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**career-builder** · 10-27-2011, 07:04 PM

Um, Lazy, the Buddha did not speak MN123. Not a word of it. Snp 3.11 is clearly mythic poetry, i.e., flowery nonsense that the Buddha did not teach. Again you and your source are cherry-picking and using mythical interpretations and the works of poets, disciples and outsiders to justify outright bastardizations of the Buddha's teachings. No surprise here.

Some of these assertions come from the Buddha himself -- for instance, in the Samaññaphala Sutta he describes the "six supranormal powers" in great detail, and in DN 16 he asserts his ability to remain in the world through an entire kalpa.

Your assessment notwithstanding, all the mythological passages I cited are from the Nikayas, and are thus canonical. However flowery they may be, no Buddhist school considers them "the work of poets, disciples and outsiders".

The Buddha fell on the other side of the rational/empirical vs. religious/superstitious argument from you. The Buddha I meet in the suttas presented his teachings in rational/empirical terms, but was ready and willing to frame them in religious/transcendental ones as well, depending on the point he sought to convey and the capabilities of his audience. Moreover, all schools of Buddhism, not just the Mahasamghikas and the later Mahayanists, accept the religious side to some extent. Mahayana may have taken it the farthest but it is present in Theravada as well. And indeed it is present in the suttas, as I have shown.

What Buddhists living today, in the scientific era, should make of this is a different question.

10-27-2011, 07:04 PM	#24
career-builder Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 484 Senior Member	Um, Lazy, the Buddha did not speak MN123. Not a word of it. Snp 3.11 is clearly mythic poetry, i.e., flowery nonsense that the Buddha did not teach. Again you and your source are cherry-picking and using mythical interpretations and the works of poets, disciples and outsiders to justify outright bastardizations of the Buddha's teachings. No surprise here. Some of these assertions come from the Buddha himself -- for instance, in the Samaññaphala Sutta he describes the "six supranormal powers" in great detail, and in DN 16 he asserts his ability to remain in the world through an entire kalpa. Your assessment notwithstanding, all the mythological passages I cited are from the Nikayas, and are thus canonical. However flowery they may be, no Buddhist school considers them "the work of poets, disciples and outsiders". The Buddha fell on the other side of the rational/empirical vs. religious/superstitious argument from you. The Buddha I meet in the suttas presented his teachings in rational/empirical terms, but was ready and willing to frame them in religious/transcendental ones as well, depending on the point he sought to convey and the capabilities of his audience. Moreover, all schools of Buddhism, not just the Mahasamghikas and the later Mahayanists, accept the religious side to some extent. Mahayana may have taken it the farthest but it is present in Theravada as well. And indeed it is present in the suttas, as I have shown. What Buddhists living today, in the scientific era, should make of this is a different question.
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