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In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "Ong Yong Peng" <ypong001@...> wrote:

> Dear Robert and friends,
>
> thanks, would you kindly share with us your findings on the study

of

> the Tipitaka relating to the Jataka. These are my personal

thoughts:

>
> I feel that the Jataka is an integrated part of the Theravada
> tradition.

+++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Yong Peng,
I reply in 2 parts:
Some of my study of the Tipitaka focuses on the
Abhidhamma - that section of the Dhamma that is said
to have one taste: "the taste of anatta". Thus when I
read the Jataka I look at it in this
way, which is also the way that life is here and now.
We read of when the Buddha was an animal as a
bodhisatta and some people laugh and say it couldn't
have been so. We should realise, though, that in truth there was
no Buddha in the sense of an existing being - in the
deepest sense. The Abhidhamma and suttas shows us that
what we thought were trees and people and animals and
even ourself are only conditioned, concantanations of
evanescent aggregates (khandas). When we look at a man
or woman the Paticcasamuppada (which is also an
important section of the Vibhanga, the second book of
the Abhidhamma) helps us to see 'man' is simply an
idea , a concept and that what is real are only
fleeting moments of seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling
etc. and then thinking which thinks about these sense
contacts. I think knowing this we read the Jataka in a
different way: That is that the stories in the jataka
are illustrations of the workings of conditionality,
especially that condition called kamma.

If we are not yet ready to understand anatta the
Jataka are still very useful. For example, there is
the story of the powerful and deadly snake who decided
not to kill. Once some boys came and pierced him with
wooden spears and paraded him at the market. He could
have killed them all but was so set on sila that he
refrained. I am impatient by nature - even waiting at
line in the bank puts me on edge at times. But
whenever I remember that story I can't help but
reflect how "if a snake can show patience and endure
so much, then surely I, a human who has heard the
Dhamma can do as much" It always makes me smile at my
foolishness. Is the story of the snake literally
true? I don't know. But I don't doubt it.
________
Yong peng: ""There are several places in the Nikayas where the
Buddha

> related his past lives. ""

__________
That is right, I did a brief search and found one here:
Anguttara Nikaya III.15
Rathakara Sutta
(Pacetana Sutta)
The Chariot Maker

On one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Varanasi in the Deer
Park at Isipatana. There he addressed the monks: "Monks!"

"Yes, lord," the monks responded.

The Blessed One said: "Once, monks, there was a king named Pacetana .
One day King Pacetana said to his chariot maker, 'My good chariot
maker, in six months time from now a battle will take place. Can you
make me a new pair of chariot wheels?'

"'Yes, your majesty, I can,' the chariot maker replied to the king.

"Then in six months minus six days the chariot maker finished one
wheel. King Pacetana said to him, 'In six days time from now the
battle will take place. Will the pair of chariot wheels be finished?'

<snip>
"'Now what is the reason, my good chariot maker, what is the cause,
why the chariot wheel finished in six days, when set rolling, goes as
far as its momentum carries it and then, twirling around and around,
falls to the ground? And what is the reason, what is the cause, why
the chariot wheel finished in six months minus six days, when set
rolling, goes as far as its momentum carries it and then stands still
as if fixed on an axle?'

<snip>


"Now, monks, the thought may occur to you that the chariot maker on
that occasion was someone else, but it shouldn't be seen in that way.
I myself was the chariot maker on that occasion. I was skilled in
dealing with the crookedness, the faults, the flaws of wood. Now I am
a worthy one, rightly self-awakened, skilled in dealing with the
crookedness, faults, & flaws of bodily action; skilled in dealing
with
the crookedness, faults, & flaws of verbal action; skilled in dealing
with the crookedness, faults, & flaws of mental action.""endquote
___________________--
RobertK