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From: mayne@sun10.scri.fsu.edu (William (Bill) Mayne)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Buddha Dharma and free thinking
Message-ID: <1990Dec11.022212.10949@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 11 Dec 90 02:22:12 GMT
References: <1990Dec7.011311.2389@nas.nasa.gov> <1990Dec8.020416.27265@nas.nasa.gov>
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In article <1990Dec8.020416.27265@nas.nasa.gov> kde@heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov ( Keith Evans) writes:
>...In the first 42 years of Shakyamuni's preaching life,
>he taught according to the minds of the people, with his bodhisattvas
>asking questions and even answering them, too. Ignorant people in this
>day and age read them and thinking that since it accords with their mind
>that is must be the Way. Also in these earlier sutras, he taught that
                                                        --------------
>women and men of learning could not attain Buddhahood. If he said such
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>things then, how can these sutras have any value now?

I seriously doubt that he said such things then. He may have said that
through learning *alone* men and women cannot attain Buddhahood, but
that is an entirely different statement. I challenge you to site one
reference from the Pali canon which, taken in context, supports your
claim.

Actually I think it a preposterous and even slanderous charge against
Sakyamuni to suggest he practiced deliberate deception for most of
his life. If that were the case why would you accept something he
supposedly taught at the end of his life? If a teacher told me "I've
been lying to you and everybody else for more than 40 years, but what
I'm telling you now is the truth" I would hardly accept his teaching.

>[The Lotus Sutra]...
>is also the first time he says that women and men of learning can
>attain enlightenment.

If the Buddha was in fact this deceptive and inconsistent this is
quite different even than giving limited teaching earlier and
fuller teaching later. I could believe in later teaching which
expands on earlier teaching, but not flatly contradicting it.
Either the Buddha was deceptive or those who several centuries
later propagated the Lotus Sutra are putting words in the
Buddha's mouth. A third possibility is that those who, like
Nichiren Daishonen use the Lotus Sutra to denegrate all the
Buddha's other teachings are actually misinterpreting it.
I confess I don't know enough about the Lotus Sutra to evaluate
that possibility. But if Nichiren was right then Sakyamuni was wrong,
even though Nichiren depends largely on the supposed statements
of Sakyamuni.

Besides, the early teaching of the Buddha uses appeal to reason
and experience. This is why I find it so compelling. Nichiren
appeals to supernatural, unverifiable claims and promotes a cult
of personality. I find the former teaching far more plausible.

bill mayne      |       mayne@nu.cs.fsu.edu