Category Archives: Buddhism

Pariyatti Timeline

January 21, 2012 – 5:57 PM

At this “hinge of history” that we occupy—the arising of the Second Sāsana—the teaching of the Buddha is available to untold numbers of people. We may take for granted the proliferation of Dhamma practice centers and resources for Dhamma study, and the unprecedented means to find them. Only 70 years ago, practice of the Noble Eightfold Path was confined to a tiny number of renunciates and aspirants in a few countries. Computers, the internet, cell phones, online libraries, websites, social networks, eBooks—harbingers of the Digital Age—were unimagined. The flowering of “numerous arts and sciences to serve human needs under the canopy of civilization” that we live in, is a fleeting wonderment.

The timeline below features noteworthy events of pariyatti (theoretical knowledge of the Buddha’s teaching) as well as examples of advances in communications. Not intending to be comprehensive, we offer this timeline as food for thought and to underscore the great good fortune of our era. For a blink in cosmological time, the possibility of freedom from samsāra is robustly alive and able to be conveyed and dispersed to vast numbers through a myriad of carriers; in this dispensation Pariyatti (the non-profit organization) has its role to play.

“May all beings be able to muster immense zeal!”

A selective timeline of pariyatti

  • c 563 to 483 BCE—Life of Gotama Buddha: in 45 years of teaching the Dhamma the Enlightened One is said to have given over 84,000 discourses
  • 483 BCE—First Council convened outside Rājagaha 3 months afterMahāparinibbāṇa of the Buddha; first compilation of authenticated Pāli Canon (known as Tipiṭaka—literally, “three baskets,” also translated as “three treasuries”)
  • 483 BCE to 1954—Second Council through Fifth Councils were held to recite, redact and authenticate the Tipiṭaka for prosperity. Second in Vesāli, India; Third in Paṭaliputta, India, under the auspices of Emperor Asoka; Fourth in Tambapaṇṇi, Sri Lanka; Fifth in Mandalay, under the auspices of King Mindon. More info.
  • c 1871—Completion of “the world’s largest book” in Mandalay: contemporaneous with Fifth Council, entire Pāli Tipiṭaka inscribed on 729 marble slabs at Kuthodaw Pagoda. Historic temple intact and a place of reverence to this day.
  • 1881—Pali Text Society (PTS) founded in Oxford, England to foster and promote the study of Pāli texts
  • 1900—Printed copy of Pāli Tipiṭaka published (in 38 volumes of 400 pages each) by Hanthawaddy Press, Burma (established 1879); described as “true copies of the Piṭaka inscribed on stones by King Mindon”
  • 1944—One of the first computers (Harvard Mark I) is designed
  • 1952 to 1963—The Union of Burma Buddha Sāsana Council in Rangoon publishes The Light of the Dhamma magazine; a sister publication The Light of Buddha is published from 1956 to 1965 in Mandalay
  • 1954 to 1956—Sixth Council (Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana) convened in Rangoon 2,500 years after Mahāparinibbāṇa; publishes authenticated Tipiṭaka and Commentaries in printed books
  • 1955—Date recognized by many Theravādins as the beginning of the SecondSāsana (arising of the teaching of the Buddha)
  • 1955—S.N. Goenka takes first Vipassana course under Sayagyi U Ba Khin at International Meditation Center (IMC) in Rangoon
  • 1958—Buddhist Publication Society (BPS) founded in Kandy, Sri Lanka “to make known the teachings of the Buddha”; becomes a leading publisher of Theravāda works in English, publishing over 800 titles
  • 1969—S.N. Goenka travels from Burma to India to teach Vipassana; he carries printed Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana Tipiṭaka books, thereby bringing both paṭipatti(practice) and pariyatti (scriptures)
  • 1969—ARPANET (the precursor to the internet) is created
  • 1973—First cell phone is invented
  • 1985—Vipassana Research Institute (VRI) is established in Igatpuri, India to conduct research into sources and applications of Vipassana
  • 1986—Pariyatti Book Service is started in California to import books from India and Sri Lanka on Buddha’s teaching for North American meditators
  • 1986—First book on nanotechnology is published
  • 1990—VRI starts project to publish Tipiṭaka and Commentaries in Devanagiri script
  • 1992—Electronic Buddhist Text Initiative started in Berkeley CA, to assist digital preservation and organization of Buddhist canonical texts
  • 1993—Access to Insight starts, growing into free online Theravāda library offering over 1,000 suttas and hundreds of articles
  • c 1994—VRI makes Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana Tipiṭaka CD-ROM available free of charge; sets of Tipiṭaka books in Devanagari script (over 100 volumes each) are printed for free distribution to monasteries, universities, meditation centers, temples, libraries
  • 1995—Vipassana Research Publications of America (VRPA) is started in Seattle, sanctioned by S.N. Goenka; mission to make Vipassana literature more available in West through importing of Pāli Tipiṭaka books (for free distribution to scholars) and English-language titles from VRI
  • 1996—VRPA purchases Pariyatti Book Service; new book publication and import entity is incorporated as Pariyatti
  • 1997 to 1999—Pariyatti becomes North American distributor of Buddhist Publication Society (BPS); Pariyatti and BPS co-publishes first of series of classic titles: Visuddhimagga, the Path of Purification
  • c 2000—Entire Tipiṭaka and Commentaries in 14 scripts available to anyone in the world with access to the internet (www.Tipitaka.org)
  • 2000—Wikipedia is created
  • 2002—Pariyatti becomes North American distributor for Pāli Text Society; Pariyatti has largest North American inventory of PTS titles and one of world’s largest English-language Theravāda collections
  • 2004—Facebook is created
  • 2005 to present—Pariyatti’s expanding online resources “Treasures of Pariyatti” offers permanent repository of and free access to Dhamma literature in danger of being lost; painstaking optical character recognition technology allows rare copies of The Light of the Dhamma and The Light of Buddha to be preserved
  • 2010—Vipassana centers in tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin as taught by S.N. Goenka offer over 2,000 10-day Vipassana courses annually, and serve about 120,000 people annually. 
  • Present—Buddhist Publication Society continues digitization of extensive parts of its collection for free online access (at BPS Online Library and accesstoinsight.org)
  • Present—In continuous service since 1881, Pāli Text Society: publishes Pāli texts in Roman script, English translations, and ancillary works including dictionaries and concordance; keeps nearly all its publications in print; provides research scholarships in Pāli studies in various countries; supports the Fragile Palm Leaves Project (identification and preservation of Southeast Asian manuscripts)
  • Present—Vipassana Research Institute continues research into Pāli texts and personal effects of Vipassana meditation; many titles are available via free download; monthly newsletter in Hindi and English has 25,000 subscribers worldwide
  • 2012 January 19—41st anniversary of demise of Sayagyi U Ba Khin (1899 to 1971) who proclaimed: “The time-clock of Vipassana has now struck!” and “May all beings be able to muster immense zeal!”

