Indian Logic Forum

tantidharo · Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 8:55 am Post subject: um cannabalismo

The following is excerpted from "The Lamb interview - Part Three (um cannibalismo)"

But could you kindly explain to us why you would eat my tongue?

For starters, the tongue is the softest and most accessible part the body; it also has ample nutritional value, and removing it would not be too life threatening. It would furthermore calm my hunger-driven madness long enough to let me figure out a way to keep you alive in order to harvest other bits of your body. But short of having access to a compact freezer, butcher's knives, a hose and a drain вЂ“ by any stretch of the imagination this is going to be one bloody mess....

[Later]

...What does sotapanna or stream-enterer actually mean?
Sotapanna tends to conjure in the mind a natural metaphor of entering a stream that flows allegorically nibbДЃna-ward with inevitable release and liberation. Comparatively speaking, people with a Middle Eastern religious orientation (Moslems, Christians, Jews, etc.) may understand nibbДЃna as akin to heaven or a special bumi (Malay/PДЃli/Sanskrit, bhumi, 'ground or place') that extinguishes every factor of suffering. A sotapanna is a saintly person who is wise to the highly implausible plot of that B-grade horror film known as life. But on a much deeper level, such radical clarity furthermore re-scripts its own ontic self-portrayal as it strips away the face-paint, skin and bones in return to incredulity, wonder and esteem.

[Later]

...Then the stream [of the stream-enterer] appears to come with 'a silver lining' вЂ“ a hidden bonus, as it were.

More than appears. In the final analysis, nibbДЃna depends on luck. It's called tadanga-nibbДЃna ('chanced-upon release'). Based on this teaching, the early pundits charted an itinerary that guaranteed the sotapanna's final release within a maximum of seven additional lifetimes. The sotapanna is as good as gone; he therefore sails on a one-way ticket.

Reference: BuddhadДЃsa Bhikkhu, Buddha-Dhamma for Students. Translation from the original Thai by Roderick S. Bucknell [1972]; revised edition, Revolution/Liberation Bangkok, 1988.

Plamen · Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 7:41 pm Post subject:

Very tasty. Smile

Thank you!

Actually, what is Buddhism? The Path of the sotapanna or the path leading to the Path of sotapanna, etc.?

tantidharo · Last edited by tantidharo on Tue Feb 20, 2007 1:52 pm; edited 11 times in total

'Sound stream path' (the more inductive srota)

Plamen · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 5:14 am Post subject:

If B is the Path of Enlightenment, then nothing before and outside sotapanna, sotapanna-phala, etc., qualifies for the appelation of Arya Marga. In short, only Visuddhimarga (visuddhimaggo) can be justly called Buddhism. And it is the Path OF Purity rather than the Path TO Purity.

tantidharo · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 12:16 pm Post subject: the buoyancy of emptiness

The buoyancy of emptiness

1. Does "Enlightenment" have a path? (or a sound for that matter)

2. Kindly note that in my opening post/text there was no intended direct allusion either to Buddhist or Buddhism, but rather the inference of their retrofitted and peripheral nature.

3. Perhaps quite provisionally, I would say that the institution that grew up around that which we may now still mechanically refer to as B, made for itself its first priority the assumption of an acquirable state of being that was godlike or pure (brahmaviharic), and which was furthermore accessible by way of some prescribed method(s).

4. In bringing in Achan Buddhadasa's research on tadanga-sotapanna, I had hoped to infer the early existence of a parallel rendering of a B yogic marga that adjudged all prescriptions as of no avail and saw heaven's gate as a mere stroke of luck.

5. Thus the archaeological remains of the tadanga (a kind of no-choice theorem) prevailing uncensored within the canon, indeed speaks volumes on a variety of currents that may have well cohabited the lithe, yet-solidified ancient yogic culture that we sadly must persist in mechanically referring to as B.

6. [Vis-Г -vis point no. 1 above] might similarly "Purity" also have a path in an oddly disconnected way of a stream having an intention?

7. If B is the sound of the River of Chill, with no dilemma "sink or swim," a sotapanna figures out the buoyancy of emptiness and without hesitation or doubt sails on...

With much thanks,
tantidharo
(Singapore)

tantidharo · Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 3:06 am Post subject: