DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Righteous views are not the same as Right View

**styhorporry** · 10-08-2011, 10:36 AM

Sure, but the Buddha advises many times "Thus you should train yourselves...". Just one example of many...

True, the word "should" is often enough attributed to the Buddha. The modal verb "should" has various uses, though. The context identifies its most likely intended use.

'If you want to attain Nibbana, you should train yourselves thusly' is instructional and tied in with Right View.

''There should be no suffering in the world" is a metaphysical moral proposition, and does not tie in with Right View. It seems more like a Righteous View to me. (Not that anyone has said the latter. Just an example.)

Of course, most people behave by some moral standard or other, and that's probably necessary for communities to exist. The danger lies in taking one's own moral code to be absolute and imposing it on others who may not want it. I think that's when it becomes Righteous or Self-righteous.

I think that there's a sense of "this is my advice, take it or leave it as you will" to what the Buddha taught. For me, that's a hard sense to maintain. When I see people mis-attributing words and concepts to the Buddha, I'm very tempted to shout them down sometimes. My tongue has deep teeth-marks.

Those teeth-marks show that I'm still struggling with the tendency to impose my understanding on others, instead of understanding how paticcasamuppada applies to real life. That things are the way they are because of previous conditions, and it'd be foolish of me to expect them to be different. Thinking that way - whether it's absolutely true or not - results in a more kusala state and more kusala behavior, in my experience. Of course, I could be deluding myself. Can't rule that out.

10-08-2011, 10:36 AM	#15
styhorporry Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 391 Senior Member	Sure, but the Buddha advises many times "Thus you should train yourselves...". Just one example of many... True, the word "should" is often enough attributed to the Buddha. The modal verb "should" has various uses, though. The context identifies its most likely intended use. 'If you want to attain Nibbana, you should train yourselves thusly' is instructional and tied in with Right View. ''There should be no suffering in the world" is a metaphysical moral proposition, and does not tie in with Right View. It seems more like a Righteous View to me. (Not that anyone has said the latter. Just an example.) Of course, most people behave by some moral standard or other, and that's probably necessary for communities to exist. The danger lies in taking one's own moral code to be absolute and imposing it on others who may not want it. I think that's when it becomes Righteous or Self-righteous. I think that there's a sense of "this is my advice, take it or leave it as you will" to what the Buddha taught. For me, that's a hard sense to maintain. When I see people mis-attributing words and concepts to the Buddha, I'm very tempted to shout them down sometimes. My tongue has deep teeth-marks. Those teeth-marks show that I'm still struggling with the tendency to impose my understanding on others, instead of understanding how paticcasamuppada applies to real life. That things are the way they are because of previous conditions, and it'd be foolish of me to expect them to be different. Thinking that way - whether it's absolutely true or not - results in a more kusala state and more kusala behavior, in my experience. Of course, I could be deluding myself. Can't rule that out.
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