DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Folk-tales, Myth and Metaphor

**avaiptutt** · 08-30-2011, 10:34 PM

The whole personification of Mara sounds like a good example to me. Is that the sort of thing you mean, Aloka-D? Then there are the conversations and meeting with divas, flying through mountains, the divine eye, etc. I don't take any of those things literally, including the recollection of past lives and future Buddhas. That's not to say that they don't contain useful "truths", but that the literal interpretation was probably never intended in the first place.

Yes, definately, and I was wondering also if some of the tales about Buddhist saints and teachers also got mixed in with myth and fantasy, folk stories with a moral, and so forth.

08-30-2011, 10:34 PM	#6
avaiptutt Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 425 Senior Member	The whole personification of Mara sounds like a good example to me. Is that the sort of thing you mean, Aloka-D? Then there are the conversations and meeting with divas, flying through mountains, the divine eye, etc. I don't take any of those things literally, including the recollection of past lives and future Buddhas. That's not to say that they don't contain useful "truths", but that the literal interpretation was probably never intended in the first place. Yes, definately, and I was wondering also if some of the tales about Buddhist saints and teachers also got mixed in with myth and fantasy, folk stories with a moral, and so forth.
	Quote