Dear Nina,

Thanks for your reply. Can I just ask when you say that in attending
your father, you attend to the Buddha, does this mean the historical
Buddha who lived many centuries ago or a kind of timeless Buddha? If
the latter, I can understand this in a Mahayana sense, but is it ok
in a non-Mahayana sense? I agree with what you say about your father
and this is how it seems to me, but I just wonder if someone would
say to me 'oh you are reading it in a Mahayana way, it was not
intended in this way and should not be read in this way'.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, nina van gorkom <nilo@...> wrote:
> Dear Eltopo,
> some more about this subject.
>
> op 13-04-2003 13:39 schreef eltopo1uk op eltopo_@...:
>
> 'he who
> > attends the sick' today in the twenty first century (or any other
> > century) in some sense attends on the Buddha.
> N: My husband was quite enthusiastic about this text. He said: "It
is all so
> clear. Think of the mere passing fragrance of metta (Velama sutta,
Ang. IV,
> 394), that is the practice." I remarked that who practises the
Dhamma is
> near the Buddha, attends to the Buddha, because who sees the
Dhamma, sees
> the Buddha. In the Velama sutta after metta, we read about the
thought of
> impermanence, just for a fingersnap. My husband said that the
Christians
> have a similar text about attending to the sick, that they took it
all from
> Buddhism. But they could not understand about impermanence. He
found when
> seeing such an old man dwindling away, you are reminded about
impermanence
> (maranadhammomhi marana.m anatiito'ti-) He found it very clear
that, when
> attending to my ailing father, we attend to the Buddha.
> Thank you again,
> Nina.