[Buddha-l] A question for Jewish Buddhists

[L.S. Cousins]

Dan Lusthaus wrote:
> Lance,
>
> Yes, I've run through a number of the well-known touchy subjects.
>   
They may be, but some are also largely largely constructions based upon 
careless and unhistorical reading of the sources.

>  Theravada monks avoid eating meat "intended" for them by
> passing their plate one to the left, so the plate now in front of them would
>   
>>> not be considered "intended" for them. Absurd!
>>>       
>> Well, this is a new one for me. I have never met such a practice.
>>     
>
> I have both read about and personally observed it. Any Theravadin monks on
> the list care to weigh in? I can't speak for how prevalent a practice it is,
> or its history or justifications, but it does go on.
>
>   
If you have read about it, can you give references, please ? I have not.

I can see this might go on, but it might very much be a  question of a 
particular monastery or traditions. So we need to know where you have 
met it.
>> I certainly don't believe there
>> would be any way this could be valid.
>>     
>
> The idea is that the restriction against meat is strictly about meat killed
> specifically for you (Buddha does prohibit that in the vinaya, for karmic
> reasons), so eating meat not specifically killed for you is ok (as long as
> the meat-type is not on the prohibited list, which was compiled more for
> political and PR reasons, than for concern over the welfare of animals, as
> the vinaya makes abundantly clear). So by taking the plate of the monk next
> to you, the meat couldn't possibly have been killed for you, hence you are
> karmically blameless while consuming it. That's the rationale as it was
> explained to me. I agree with you -- its "validity" is far-fetched. In fact,
> if I remember correctly, this was the procedure for eating eggs.
>
>   
I think eggs are a special case.
>>> In the account as we have it in DN II, the Buddha became ill a year or
>>>       
>> more before his death which has nothing to do with his last meal. There
>> is no other evidence and the suggestion that his last meal was the cause
>> of death is explicitly denied.
>>     
>
> Yes, a lot of effort -- back in the olden days and in more recent times -- 
> has gone into sanitizing Buddha's death. 

And a lot of effort goes on in a certain type of scholarship to 
desanitize i.e. to invent things which aren't actually in the sources.

> It wasn't pork, it was a mushroom,
> goes one alibi. 

Utter rubbish. Neither you nor anyone else has any idea what the 
expression sūkaramaddava means. That's precisely why the ancient sources 
give a number of possibilities. It could be pork. It could equally be 
something that was a delicacy for pigs. Or, a fungus. Or something else.

> How much nicer that the canonical accounts end up blaming it
> on poor unenlightened Ananda for failing to ask Buddha to hang around a
> little longer -- Buddha can do anything, including extending his own life.
> It seems pretty clear, however, that while subsequent embarrassment over the
> manner of Buddha's death led the codifiers to modify the story, they left
> enough in that it pretty clearly stemmed from his bad meal. 

Scholarly fantasy. If you read the text carefully, there is nothing 
there to indicate that.

> The Pali texts
> also make it clear (if one doesn't let certain other strata lead one to
> overlook it) that Buddha had a number of chronic health problems (bad back,
> indigestion, etc.) which were getting worse in his old age.

Old age is suffering. So you will get your turn, young feller-me-lad.

>  How much more
> comforting to imagine Buddha leaving this life reclining on his side, head
> propped on his hand, with a happy smile on his lips... 


Having quite recently seen a friend of mine suffering a painful illness 
and then dying in great peace, I find no difficulty in supposing such a 
thing for the Buddha.


> (and of course
> Mahayana again sidesteps the whole thing by demoting that Sakyamuni fellow
> and instead embracing a cosmic eternal Buddha who never dies ... somebody
> forgot to tell them that it's confusing for an eternal Buddha to be
> preaching impermanence... but this new myth was largely driven, I believe,
> by the increasing difficulty Buddhists were having reconciling Buddha's
> death and manner of death, even centuries later.)
>   

I don't believe there was any such increasing difficulty, except for the 
tiny minority of Mahāyānists.

>  Connected with the assumption in the
> previous query about insight and belief translating into observable
> behavior, Arhats are supposed to be beyond kle"sa, etc. (otherwise what
> benefit would arise from attaining arhatship?), but, as the Buddhist sources
>   
>>> themselves well document, Arhats got themselves embroiled in all sorts of
>>>       
>>> scandalous behavior, leading to controversies within Buddhist groups as to
>>>       
>>> the status of Arhats (nicely side-stepped by Mahayana by cleaning off a new
>>>       
>>> label, Bodhisattva).
>>>       
>> Can you prove that there are any such stories which were not invented by
>> story writers long after the event ?
>>     
>
> Which event?
The English expression 'long after the event' doesn't refer to a 
specific event. So the answer is 'any and all of them'.

>  The controversies are well known, covered in detail in several
> sectarian literatures, and led to major debates about the nature and degree
> of accomplishment of Arhats. Lamotte in his Indian Buddhism gives some of
> the sources. But we can find the repercussions of these debates
> reverberating for centuries in Buddhist literature. It was at the core of
> the schisms even within certain sects (e.g., the four branches of
> vatsiputriyas split off from each other precisely over disagreements over
> the nature of arhats). Sarvastivadin literature also deals with this. Do you
> have doubts that this became a major issue amongst Buddhists?
>   

It is clear that there was great interest in the precise process of 
enlightenment and over such issues as  whether there are exceptional 
cases where an arahat or stream-enterer can fall back. Debates on such 
questions are quite old. But stories that try to relate this to the 
failings of individuals are only attested from many centuries later and 
have no historical reliability.


Lance