Hello again, Alex! Alex Bunard wrote: > You could be right on that. However, please keep in > mind that I didn't necessarily claim that it really is > a question of denial of self. All I said was that > denial of self is one of the cornerstones of the > Buddhist practice. In case you have any doubts, you > can verify this claim by leafing over any classic > Buddhist textbook. Basically, the first thing all > Buddhist do is reject the self. Anatman is the name of > the Buddhist game.
No, I have no doubts about this; I know what's in the classic Buddhist textbooks (Rahula, What the Buddha Taught; Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching; Williams, Buddhist Thought; Sheng-Yen, Hoofprint of the Ox to name a few, since scholarship seems to be important to you and I'm not ashamed of having read them). And I know that anatman/anatta is the name of the Buddhist game (as you phrase it). I would venture, though, that what's come down to us about denial of self is a theory--and theories tend to be quite well-formed, but not exactly the way things actually work. (Consider, for example, what's written in books about "our government"--be it Canadian, American or Finnish--and how we are actually governed, how our laws are actually made and enforced.) You did, if I remember correctly, ask in your earlier post for people's personal take on this, not for a parroting of what's in the texts. This brings me to ask you, Alex, who you present to your students as an example of the truly selfless or anatman-type person. How do you help your students see how that person bring anatman to life in their daily doings? If your students could be guided to see such a person and discover how that person lives, they would surely no longer find the theory of denial of self baffling. I think the example person would have to be chosen with care, though. Pointing to the long dead who have become semi-mythologized like the historical Buddha or the Fifth Patriarch would probably not be as convincing as pointing to the woman in the check-out line or the man on the corner (or, as some on the list have been doing, to their own living teacher). > if someone claims to be a > genuine Zen practitioner while openly despising > 'intelectual nit-picking' that Madhyamika brings > about, I'd say that person needs some more > instructions in his orientation. I certainly agree with you there. My point was simply that different sects have different atmospheres and one who enters a group (as you and I have done with this one) needs to mirror or at least be politely aware of group ethos. It's the sort of self-monitoring that stops Canadians and Americans from blurting out every observation that comes to mind when they cross that long border and enter their neighbouring country. (If you know Finland's geography, you'll understand that we say even less when visiting our neighbours.) James ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/hjtSRD/3MnJAA/i1hLAA/S27xlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, Right Livelihood Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZenForum/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
