thanks for the post, Nina. I would say that most of us would agree to
leave the verification of the originality of Jataka to the experts.
Thanks for pointing out that the Jataka actually only contain the
verses, while the stories are from the commentaries. However, Jataka
actually mean Birth Stories, so I would say that stories have a
stronger link to the verses than that in Dhammapada.
In another mail, you mention "prescriptive, descriptive", allow me to
suggest 'reflective'. That is to say to treat the story as a mirror
reflecting our own personality. To see the human world through the
eyes of animals, I think. Then the stories are products of great
brilliance. However, besides reflective, I would say the stories are
hypothetical, a possible situation in our lives, therefore I would
also like to boldly suggest the solutions are hypothetical in nature
as well. That is there is no one right way of handling a situation,
we just have to use our intuition and what we have learnt from the
dhamma and apply to the situation. For example, the story of the
bird. True enough, it is good to "pass around and share", but there
are things that we probably wouldn't like to share, say perhaps your
husband or wife. I may just have stated an extreme case, but
hopefully I bring my point across. So, I would say, yes, attachment
brings to suffering. But it is very hard to be completely without
attachment, and share everything with others, not for laypeople, I
would say.
Therefore, it would be bad, as Frank had mentioned, to use the Jataka
as a checklist to live our lives, or worse to judge others. That
would reduce Buddhism to a set of rules just like the books of law in
the Old Testament. We should leave Buddhism in its original
undogmatic and unauthoritarian form.
When it comes to applying the dhamma, my experience tells me it is
very hard to strike a balance. But here, it is not balancing between
serving your self-interests and God, rather it is balancing between
our present actions and future destiny (outcomes). For myself, as
long as I have minimised possbile negative future karma, I am quite
happy.