(nibbana) = (Nirguna Brahman) ?

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

On Fri, 19 Sep 1997 un824 at freenet.victoria.bc.ca wrote:

> I agree with the translation caveat. I understand English only, but have
> read enough different translations of some things to see what your talking
> about. As for the Dalai Lama, as fine a person as he is, it is not possible
> (IMO) to point to any particular reading (or reader) and hold them up as
> *the* received and final authority on *anything*!  Please don't
> bother quoting him. I'm sure I could find a dozen Buddhist scholars to
> say exactly what you want here, but if I can find even one credible
> dissenting view, it's still an open question and that's my point. The

Ok. I had trouble finding the book I was referring to, so I'll drop the
attempt now!

> The Buddha equated nibbana with the truth. Now ** if ** the truth is what
> you mean by Self then it may be "the Buddhists have never equated nibbaNa
> to a Self [ie. the truth]" ** but the Buddha did ** !!!
>                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Surely our difficulty here is "nibbana" and "Self" are both referring to
> what is essentially unthinkable, unrepresentable, non-dual, non-relative,
> truth. The real question (which you didn't quite address) is whether there
> are *two* (or more!) unthinkable, unrepresentable, non-dual, non-relative
> truths or only one.  As soon as any unrepresentable truth *is* talked
> about, aren't we uttering nonsense?  Aren't all philosophical arguments
> (ultimately) about differing (and sometimes fanatically defended) versions
> of nonsense!  If nothing can be said about truth, what is the arument about?

Yes, but there is the legacy of logical argumentation that all traditions
are burdened with. We can take it or leave it, but little is served by
misrepresenting it. After all is said and done, I'm sure teachers of both
sides will agree with your last statement. After all, the final emphasis
is on knowing the truth, within the depths of one's own being/knowing, not
about quarelling.

>
> So it could very well be that Buddhists and Vedantists have different ideas
> *about* the truth, but woe to this world if they actually have different
> "truths". It is no longer enough (IMO) to hunker down in the relative
> safety of one's little tradition and imagine only it is true. (IMO),if any
> spirituality is to be taken seriously in the future, people will need to be
> able to see *how* the significant majority of spiritual systems are grounded
> in the same truth. If these very systems insist on displaying themselves as
> being fundamentally different they will only succeed in cancelling each
> other out. The whole issue therefore is not about who got it right and who
> got it wrong (or who failed to emphasize what), it is actually (in my view)
> about how (or if) we can co-ordinate the spiritual resources of our
> common global heritage before too much more damage is done.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I'm not sure how this can be done, or if it will succeed. The world as it
is now, emphasizes an extroversion, while all spiritual paths emphasize
intense introspection.

Vidyasankar