Holte's corner

Hello Chris,

Hope you're well. I'll add now to this moment a bit of a wonder called "dejavu". Yes, a resurrection: I'm your friend gachiriki, who was gaged in the past and prevented from putting on a discussion board "difficult questions" about Buddhism. I would have heartfelt respect if I could excercise my civil right of freedom of expression in the following message. Now, after my emergence from the earth, let me comment on what you wrote:

>All sages claim to see the elephant. But each describes a different thing. People are even confused under the blind sages then they were before the sages claimed to have knowledge. They limit themselves to a single corner of the elephant. Their lack of knowledge becomes ignorance (ignore-ance).

How true! This was also the situation with Buddhism before Nichiren appeared. Each of the sages focused on a sutra rather than another and claimed to have knowledge of the whole,limiting themselves to a single corner of the elephant. (It is not degregatory, I think, to resemble the body of Buddhism by an elephant, associated with various spiritual depictions). The point is that each of the sutras was preached with the Buddha answering questions and speaking from the mind of ordinary people (thus you have sutras which reject that Buddhahood is possible for intellectual practitioners - shomon/engaku, or for women etc..)That was the situation of adopting to the mind of the unenlightened beings.

You may agree that the best description of the elephant would have come about through a miracle, when the elephant transforms itself into a human being, and starts defining its being. Nichiren referred to this auspicious declaration as the Buddha speaking of his own mind ( WND, 1128), and the record of the Buddha's mind and heart was the message of the Lotus Sutra, Thus I Heard.....

If the Lotus Sutra is of any benefit to humanity, it must provide a proof in actual reality. Otherwise it will be just a poetic text about an imaginary state, derived of any benefit to people. Fearing to take responsibility to reform their life in this lifetime, the Nembutsu school regarded the Lotus Sutra as a threat, because it abolished the ground of their belief in Amida's pradise after death.
Nichiren said that the Pure Land school believed that not a single person could ever attain Buddhahood after Shakyamuni (through the Lotus Sutra). One must agree that any school of thought, which is incapable of considering the Lotus as an actual tool for transformation into Buddhahood, would be incapable of assigning the word Buddha to any person who practiced the Lotus Sutra. This scenarion implicitly preaches the Death of Buddhism. The Death of Buddhism, because it tells people that after Shakyamuni Buddha died, humanity failed in produce any person of the same mind and heart of compassion. With Buddhahood reserved to one person each kalpa of human sufferings, such "buddhism' is questionable. Please take a galnce at the middle part of this webpage:

www.odaimoku.info

The Lotus Sutra is one of the most mystic texts in the history of humanity, and I believe that it is more than what 'sages' describe it. The Expedient Means Chapter says that you cannot fathom Buddhahood by intelect, and Nichiren says it is the heart what really matters.

namaste

Safwan

One point (there are many) of the Elephant allegory is that the "Elephant" is any reality that is too big for human beings to grasp. Abstract ideas themselves are "abstracted" from things that without a name would be insensible. Formulas, spells, images, words like "liberty", "Justice", "freedom"; all draw their meaning from shared context and the subject they refer to.

The founders of Buddhism limited the "Buddha" to the founder not because Buddhahood isn't available to other mortals but to solve the problem of confused religion. They could at least say that there was only one original Buddhas, just as there is usually only one person who gets credit for inventing the lightbulb, the potato chip, what-have you.

All other people reaching enlightenment are supposed to be content with reaching enlightenment. This whole worshiping of "person" just leads to transfered egoism, and cult
behavior on the part of people who forget that "they too can be enlightened" because some living person is posing as a perfect being.

The Buddha as Golden Man comes from the Greek (and
Egyptian/Babylonian) influence anyway. Early Buddhists imaged empty footprints. Personally my Buddha is that too -- a path to follow.

Chris

Scholastic honesty requires that you would support what you say or write with proofs. If you agree, then the requirement of proof applies to your extraordinary statement;

"The Buddha as Golden Man comes from the Greek (and Egyptian/Babylonian) influence anyway".

If this is correct, then I think you should either prove it or remove it from your records.

You have dug a tunnel in history of humanity to trace or link the origin of Buddhism (or Buddha as Golden Man in your description) to the Greek, Egyptian, Bablionian systems of thoughts. This is really astonishing, but my knowledge is not big and I wish to know how did you come to your conclusion, implying somehow that Buddhist spirituality in terms of Golden Man Buddha,
was "influenced" as you wrote by these 3
Middle Eastern sources.

Even if a concept of a Golden Man appeared before Shakyamuni, then this does not necessarily imply that Buddhism was "influenced", it rather implies that Buddhism is a common denominator of all humanistic cultures. Even the Babel/Egyptian Greek literature filled with violence, wars and acceptance of slavery, had a glimps of insight into removing suffering and wished for a Golden Buddha to appear.

The view that the "origin" of things come from one point imply a "vertical hierarchy". A "good example" here is the origin of humanity, Adam ( and then Eve)as viewed by MiddleEastern religions)

But in Nichiren Buddhism the "origin" is a shared, common and somehow horizontally
existing quality between all people. (the Buddha nature as an implicit quality in people since birth).

Safwan

I missed this or I would have responded earlier. The
evidence for the Greek influence is in the archeology. The earliest depictions of the Buddha show footprints. For further reading go here;

http://www.buddhafootprint.com/buddhafootprint/introduction.html

The interesting thing about it is the similarity to the Jewish/Islamic images of the "hand of God" -- since both refer to a similar function that might not be so surprising. A hand is so similar to a foot that in Spanish they use the same word. Not Hebrew or Arabic so this link is indirect.

Then when you move on in time:
http://www.thaiwaysmagazine.com/thai_article/2308_about_buddha_images/about_buddha_images.html

The earliest images of Buddha all were done under the influence of Greek culture. Nobody disputes this. Greek depictions of the human form are advanced and celebrate the human form. The ancient Egyptians also depict the human form pretty darn well. The Babylonians don't do as well.

I don't speak for Nichirenism. I speak for myself, but everything interfaces and interpolates with everything else. There are surprising interfaces, and given enought time I'll speculate about all of them. I will back my speculations with facts and observations -- and I hope other people will be so
self honest too. Real communication and dialog starts with self-honesty and resultant honest humility / realistic self-confidence.

In that we follow in the Footsteps of others and the mysterious footsteps of the ineffable.

Chris