--- Ong Yong Peng <yongpeng.ong@...> wrote:

> While the
> Buddhist corpus is comparatively massive in size,
> the Buddha has
> cautioned us not to disregard and neglect new
> understandings of life
> and the world as been discovered each day and moment
> by explorers,
> scientists, researchers, and within the inquiring
> minds we call our
> own.

One example:

A few years ago, I bought a copy of the report of the
Panadura Controversy. It turned out that, during this
debate, the Buddhist side insisted about the actual
existence of Mount Meru, and firmly asserted that this
giant mountain is situated at the North Pole.

Well, at the time, no human eye had yet seen the North
Pole (nor the South one), but nowadays it is more easy
to control this assertion. Just clique at
<http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html>!
Evidently, the North Pole is one of the flattest
places on Earth - just water and drifting ice...

So let's remember that the Buddha did not teach us
geography, history or cosmology, but just dukkha and
the end of dukkha. Whatever stories he told were not
primarily intended to give us scientific facts, but to
help our liberation.

Gunnar


gunnargallmo@...