On Aug 20, 2008, at 11:12 PM, awgabis wrote:
Thanks for the response. I cited this quote in a letter to a Vedic scholar (not a personal friend), and realized afterward that it would be nice to have a bit of background on it. I know next to nothing about Buddhist teachings or practice, or their source. My next step after consulting this group would have been the public library.
One of the points that's lost in the tendency for scholars to pigeonhole and define "religion" is that there is a huge degree of overlap between certain traditions. The closest lineal teaching to what's left of "the Vedas", (i.e. the Rig, Sama and Yajur Vedas) in terms of evolutionary development of consciousness is Buddhism and Bon Po. Advaita Vedanta is actually a later Hindu fundamentalist response to the growth of Indian Buddhism, esp. Nagarjuna, stemming from the Vaishnavite thinker Shankara. What many don't realize is that some early rishis are looked upon as proto-Buddhists from within Buddhist tradition. "Buddhism" did not begin with Shakyamuni, he is simply the first Buddha of this age. Many Buddhas came before him and thus it should come as no surprise that if we can look into the remote past we should see similar unitary schools of awakening. Many Vedic rishis came from what were pre-Buddhist Tibeto-Himalayan traditions.
This quote seems pretty widely published -- at least on the net anyway. Others are posting here that there isn't much profundity in it. I might respectfully disagree. I think it highlights a key aspect of knowledge and knowing. A point that is much more important that people realize, and apparently, from what I've observed, much *less* appreciated than one might expect -- even among the educated (and enlightened) class -- among spiritual seekers in fact.
It's considered central because the principle of awakening cannot come from books, authorities, etc. It has to come from within. Because of this Shakyamuni insisted we compare everything based on our own awakening rather than anything external, much like gold is tested for authenticity: beat it, pound it, heat it. One can come into the View of the Enlightened Condition and "test" reality, each in our own way.
This whole notion of knowledge that "comes from within", gives one pause when you consider that we are each a complete, self-contained, "thinking" universe unto ourselves, but are yet somehow connected to one another in this moment's reality.
Yes, this is what Buddhist's call interdependent origination (Skt.: pratityasamutpada).
Throw into the mix that time is an illusion, and that simple causality has been turned on its head by modern physics, and you aren't so ready to condemn those who would take (or mistake) the suggestion of, say, a respected elder or teacher as the actual, ultimate, cosmic truth. Still, I am of a mind to get to the bottom of things on my own, with the modest powers of cognition that I possess, and I believe that that was what the Buddha (or his biographers) were getting at with this.