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By vinaire | Tagged , , | Comments (3)

The Tathagata

August 12, 2011 – 8:49 AM
The Tathagata
Beyond all coming and going: the Tathagata

Here is an excellent Bachelor’s Thesis
Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna’s Middle Way

From Wikipedia’s article Tathagata:

Thus in this interpretation Tathāgata means literally either, “The one who has gone to suchness” or, “The one who has arrived at suchness”.

The article a little further says,

The aggregates of form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and cognizance that comprise personal identity have been seen to be dukkha (a burden), and an enlightened individual is one with “burden dropped”. The Buddha explains “that for which a monk has a latent tendency, by that is he reckoned, what he does not have a latent tendency for, by that is he not reckoned.

From what happens to the Sensory input, the mind seems to be structured as follows,

1. Perception
2. Experience
3. Information
4. Hypothesis
5. Theory
6. Principles
7. Axioms
8. Self

From this perspective, SELF appears to be

(a) the sum total of what the sensory input has ultimately reduced to

(b) the core of the mind

(c) the repository of all latent tendencies.

In my view the above model supports Buddha’s insight. The self is introduced (added) through sensory input. If the SELF is fixed then it acts as the ultimate inconsistency.

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By vinaire | Comments (0)

2600th Anniversary

July 15, 2011 – 2:55 PM

According to the Burmese tradition and the timeline used by the Sixth Buddhist Council  (Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana), July 15, 2011 is the full-moon day that marks the 2,600th anniversary of the Buddha’s first discourse, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. This discourse was given to five ascetics, and set in motion the Wheel of Dhamma.

Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta:

Setting Rolling the Wheel of Truth 

Translated from the Pali by

Ñanamoli Thera

Thus I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Benares in the Deer Park at Isipatana (the Resort of Seers). There he addressed the bhikkhus of the group of five.

“Bhikkhus, these two extremes ought not to be cultivated by one gone forth from the house-life. What are the two? There is devotion to indulgence of pleasure in the objects of sensual desire, which is inferior, low, vulgar, ignoble, and leads to no good; and there is devotion to self-torment, which is painful, ignoble and leads to no good.

“The middle way discovered by a Perfect One avoids both these extremes; it gives vision, it gives knowledge, and it leads to peace, to direct acquaintance, to discovery, to nibbana. And what is that middle way? It is simply the noble eightfold path, that is to say, right view, right intention; right speech, right action, right livelihood; right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. That is the middle way discovered by a Perfect One, which gives vision, which gives knowledge, and which leads to peace, to direct acquaintance, to discovery, to nibbana.

“Suffering, as a noble truth, is this: Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; association with the loathed is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering — in short, suffering is the five categories of clinging objects.

“The origin of suffering, as a noble truth, is this: It is the craving that produces renewal of being accompanied by enjoyment and lust, and enjoying this and that; in other words, craving for sensual desires, craving for being, craving for non-being.

“Cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, is this: It is remainderless fading and ceasing, giving up, relinquishing, letting go and rejecting, of that same craving.

“The way leading to cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, is this: It is simply the noble eightfold path, that is to say, right view, right intention; right speech, right action, right livelihood; right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

“‘Suffering, as a noble truth, is this.’ Such was the vision, the knowledge, the understanding, the finding, the light, that arose in regard to ideas not heard by me before. ‘This suffering, as a noble truth, can be diagnosed.’ Such was the vision, the knowledge, the understanding, the finding, the light, that arose in regard to ideas not heard by me before. ‘This suffering, as a noble truth, has been diagnosed.’ Such was the vision, the knowledge, the understanding, the finding, the light, that arose in regard to ideas not heard by me before.

“‘The origin of suffering, as a noble truth, is this.’ Such was the vision… ‘This origin of suffering, as a noble truth, can be abandoned.’ Such was the vision… ‘This origin of suffering, as a noble truth, has been abandoned.’ Such was the vision… in regard to ideas not heard by me before.

“‘Cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, is this.’ Such was the vision… ‘This cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, can be verified.’ Such was the vision… ‘This cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, has been verified.’ Such was the vision… in regard to ideas not heard by me before.

“‘The way leading to cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, is this.’ Such was the vision… ‘This way leading to cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, can be developed.’ Such was the vision… ‘This way leading to the cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, has been developed.’ Such was the vision… in regard to ideas not heard by me before.

“As long as my knowing and seeing how things are, was not quite purified in these twelve aspects, in these three phases of each of the four noble truths, I did not claim in the world with its gods, its Maras and high divinities, in this generation with its monks and brahmans, with its princes and men to have discovered the full Awakening that is supreme. But as soon as my knowing and seeing how things are, was quite purified in these twelve aspects, in these three phases of each of the four noble truths, then I claimed in the world with its gods, its Maras and high divinities, in this generation with its monks and brahmans, its princes and men to have discovered the full Awakening that is supreme. Knowing and seeing arose in me thus: ‘My heart’s deliverance is unassailable. This is the last birth. Now there is no renewal of being.'”

That is what the Blessed One said. The bhikkhus of the group of five were glad, and they approved his words.

Now during this utterance, there arose in the venerable Kondañña the spotless, immaculate vision of the True Idea: “Whatever is subject to arising is all subject to cessation.”

When the Wheel of Truth had thus been set rolling by the Blessed One the earthgods raised the cry: “At Benares, in the Deer Park at Isipatana, the matchless Wheel of truth has been set rolling by the Blessed One, not to be stopped by monk or divine or god or death-angel or high divinity or anyone in the world.”

On hearing the earth-gods’ cry, all the gods in turn in the six paradises of the sensual sphere took up the cry till it reached beyond the Retinue of High Divinity in the sphere of pure form. And so indeed in that hour, at that moment, the cry soared up to the World of High Divinity, and this ten-thousandfold world-element shook and rocked and quaked, and a great measureless radiance surpassing the very nature of the gods was displayed in the world.

