Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00289)

Wednesday, March 12, 2003

Re Buddhism

Dear Peter:

Thanks.

You are right and I am wrong in being too brief and too quick in
response. Which shows I should not be trusted without due checking
process -- so thanks. No one is an "authority." We all have
opinions.

Mine was definitely an opinion.

In my mind, having been for many years in contact with philosophical
Buddhism ( 2 "d" s ) I have come to regard it as a philosophy. I
have always in my travels been kindly received at the viharas in such
countries as have them. There I have held discussions with monks of
varying degrees -- always on philosophy and not on "rites" or
ceremonies, etc...

Never was the issue raised that Buddhism was monolithic, nor was their
sect "the only truth." The talks I had were always as leading to
finding the TRUTH that we could all agree to ...

Those exist of course but their antiquity usually ante-cedes the
formalized or credalized Buddhism of the moment.

So I gave myself the task of reviewing what H P B had to say about
Buddhism.


ISIS UNVEILED has the first broad definitions:


Pre-Vedic Brahmanism I U I 142, 169,	II 319, 322, 436, 582,

The once universal religion I U II 123, I U I p. 271,


Thanks for catching this up.

Best wishes,

as always,

Dal

===================

----Original Message-----
From: peter.m [mailto:snowlion@btopenworld.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 5:51 AM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] RE: War and Buddhism


Dallas wrote:

> As I understand it "Budhism" is NOT a religion or a
> belief-system -- with the paraphernalia of rites, rituals
> dogmas, etc. It has remained free of those

Hi Dal, I'm not sure I agree with you there, old friend. My
perception is
that many Buddhists do hold and adhere to a belief system. There is
also
plenty of paraphernalia, along with rites and rituals in a number of
schools, especially in some Tibetan Buddhist schools. Just as
Christians
pray for the help of saints and angels, so do Buddhists appeal for
help from
past gurus, boddhisatvas, and Buddhas to come. I suppose we could say
that
'Buddhism' is not the same as 'Buddhists', but once we define
fundamental
tenets underpining a spiritual path we do come back to some kind of
belief
system. But do you mean "Budhism" or "Buddhism"?

Peter