[Buddha-l] Yogi with a cell phone

[jkirk]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Piya Tan" <dharmafarer at gmail.com>


> There are numerous Pali suttas on this decline of the Sangha, not only
> spoken by the Buddha, but also by Maha Kassapa.
> under "Downloads B" at
> http://dharmafarer.googlepages.com
>....................................
===========

Hello Piya,

 This thread got me thinking, always a dangerous condition, so what I write 
here
is in two parts, A & B.
A.
I found the article on your website about the beginnings of the decline of 
Buddhadharma, with the story of the rich merchant's son, Sudinna.
This story is instructive or provocative in a number of ways. My reading of 
course is heterodox.
First, he had sex with his wife because of filial piety, i.e., to satisfy 
hids parents' desire/request (seen as legitimate in householder circles) to 
have an (no doubt male) heir, since he Sudinna had gone forth (--against 
their wishes, but so did the Buddha.)
Vicente recently inquired about filial piety in (ancient or today's? wasn't 
sure) India, as compared to the same in China. This story suggests to me a 
clear conflict between the "filialness" expected by the Indian householder 
parents of Sudinna, and the vows expected of monks by the sangha.
Still, Buddhist ethics (and Indian social dharma) said that children must 
revere their parents. Thus, I don't see how the ethical conflicts in this 
case can be reconciled, unless the dharma of the monk is to be revered above 
the quotidian dharmic reverence for parents. (In India, ordinary folk use 
the term dharma to refer to ethics as social laws as well as to mean 
religious prescriptions.)
So I wonder and ask if, in the texts somewhere, the Buddha is said to be 
like a mother. When I was in Thailand in 1985, I was told that brief 
inscriptions under folk art paintings of the Buddha on truck headboards 
addressed him (calling on him for protection) as Mother.  A Thai person told 
me this, but as I don't read Thai I could not confirm it myself. If the 
Buddha was considered then, as ordinary Indians today consider and address 
powerful patrons/saviors/helpers--as "Maa-Baap", Mother-Father--perhaps this 
usage is as ancient as the texts. If it had been common in those days, it 
would serve to solve the householder/monk ethical conflicts just noted, by 
transcending the householder
ethics level in favor of the sangha vows level, by turning the Buddha into a 
parent --as Catholics do when they address a priest as Father.

B.
Second, his act is censured by the Buddha as bringing impurity into the 
formerly pure sangha.

Third, his act is also, according to ancient and still in force folk 
psychology, then said to be the cause of other monks breaking their vows as 
well. The "monkey see, monkey do" metaphor, followed by the "rotten-apple 
spoils the whole barrel" metaphor, are in full sway in this text. This 
episode is then said to have been the occasion for the formation of the 
patimokkha.

This view of the original charismatic liberator and his disciples contrasts 
with, let's say, the Christian scenario. In that one, Jesus's disciples from 
the start aren't pure, one betrays him, another denies him, etc......the 
theology of the story requires the victim sacrifice of the liberator. 
Monastic vows come much later in this history, and they seem to have 
originated in a pragmatic sense of the flawed nature of men rather than in a 
misdeed done by an impure man among wholly pure other men.
The early sangha before this "fall" is inhumanly  or unrealistically 
pure--an ideal view rather than a pragmatic view, but the liberator, the 
Buddha himself, unlike Jesus, is shown to be more complex, more rational, 
than his hitherto ideal followers. Jesus seems fanatical, the Buddha 
rational.

The Buddha judges the sin of Sudinna as inexorably causal ......while Jesus 
forgives the sinners among his flock, although theology also comes up with 
mystical characterizations of Jesus that are also inexorably causal for 
believers (his flock and its descendents).
Drawing such a comparison as this one doesn't fully "work" in all 
details-----but seems
to me somewhat persuasive.

But I may be just showing my ignorance. I hope our denizens will comment 
further, pro or con or otherwise.
Joanna