--- In [email protected], Mel <gunnar19632000@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Steve
> Â
> Thanks for that one as well
> Â
> Buddha be praised
> Mel
>
Hi Mel. I hope you are well. This is something that I think should be kept in
mind when reading the Sutras. Some literature, such as the
Prajnaparamita literature, approach Suchness from a negative slant, while other
documents, such as the Lotus Sutra and the Nirvana Sutra, deliberately employ
positive language. The Awakening of Faith, in my opinion, uses both types of
language. There is a tendancy, particularly in the West, to see the negative
language as being more
"true" than the positive approach. However, in my opinion, when Nagarjuna wrote
his famous Negations, he wasn't trying to give us an
ontological explanation of reality; he was just trying to get us to stop
talking about it! In my opinion, the Nirvana Sutra (more properly
the Mahaparanirvana Sutra) was deliberately written in order to correct a
growing tendancy towards nihilism in the Mahayana. Nagarjuna
warned against this nihilistic tendancy. It is sometimes called "Falling into
Emptiness." Ultimately, in my opinion, both the negative and the positive
language approaches are beside the point. The point is to awaken to the "One
Taste" of Suchness, not just talk about it (And here I am talking about it!).
But then we come to the paradox of practice. The very notion that I, as a
personal, individual ego, am going to take up meditation or some other practice
in order to transcend the personal, individual ego, is a contradiction in
terms! But that's another topic.
Steve
> --- On Tue, 8/3/11, SteveW <eugnostos2000@...> wrote:
>
> Some Buddhist documents deliberately use negative
> language, while other documents deliberately use positive
> language. But all language fails, imo. We can't really talk
> about it, but we can taste it.
> Steve
>
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