Robin's been doing work I promised myself I'd do several years ago, but both didn't have the time and didn't have the inspiration of Eddie Chai's materials. I now have to go back to my website and revise quite a few pages to "fix" the material in them. I have some minor and a few major mistakes there.
http://www.geocities.com/chris_holte
I have to confess I haven't had the heart in it since my attitude changed and I no longer could excuse the exclusivist, triumphalist, chauvinist and hell-fire messages coming from my formerly beloved associations. I would levy my own hellfire and brimstone attacks on the results of hellfire and brimstone teaching; but it would be misunderstood.
I'm continuing my "with the elephants" sojourne and am enjoying praying in hebrew and studying the Jewish Sages.
It's, as Paul described it, a great privilage to be initiated into the teachings of those sages and the law as seen by them. Shame he had to start a fight with his own teachers that continues to this day. Earlier I read (under guidance of another teacher) about his break with his own teachers and how he converted to Christianity. I just re-read Thessalonians with context and saw that he decided to pick a fight with, and turn on, Jesus's brother James and the entire senior leadership of Christian succession over the issue of circumcision. We see his side of the arguments, but we don't see James's and Barnabbas defending themselves in the "authorized" bible. It appears that their disciples eventually went back to being Jews, died in the revolt against the Romans, or became the ancestors of the persecuted Gnostic, Nestorian, Syrian and other 'heretical' churches also persecuted by later Christians.
I prefer reading the Jewish Sages, who were writing in the aftermath of the disaster that resulted from the failed revolts of 70AD-170AD, later events and who had to deal with a, by then, completely non-jewish Christianity who had inherited the hostility this break engendered plus the hostility that Jews had been traditionally facing from Romans and Greeks. All fascinating stuff. There is a chapter called "forbidden lectures" I'm reading with particular interest.
I'm not interested in the mysticism. I'm interested in how to rationally practice religion and reconcile it with reality. Obviously Christians can't help me here, neither can most Buddhists. But those sages can, they were picking up the pieces of a religiously caused disaster and resulting holocaust.
Chris
Posted by cholte at September 2, 2005 06:00 AMHi Chris,
Glad to hear you are delving into this and reflecting on these things. This is our own cultural heritage afterall. If you are interested in the more rational and practical side of Buddhism, I would suggest reading the Pali Canon and perhaps Bhikkhu Nanamoli's Life of the Buddha as a good place to start and get an overview.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
The closer I look, the more the anti-DG position falls apart. Nichiren did use the term Hokke-Shu. Those trees do grow on Minobu. It is all less simple than that. It is, or was, a valid mandala.
But it is NOT the DG.
And the people who have the real DG are teaching crypto-Shintoism; exactly whsat Nichiren opposed. Too ironic.
r
Robin: "The closer I look, the more the anti-DG position falls apart. Nichiren did use the term Hokke-Shu. Those trees do grow on Minobu. It is all less simple than that. It is, or was, a valid mandala."
We agree on this.
Robin: "But it is NOT the DG."
It is not "THE" only DG. If you follow the arguments it may well have been intended to be a copy or even an "original" of the DG as unified mandala/honzon and image of the ineffable "face" of the Buddha/ "magic mountain"/"heavenly universe".
"And the people who have the real DG are teaching crypto-Shintoism; exactly whsat Nichiren opposed. Too ironic."
They aren't teaching crypto shintoism they are teaching shinto-Buddhist/syncretism. Syncretism is probably the only rational way to teach Buddhism. It has been syncretic from the beginning, arising as it did in Hindu India. The Pali stuff is syncretic with that. No Nichiren was on the right track when he criticized the religion of his time.
Chris
Posted by: Chris at September 8, 2005 01:59 AMChris: I now have to go back to my website and revise quite a few pages to "fix" the material in them. I have some minor and a few major mistakes there.
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It was/is a pioneering effort. You broke some ground. There is still much hidden from our view.
r
Posted by: robin at September 11, 2005 10:57 AM