Malcolm wrote: ↑Thu Aug 16, 2018 10:27 pm
Queequeg wrote: ↑Thu Aug 16, 2018 9:34 pm
Malcolm wrote: ↑Thu Aug 16, 2018 6:25 pm
Depends on which Indian Buddhist view we are discussing. There is for example, Karana-hetu, the principle that all phenomena are causes of all other phenomena apart from themselves.
This still does not make rocks capable of buddhahood. Nor does it make a mind a function of a rock. Your thesis amounts to saying that since there is a container universe and inhabitants, their mutual dependence means that the awakening of the latter necessitates the awakening of the former, even though it is conventionally insentient. But this also bears the consequence that buddhas can become sentient beings just as sentient beings can become buddhas. This is very terrible consequence.
I'm not familiar with Karana-hetu, but all phenomena are indeed causes of all others, in a way.
Not in a way, directly.
We are emphasizing different things. It is correct to say, "in a way" in the context of Tiantai thought because dependent origination is not the whole story, except, in a way, from a particular vantage point. Like light being particles, absolutely, in a way, but also being waves, absolutely, in a way.
I know its easy to just fall back on what you know, but you're treading on ground that you clearly are not familiar with. Come out a little bit and try to understand, give ear.
The problem is not buddhas in hell realms, the problem is buddhas experiencing the suffering of hell realms, or any other realm, for that matter.
The Buddha was born. Possibly caesarean. But in any event, it wasn't the myth where Maya grasped a branch while Gotama just miraculously emerged from her side. He also didn't take 7 steps and declare he was the greatest being. He was a helpless infant, like all of us at birth. The Buddha died of what sounds like food poisoning. It was miraculous enough that he lived to 80 at that time.
If you chose to believe those myths about his birth and death literally, the fabrics of our realities probably don't match up.
What is suffering? We are told from the perspective of an awakened one, it is unarisen. Its a a mistaken apprehension. That doesn't mean one floats through life as though in a protective halo.
The Buddha appears in the Saha world and toils just like the rest of us. The difference is in how it is experienced. We see the toil as an unmitigated, unending cycle of futility, and the stench sticks to us. The Buddha is in the same exact circumstance and sees the Buddhafield, full of humans and devas. Because the Buddha sees the way it really is, there is no stench, let alone sticking to him.
All those stories about Pure Lands... ways to help people who can't unsee the futility of this world to conceive of purity and bliss without being forced to reconcile the real pain and suffering they've endured. Not now, at least. Maybe when they've gained confidence in the principle of purity and bliss, they can.
The point of Trees and Rocks having Buddhanature is to locate the struggle for enlightenment, here and now, in this moment. Its not some attempt to reify a notion of trees and rocks having some sort of consciousness similar to sentients. What most people think of as mind is not what is meant in advanced teachings, anyway. They mistake the six consciousnesses for Mind. They take their mistaken notion of self and apply it to everything around them, rather than striving up to understand what the sages are actually saying.
But you know all this, don't you?
What this really gets to is the kinds of teachings that appear in the Vimalakirti and Lotus Sutras that I quoted above - This Saha World is a Buddhaland, and the Saha World includes all the beings, along with the environments from which they cannot be separated, including this darn rock that we can't agree has Buddhanature or not.
Actually, this doctrine, that insentient beings possess buddhanature, is not in Zhi Yi's writings. See Swanson, CSQI, vol. 1, pg. 58. He states that Zhi Yi really treads lightly around the tathagātagarbha theory.
Indeed, its Zhanran, Keikei Daishi. His interpretation of Zhiyi, Tendai Daishi is considered definitive.
Despite Zhanran's denial of the ultimacy of the Nirvana Sutra's explicit identification of Buddhanature exclusively with sentient beings, there are other aspects of the Nirvana Sutra that inform this.
The Nirvana Sutra actually includes an assertion of True Self - something that goes against pretty much all of the Buddha's teachings. When we consider what is actually meant by True Self, its not so controversial and we see how its an upaya. I think the point that is drawn from that is that all teachings are upaya. When the Buddha utters teachings, he's always addressing some excess, not directly revealing his wisdom. The only direct teaching is reality itself, in which our thoughts are completely integrated. Like Bertram Russel observed that we only think in metaphors, only in abstractions.
The Nirvana also teaches that all true dharmas, non-Buddhist and Buddhist, are Buddhadharma.
The point is that any dharma when fully contemplated ends in awakening. How is that possible? Because all dharmas have the BuddhaNature. If they didn't, contemplating them would not end in awakening.
Again, the point is not rocks being buddhanature. The point is, this thought-moment is the seat of enlightenment.
If it bothers you, leave it alone.