buddha and his teachings(Re: message to my friends)

[Sankaran Jayanarayanan]

"Ravisankar S. Mayavaram" <msr at ISC.TAMU.EDU>

> On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, f. maiello wrote:
> > into its unborne, unknowable, inscrutable Source.  Moreover,
> > although Gaudapada and Sankara decried Buddha's teaching--
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This has not been established, either on this list or elsewhere. That
Shankara did not respect Buddha/Buddhism is obvious, but with
GauDapaada, the matter is unresolved.

> > which, I submit, was due to the prevailing depreciation of
> > the Sanatana Dharma in those days, both Bhagavan RM and
> > Ramakrishna spoke highly of him.)
> >
> > namaste
>
>
> I request the members not to shift the focus towards shrI buddha
> and his teachings. If some one wants to make a scholarly post
> comparing the teachings of buddha with advaita-vedanta with the
> purpose of clarifying and explaining certain concepts in
> advaita-vedanta, they are welcome to send it to me. I will post
> it to the list based on its worth. If I cannot decide by myself,
> I will consult with others and decide.
>
> As such, discussion on nAstika philosophies like buddhism,
> jainism, etc. is not permitted on this list. Please avoid it.
>

I feel I should point out one small thing: egodust (he doesn't seem to
mind this particular nickname) only mentioned Buddhism in the passing
and did not discuss it a lengthy manner. Moreover, what he said was a
fact: Ramana and Ramakrishna did not decry the Buddha. Far from it:
Ramana has said that Buddha taught people to realize the bliss within
oneself and Ramakrishna has said several times that Buddha was an
incarnation of VishNu. I feel egodust has stated some facts, and that
too from a source like Ramana, whose quotes are very frequent in this
list, and this ought to be permitted.

> Thanks
>
> Ravi

Thanks,

Kartik


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>From  Sat Aug 15 13:09:48 1998
Message-Id: <SAT.15.AUG.1998.130948.0400.>
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1998 13:09:48 -0400
Reply-To: ramakris at erols.com
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <ramakris at EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: buddha and his teachings(Re: message to my friends)
Comments: To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
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Sankaran Jayanarayanan wrote:

> This has not been established, either on this list or elsewhere. That
> Shankara did not respect Buddha/Buddhism is obvious, but with
> GauDapaada, the matter is unresolved.

Unresolved for who? His disciple's disciple (namely sha.nkara) has very
clearly interpreted it that way. So end of story. So question is: Do you
know more about Gaudapada than sha.nkara? If no, then the matter is not
unresolved. If yes, this list is not the place for your views :-).

> I feel I should point out one small thing: egodust (he doesn't seem to
> mind this particular nickname) only mentioned Buddhism in the passing
> and did not discuss it a lengthy manner. Moreover, what he said was a
> fact: Ramana and Ramakrishna did not decry the Buddha. Far from it:
> Ramana has said that Buddha taught people to realize the bliss within
> oneself and Ramakrishna has said several times that Buddha was an
> incarnation of VishNu. I feel egodust has stated some facts, and that
> too from a source like Ramana, whose quotes are very frequent in this
> list, and this ought to be permitted.

Please take my following comments objectively. I know you can, if it
were some other people I wouldn't have replied:

1. With all due respect to you, Ravi is the list owner and his wishes
are final. Obviously it's a major task being a list owner dealing with
the sensibilities of many people. Why, even in the bhakti list the same
problem exists: namely people posting irrelevant material. Mani is
facing problems because of this. The same problem existed in the dvaita
list also and Shrisha, who was exercising great patience and restraint
had to throw out some mischief mongers from the list. We do no work in
the day to day work of maintaining the list. Even 10 minutes a day adds
up to a substantial amount for a year. Actually I feel Ravi's work load
is even more. So our feelings on this matter are quite perepheral. The
list owners' wish is the final word.

2. Please note that Kumarila Bhatta and Sureshvara also say that the
Buddha's teachings must have been misinterpreted by his followers.
Sureshvara in his bR^ihadAraNyaka vArttika says that the Buddha must
have denied only the reality of external things and not the self and
that his followers must have misunderstood him.

But do note that whatever be the case, we are NOT interested, WHOEVER
the commendation comes from. This includes Ramana Maharshi also. As per
list rules RMs explanations of sha.nkara's teachings are allowed. This
is because it's a major task following just the teachings of advaita and
we are NOT interested in people coming and confusing the issues even
further. May I point out that if the Buddha taught the same as sha.nkara
there is no need to mention Buddha's teachings separately, following
sha.nkara is enough? But if he did not, then obviously the teachings are
not suitable for this list. The next thing you know this list will be
full of Zen koans or some such thing. That is what Ravi was trying to
pre-empt. Anyway, there is no need to mention the Buddha or anyone else.

I have read the ramaNanURRiraTTu, RMs complete works, in the ORIGINAL,
cover-to-cover, multiple times. About half the book is translations of
sha.nkara's works. According to him "Shankara is rightly regarded as the
foremost advaitin" (page 228 Day by Day with Bhagavan). So, since we are
discussing advaita we are interested only in shankara.

To repeat: We are NOT interested in the Buddha. We are NOT interested in
Jesus. We are NOT interested in Mahavira. We are NOT interested in
Prophet Muhhamed. We are also NOT interested in X, Y or Z other than
sha.nkara. That's been stated as the list policy. If you are interested
in disputing this, please take up the matter personally with Ravi as he
requested. But realize that you are making Ravi spend his time replying
to you.

Ravi had especially requested enquiries on moderation policy as a
PERSONAL mail. I wish you had followed that. I am replying to your mail
only because Ravi seems to be getting lot of flak from various quarters.

I think Vaidya had the best post on this topic. Read

http://postal.tamu.edu/cgi/wa?A2=ind9808a&L=advaita-l&O=T&P=2123

carefully. I think this should be made required reading for people who
want to join the list.

Rama