Then the Blessed One uttered the exclamation: “Kondañña knows! Kondañña knows!,” and that is how that venerable one acquired the name, Añña-Kondañña — Kondañña who knows.

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By vinaire | Comments (0)

Attitudes inspired by Buddhism

June 25, 2011 – 7:08 PM

  1. There is only the human being. And that human being has the potential to be spiritually awakened. God is merely an extrapolation by the mind. There is no higher being or power that sits in judgment over man’s destiny.

  2. Man’s emancipation depends on his own realization of Truth, and not on the benevolent grace of a god or any external power as a reward for his obedient good behaviour. Each person must develop himself and work out his own emancipation.

  3. Do not be led by reports, or tradition or hearsay. Be not led by the authority of religious texts, nor by mere logic or inference, nor by considering appearances, nor by the delight in speculative opinions, nor by seeming possibilities, nor by the idea: ‘this is our teacher’. It is proper to have doubt, to have perplexity, for a doubt has arisen in a matter which is doubtful.

  4. When you know for yourselves that certain things are unwholesome, and wrong, and bad, then give them up. And when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome and good, then accept them and follow them.

  5. A disciple should examine even the Teacher himself, so that he (the disciple) might be fully convinced of the true value of the teacher whom he followed.

  6. The root of all evil is ignorance and false views. There must be doubt as long as one does not understand or see clearly. Doubt is not a ‘sin’. In order to progress further it is absolutely necessary to get rid of doubt and see clearly.

  7. Just to say ’I believe’ does not mean that you understand and see. To force oneself to believe and to accept a thing without understanding is political, and not spiritual or intellectual.

  8. Let all listen, and be willing to listen to the doctrines professed by others. Whosoever honours his own religion and condemns other religions, does so indeed through devotion to his own religion, thinking “I will glorify my own religion”. But on the contrary, in so doing he injures his own religion more gravely.

  9. Truth needs no label. It is neither Buddhist, Christian, Hindu nor Moslem. It is not the monopoly of anybody. Sectarian labels are a hindrance to the independent understanding of Truth, and they produce harmful prejudices in men’s minds.

  10. When we label a human being as English, French, German, American, or Jew, we may regard him with all the prejudices associated with that label in our mind. Yet he may be completely free from those attributes which we have put on him.

  11. The love of a mother for her child is neither Buddhist nor Christian: it is mother love. Human qualities and emotions like love, charity, compassion, tolerance, patience, friendship, desire, hatred, ill-will, ignorance, conceit, etc., need no sectarian labels.

  12. To the seeker after Truth it is immaterial from where an idea comes. In fact, in order to understand Truth, it is not necessary even to know whether the teaching comes from the Buddha, or from anyone else. What is essential is seeing the thing, understanding it. If the medicine is good, the disease will be cured. It is not necessary to know who prepared it, or where it came from.

  13. Emphasis should be laid on seeing, knowing, understanding, and not on faith, or belief. One must have (a) full and firm conviction that a thing is (b) serene joy at good qualities, and (c) aspiration or wish to achieve an object in view.

  14. The question of belief arises when there is no seeing (seeing in every sense of the word). The moment you see, the question of belief disappears. If I tell you that I have a gem hidden in the folded palm of my hand, the question of belief arises because you do not see it yourself. But if I unclench my fist and show you the gem, then you see it for yourself, and the question of belief does not arise.

  15. A man has a faith. If he says “This is my faith”, so far he maintains truth. But by that he cannot proceed to the absolute conclusions: “This alone is Truth, and everything else is false”.

  16. To be attached to a certain view and to look down upon other views as inferior – this the wise men call a fetter.

  17. It is unnecessary to discuss metaphysical questions, which are purely speculative and which create imaginary problems.

  18. Discuss those things that are useful, fundamentally connected with the spiritual holy life, and conducive to aversion, detachment, cessation, tranquility, deep penetration, full realization, and Nirvāna.

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By vinaire | Comments (0)

An interview with Dalai Lama

April 21, 2011 – 5:59 AM

This is a brief presentation of an interview where the Dalai Lama discusses how he would change his beliefs because of scientific data.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/dalai-lama-angry-13400561

In my view, Buddhism is very scientific to start with.

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By vinaire | Comments (8)