Just A Thought ~ TWO PARTS

There are two parts to Buddhism: the part of the past, that includes the stories of the Buddha, which cannot be verified, and the part of the present, the Now, the Eternal Dharma, which is ours to experience.

We should remember two things: first, the propensity of the Indian mind for exaggeration that staggers the imagination, and second, that the Buddha often used upaya ~ techniques or skillfulmeans ~ to awaken people, things that weren’t literally true nor meant to be taken so. How can we tell if something should be taken literally or metaphorically? It is not always clear. Many things in the scriptures cannot be verified, proved or disproved, but this doesn't mean we should just accept everything at facevalue. Just like with the fables of Aesop, we should look for the lessons therein and not get stuck on the forms.

The voluminous Buddhist scriptures are known as “The Tripitaka” ~ that is, “The Three Baskets” or Collections. People who tend to take everything literally, might not be very pleased to hear that they were not so designated by the Buddha Himself, as they were not committed to writing and given a name until 500 years after He died, and by then, of course, they had undergone considerable change (just as did the Bible of the Christians, which underwent the process of clerical editing).

Buddhism was forced to change to suit the desires and demands of the masses for something to worship and pray to for help and salvation, and thus the simplicity and clarity of the Buddha’s message was compromised.

We must recall, too, that the Buddhist texts were written by monks, who are notoriously misogynistic, and in parts are therefore quite sexist. Had women written the books, we would have quite a different story!