Please stop trolling the Buddhism DIR. There are hundreds of sutras that refute your position. You demand to reinterpret all of them based on your misunderstanding of one text. There is no debate on the subject of anatta in Buddhism.
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Anatta
- Thread starter dyanaprajna2011
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Please stop trolling the Buddhism DIR. There are hundreds of sutras that refute your position. You demand to reinterpret all of them based on your misunderstanding of one text. There is no debate on the subject of anatta in Buddhism.
I am asking you to stop trolling. Your refusal is noted.
There is no debate.
Ekanta
om sai ram
I agree, the sutras I quoted are obvious.
ratikala
Istha gosthi
namaste :namaste
please please may we be very carefull here ....you feel that there are hundreds of sutras that refute this position , but there are also many Mahayana sutras that give support to this position , surely you are not rejecting the Mahayana veiw?
please please may we be very carefull here ....you feel that there are hundreds of sutras that refute this position , but there are also many Mahayana sutras that give support to this position , surely you are not rejecting the Mahayana veiw?
One thing's for sure: this debate can certainly generate a lot of dukkha!
Buddha was one smart cookie when he said, "Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress.' Your duty is the contemplation, 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'"
Simsapa Sutta: The Simsapa Leaves
In the above sutta, he states that there are innumerable things that he did not teach, as they did not lead to the cessation of dukkha. However, he did teach about anatta, so it is a necessary component leading to Unbinding.
Buddha was one smart cookie when he said, "Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress.' Your duty is the contemplation, 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'"
Simsapa Sutta: The Simsapa Leaves
In the above sutta, he states that there are innumerable things that he did not teach, as they did not lead to the cessation of dukkha. However, he did teach about anatta, so it is a necessary component leading to Unbinding.
Mahayana Buddhists also accept the Buddha's teaching on anatta. We have 2500 years to reflect on. Every major Buddhist tradition teaches not-self. The entire Pali canon reflects the teachings on anatta. The Mahayana sutras do as well. If you can read the Diamond Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, or the Lankavatara Sutra without recognizing what the Buddha is saying about self and not-self, I don't know what to tell you. Not just those sutras, either. I will say it again, hundreds of sutras refute the idea that the Buddha taught atman. 2500 years of monastic commentary from Theravada and Mahayana traditions shows that monks and nuns understood that the Buddha taught anatta. Saying the "Mahayana view" is atman is wrong.
ratikala
Istha gosthi
again I reitterate , ''we need to be very carefull here'' .....it would 'appear' that some Mahayana texts seem to contradict theravada texts ? ...so instead of gettting hot under the collar I suggest we calmly discuss , after all the question only becomes suffering if we attatch too firmly to any one veiw , we should keep an open mind and discuss this subject .
ok every school teaches anatta , but practitioners themselves understand it differently , no self ? not self ? no soul ? not soul? no individual self ? no perminant self ? ... yet Mahayana teaches upon there being a true self to be realised as the ultimate reality , in which case the self which is rejected is the illusuory self of conventional reality , it is this illusuory self that acts as a fetter , here we are speaking of conditioned phenomena , the atman of the mahayana texts is our true nature not our personal identity .
instead of feeling threatened by a subject we should become brave enough to explore it , this is what lord Buddha instructed us to do , yet there is a tendancy to become complacent but this is dangerous as we can inadvertantly attatch to a wrong veiw .
are you familliar with Shantideva ? ... ''treat even your worst enemy as your most kind friend and teacher''
we should not be here to make a comfortable nest out of the teachings that we beleive that we understand , we should be fearless in our search of the truth .
Yes, I am familiar with Shantideva. He clearly teaches anatta. As does Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti, Buddhagosa, Bodhidharma...
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
There is a concept of anatta of which remains empty. It's " there", but not of which can ever be pointed and identified, nor of permanence, yet remains permanent.
The teachings require experience. Not debated by intellectual context of scripture which invariably leads to dukkha.
A good way imo to reflect on such paradoxes would be insight involving your own nature and form. Orginal face giving way to form, of which in turn, " orginal face ceases orginal face" , traversing the dynamics of cause and effect, subsiding, empty, thus illuminating the nature of ones originality by way of perpetuity.
It's my experience im willing to share. I think of my parents as being orginal face, their deaths and decomposition ceasing orginal face, yet still remains orginal face albiet no longer identifiable as orginal face in any respect.
Yet orginal face remains, of which can be pointed to and identified, and yet, cannot be pointed to nor identified harmonizing the paradox by avoiding extremes.
For me anyway, it's been my experiential understanding so far regarding anatman and atman and the reconciliation of written texts as well as it's valid contradictions therein, neither incorrect or correct, which exemplifies further still how such can be approached using the middle way.
The teachings require experience. Not debated by intellectual context of scripture which invariably leads to dukkha.
A good way imo to reflect on such paradoxes would be insight involving your own nature and form. Orginal face giving way to form, of which in turn, " orginal face ceases orginal face" , traversing the dynamics of cause and effect, subsiding, empty, thus illuminating the nature of ones originality by way of perpetuity.
It's my experience im willing to share. I think of my parents as being orginal face, their deaths and decomposition ceasing orginal face, yet still remains orginal face albiet no longer identifiable as orginal face in any respect.
Yet orginal face remains, of which can be pointed to and identified, and yet, cannot be pointed to nor identified harmonizing the paradox by avoiding extremes.
For me anyway, it's been my experiential understanding so far regarding anatman and atman and the reconciliation of written texts as well as it's valid contradictions therein, neither incorrect or correct, which exemplifies further still how such can be approached using the middle way.
DreadFish
Cosmic Vagabond
Also, a pertinent passage from the sutta that crossfire linked in another thread:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.002.than.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.002.than.html
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