[BiseCreesia]

Fair enough. Can't find anything online, so I'll have to go to the library again.

[salomal-qask]

My intention is not to "wowser" (if by that you mean show off) and I'm not on a vendetta. I'm not identifying with Levine; I'm DIS-identifying with him.

hi

well, my opinion is both love & aversion can form grounds for "identifying". are "identifying" and "dis-identifying" the same as "non-identifying"? like, in the Pali, there is the word atammayata, which some translate as meaning 'non-identification'.

Who is the WE implied in your use of "our path?" i am sorry if I was not clear. i have implied no "we". By "our", I am referred to each individual rather than a collective.

How do you determine beneficence? How open minded should Buddhism be? Well, my impression is the Buddha did not teach one "path". My opinion is he taught different paths for different folks.

Buddha's "Awakening...tells us that good and bad are not mere social conventions, but are built into the mechanics of how the world is constructed. We may be free to design our lives, but we are not free to change the underlying rules that determine what good and bad actions are, and how the process of kamma works itself out. Thus cultural relativism — even though it may have paved the way for many of us to leave our earlier religious orientations and enter the Buddhist fold — has no place once we are within that fold. There are certain ways of acting that are inherently unskillful, and we are fools if we insist on our right to behave in those ways" (Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Refuge, p. 55; http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/a...awakening.html). Thanissaro Bhikkhu is free to give his opinion but i personally see it as merely his subjective opinion.

my view is it is best to not create a dogma out of Buddhism. instead, we can try to see a bigger picture.

like, i do not regard the essence of Buddhism is about "good and bad karma".

The Buddha called himself The Tathagata, which means 'The One Gone to Thusness' or 'Suchness'. What the Buddha himself could not control, he regard as merely "thus" or "such".

The scriptures say:
The murderous Devadatta and the robber Angulimala
Rahula and [the elephant] Dhanapala
To all was the Sage even minded warm regards



Atammayata. Literally, "not-made-of-that-ness." See the introductions to sections II/B and III/G in The Wings to Awakening.

Salayatana-vibhanga Sutta translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

[Alice_Medichi34]

I've been looking around the forum and feel like you're singling me out with this "textual positivism" requirement. This is about his integrity as a wise teacher. See, e.g.,: Anguttara Nikaya 3.65, 4.192 & 8.54, and Majjhima Nikaya 1.10.

[oronozopiy]

There are many paths into the Dharma.

But only ONE to awakening.

[Pyuvjzwf]

Hi Anon,

Can you give us some more contextual elements so to understand why you are so worried about Noah Levine. Is he being harmful to others?

[MyOwnStyle]

Hi Anon,

Can you give us some more contextual elements so to understand why you are so worried about Noah Levine. Is he being harmful to others?

I suppose I should take it as a good sign most people here don't know of him. I have read his books but got them from the library (don't want to contribute to his cause by buying his books). I'll go to library today or tomorrow. How is associating Buddhism with punk and/or AA/NA helpful? And if it's not helpful, its...?

[BGThomasis]

I've heard of him. There's a little info on his group in LA at: www.againstthestream.org They do charity work, run soup kitchens, and say they believe in the Buddha as social radical. They didn't say anything about a 12-step program. It sounds strange to link Buddhism to belief in "a higher power", although the Buddha didn't rule it out. Noah sounds like he needs psychotherapy.

[teewHettive]

by aa's definition you could make anything your higher power, such as the buddha, the dharma, or the sangha, half of them make a bunch of drunks their higher power(AA itself) personally i find the whole AA thing a bit hard to swallow, AA is just one way to treat addiction, and if noah gets something out of it i don't see a problem, the mistake made by anon is to assume a higher power is necessarily some kind of god.

[AngelBee]

with regard AA and higher power, there are plenty of things a rational buddhist could label their higher power, the first to come to mind; the buddha, the dharma, or the sangha, even the emptiness or just karma. by AAs definition higher power does not necessarily mean a god or gods, anon seems to have this all wrong, a lot of AAs use a bunch of drunks as their higher power(AA itself) what's wrong with using a bunch of monks instead, seems more enlightened than drunks.

Where AA goes way off base is there crazy insistance that there is only one right way to get sober and thats AA; rubbish its just one method that works to a point, Noah levine has every right to advocate that being a buddhist cant stop you from attending AA, and finding your own higher power within buddhism, but he doesnt have the right to assert that if your an addict and buddhist, AA is the only option, just one of many, in fact I've heard of lots of programs in countries like Thailand of buddhists helping addicts, All youll get from AA is watered down very selfish version of christianity, which does not appeal to me.

[psbiuigw]

the mistake made by anon is to assume a higher power is necessarily some kind of god. AnonOfIbid has decided to leave the group, so he won't be able to respond to any posts in this thread .

I'm therefore closing the topic he started. Thanks for the input everyone.