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To: alt.islam,alt.religion.islam,alt.sufi,alt.consciousness,alt.magick.tyagi,talk.religion.buddhism,alt.religion.buddhism,talk.religion.misc From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva) Subject: Buddhism and Islam, Teachers and Lineage Date: 11 Apr 1996 01:30:29 -0700 49960407 (kaliyuga) assalam alaykum, my kin |From: Jinavamsa@aol.com |Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 01:11:14 -0500 |>|Is the Buddha considered not to be a true teacher because he had no teacher |>|and was a self-appointed teacher? |>...The Buddha is often depicted as having studied with two contemporaries |>and mastering their disciplines.... |Yes, he had two teachers, Aa.laara Kaalaama and then Uddaka Raamaputta (or |Raamaputra in Skt). PHarvey translates their names as Alara the Kalama and Uddaka the son of Rama |...both acknowledged him as fully educated in their disciplines, their discipline did not instruct in an intellectual fashion as much as in the mastering of certain states of consciousness. you are correct that the Buddhist sutras usually describe the Buddha as having mastered the states of mind over which these men were masters and transcending into the substratum states of consciousness 'upon which both of these were based', in the process becoming the master of each of his teachers |...he himself felt there were much more important stuff left to learn. yes, though this is usually described as 'perceiving that what he was taught was only part of a greater whole', founded upon more subtle awarenesses, etc. |He then went beyond their teachings ...and what he decided was worth |teaching (sometimes called the four noble truths including the fourth, |itself called the eight-fold path) was *not* something he had learned |from these two teachers. there are some who suggest that the teachings of the Samanas with whom the Buddha is said to have studied aside from his teachers comprise a great deal of what has come today to be called Buddhism and yet that what the Buddha made popular were the secret or advanced teachings of those individuals. in this way some claim for him a kind of 'funda- mental traditional origin' separate from the Brahmanism which was practiced by many Indians of the time in his area of India also, the way you describe it as the Buddha 'deciding what was worth teaching' is somewhat ambiguous and may lead us astray. rather than get into a detailed debate about what the Buddha taught and how, I would rather merely state alternatives I have heard and encourage the reader to consider carefully that matters regarding Buddhism are at times confusing and quite complex due its age and mobility) in any case I agree with you that the teachers of yogic concentration with whom the Buddha studied are not usually said to have originated what he taught. the same is also true of Muhammad, whose live was blessed by Allah with the recitation of _Al Qur'an_ (a revelation to which his human friends and teachers had no previous exposure as I understand it; corrections welcome) |So in that relevant way, he did not have teachers. what constitutes 'relevance' is a matter of debate. as I said above, some think the Buddha's teachers of a great portion of his material may have been the Samanas, whom PHarvey describes in this way: The time of the Buddha was one of changing social conditions, where the traditions of small kin-based communities were bing undermined as these were swallowed up by expanding kingdoms, such as those of Magadha and Kosala. A number of cities had developed which were the centres of administration and of developing organized trad, based on a money economy. The ideas expressed in the *Upanisads* were starting to filter out into the wider intellectual community and were being hotly debated, both by Brahmins and wandering philosophers, known as *Samanas*, who were somewhat akin to the early Greek philosophers and mystics. The *Samanas* rejected the Vedic tradition and wandered free of family ties, living by alms, in order to think, debate and investigate. _An Introduction to Buddhism_, by PHarvey, Cambridge University Press, 1991; p. 11. _______________________________ many Samanas in fact taught similar or the same things as the Buddha, such as the doctrines of Rebirth and Karma which are traditionally associated with Buddhism. traditional Buddhist teachings also indicate that other Samana sects or strands were evaluated and reviewed by the Buddha, contrasting his own Middle Way with the teachings of various others in the Samana movement |(If you have a teacher who teaches you the alphabet and you then go off and |start reading and composing poetry on your own, that goes way beyond what |your teachers taught you. Just a metaphor.) Gotama Buddha life is a formula, an example, a shining beacon of success to those of us who suffer and wonder how this suffering might be ended. it did not begin at his instruction of yogic meditation. this was a very particular time wherein he learned subtle concentration techniques to which he would add a great cache of others in consequence of his explorations in the fields of consciousness his first instruction came as a Prince of a large kingdom in India. he was given everything a boy could want, though spared specific types of phenomenon (that later became transformative for him) such as the awareness of illness, age, death and monasticism on account of his father's desire for him to succeed him as ruler. there had been prophesies concerning what would happen should he learn of these things the bulk of the instruction concerning the life of the Buddha within modern Buddhism was created, as so many of the mystics after him, a half-dozen centuries after his death, compiled of various traditional and oral accounts from all this I do see your point. the Buddha discovered something NEW. he was moving BEYOND the teachings of his contemporaries, exploring and discussing/instructing on the various meditational methods he amassed and yet his instruction reflects his encounter with the Real. Buddhist instruction variably categorizes what he engaged as 'buddha-consciousness', 'nirvana' or 'perfect enlightenment', and often qualifies all methods taught by the Buddha and his successors as '(kausalya) upaya' or 'skilful means' upaya is reminiscent of the classification system I have heard spoken of by Muslims, according that a variety of rules/restrictions/practices are available and that one's level of understanding and awareness might dictate what practice/teaching was appropriate to the level of the student (the guide/sheikh/master/sensei providing valuable input here) |My question was simply about the idea that a teacher cannot be a teacher if |the lineage of that teacher does not satisfy a particular scrutiny. Gotama's lineage begins with him in conservative accounts, yet there are also teachings which asertain the Buddha's instruction to have been at a certain point in his innumerable lives (rebirth is a fundamental doctrine within Buddhism and many of the surrounding religious of the Buddha's time) one account has him studying under the buddha Dipankara, for example, and some Buddhists teach that Gotama was the final and perfect One who had been born as all previous Buddhas in a type of mystical relation into which we might join (compare this to the 'Golden Chain' of traditional sufism in that the buddhas form a 'chain' of rebirth and within each is a graduated development of consciousness) |it applied in a way not only to the Buddha but also to Mohammed himself, |in a way that it does not apply to those who heard from ..... who heard |from Mohammed. I would compare Muhammad's engagement of al Haqq, the Real, through His agent Gabriel, with the Buddha's 'perfect enlightenment'. both are reputed to have gone into seclusion (Muhammad to a cave). both came away from the experience with instruction for the composition of a new of religious practice varying from that around them (Muhammad contrasting his monotheism with the polytheism of the surrounding Meccan region) it seems to me that the Buddha does qualify here within certain accounts of his life/lives, but these are very extensive and may support all manner of assertion peace be with you, my kin Haramullah tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com
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