and pieces but not as a whole .Why do i say that? because if one understands textual evidence then it is clearly made up of strata with different chronology.Now buddhism as we know as of now is very much in formalised form, call it as a finished product which the compilers worked on so as to reduce the anomalies and give it a uniform structure Clearly identifying such strata in that structure is a key to understand the development of buddhism starting from buddha itself,in fact questions could be raised as to what determines or shows us that this entire development was set in motion by a historical buddha. Well buddhism as we all know is a organisational based movement and clearly such movement does require a central figure, a core tenet, a person which did indeed set the ball rolling , without that there is no possibility to see how an organisation of a grand scale which encompassed half of civilisation could even sustain itself Like...