Addiction to Disputation

While leading a local sutta study class I was recently
reminded that the first sutta in the Digha Nikaya, the
Brahmajala Sutta, deals with "What the Teaching is
not." And, one of the things that the Buddha's
teaching is not is addiction to disputation.

Kindest regards,

Jeff Brooks

Bell Springs 100 Day Summer Rains Retreat
May 27 - Sept. 7, 2004
http://www.bellsprings.org

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"What the Teaching is not"
Brahmajala Sutta, DN 1.1.18
"Whereas some ascetics and Brahmin remain addicted to
disputation such as: 'You do not understand this
doctrine and discipline -- I do! 'How could you
understand this doctrine and discipline?' 'Your way is
all wrong -- mine is right! 'I am consistent -- you
are not!' 'You said last what you should have said
first, and you said first what you should have said
last!' 'What you took so long to think up has been
refuted!' 'You argument has been over thrown, you are
defeated!' 'Go on save your doctrine -- get out of
that if you can!' the ascetic Gotama refrains from
such disputation."

"This, monks, the Tathagata understands: These view
points thus grasped and adhered to will lead to
such-and-such destinations in another world. This the
Tathagata knows, and more, but he is not attached to
that knowledge. And being thus unattached he has
experienced for himself perfect peace, and having
truly understood the arising and passing away of
(sensations), their attraction and peril and the
deliverance from them, the Tathagata is liberated
without remainder."

And what are these matters? (he enumerates 62 belief
systems, opinions and concepts).

1.37
"There are, monks, other matters, profound, hard to
see, hard to understand, peaceful, excellent, beyond
mere thought, subtle, to be experienced by the wise,
which the Tathagata, having realized them by his own
super-knowledge (abinna), proclaims, and about which
those who would truthfully praise the Tathagata would
rightly speak."

3.71
"With regard too all of these..., they experience
these (sensations) by repeated contact through the six
sense bases; (sensation) conditions craving, craving
conditions clinging; clinging conditions becoming;
becoming conditions birth; birth conditions aging and
death, sorrow, lamentation, sadness and
{(dissatisfaction) dukkha}.
"When a monk understands as they really are
(vipassana) the arising and passing away of the six
bases of contact, there attraction and peril, and the
deliverance from them, he knows that which goes beyond
all of these views.
(Digha Nikaya trans. Maurice Walshe, Wisdom, 1987)

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