Dear Robert,


I hope you and all who read this are enjoying this little debate as
much as i am! Keeping the grand old Indian vaada tradition alive.

> The only reason it could be changing is because a few well-

meaning,

> but (IMHO) misguided souls are actively ignoring millenia of
> tradition.

And this, obviously, includes the senior Theras and Theris of the
Thai, Sri Lankan, Burmese, Vietnamese, Korean, Taiwanese, Laotian,
Cambodian, and Tibetan traditions in Australia.

> There is no example anywhere in the scriptures, of monks from
> outside sects being considered as Theravada and invited to
> participate in sanghakamma. You are ignoring this and trying to

go

> on a radically new path.

There is no example in the scriptures of the Lord Buddha because
there were no sects in his day and hence no sectarianism in the
Vinaya.

If we wish to speak of later history, your claim is simply wrong. In
the medieval period the Abhayagirivasins and the Jetavaniyas were
reabsorbed into the Mahaviharavasin fold. That is why there is only
one sect in Sri Lanka today.

In this the Theravadins must be praised, for they did not let the
polemicism of their own ancient chronicles blind them to the
Buddha's teaching on harmony and understanding. They no doubt
understood that, although some in the past may have misbehaved, this
does not condem all their children and their children's children to
eternal damnation.

> Have you considered the dangers in this

Yes, it's dreadful! Friendliness, harmony, understanding, mutual
support and appreciation - what will happen next! It's a wonder i
can sleep at night!

and how it was because of

> the strict conservatism of Theravada that the Dhamma has been
> preserved until now.

I appreciate the fact that the Theravadins have preserved such a
wonderful scripture for us.

It is praiseworthy to conserve what is good. But i get worried about
the '-ism'. 'Conservatism' just wants to save everything blindly,
without discernment. I would prefer us to be good Vibhajjavadins,
able to carefully distinguish between what is good and what is bad.

>

But the proceedings of that

> > Council took place entirely on the basis of what was Dhamma and
> > Vinaya, not on the basis of who pledges allegiance to a certain
> > sectarian grouping.
> >
> > I mentioned in an earlier message that many other schools, such

as

> > the Sarvastivadins, might just as well claim the 'orthodox'
> bhikkhus
> > as their forbears.
>
> ================
> And this is the root of your ideas.

I'm not sure what you mean. IS it that i take the Dhamma-Vinaya as
guide? If so, thank you, at last we agree!

Or are you implying that i'm somehow a crypto-Sarvastivadin? This is
just wrong - i've never been persuaded by their main ideas, although
i have learnt a lot from how they developed them and what they mean
for the religion as a whole. But one of the Sarvastivadins main
themes, almost obsessively, was to preserve the sasana untarnished
by the ravages of time.

You do not recognize the

> Theravada as being the genuine heirs of the Buddha's teaching,

This is just wrong. Please read my previous messages so i don't have
to keep explaining myself again and again. I don't agree that the
Theravadins can be regarded as the ONLY genuine heirs of the Buddha.
I regard anyone who practices and lives in accordance with the
teachings as a genuine heir of the Buddha, regardless of what label
they may go by.

>
> Surely it is outrageous that some Theravada Bhikkhus now handle
> money, but this is a different matter.

No it's not. The Vajjiputtakas were simply doing different
practices, not changing the Vinaya. That is why the affair was
settled by reference to the universally accepted Vinaya.

As far as I know none of

> these bhikkus are suggesting the vinaya be changed to suit their
> foul behaviour.

Yet again, this is just wrong.

There have been some prominent Sri Lankan monks in modern times who
have seriously argued that only the four parajika offenses should be
retained, and the rest of the Vinaya may be disposed of.

Recently a well-known Thai bhikkhu submitted to the Senate inquiry
on religion the proposal that the Thai Sangha be split into two
camps, one celibate, one married. Perhaps he felt this more
accurately reflected the actual state of affairs in Thailand.

>
> I now quote from the Katthavathuppakarana-Atthakatha (by

Buddhoghosa)

> (p3 of Points of contoversy, PTS)

I don't feel the need to add anything to what Stephen has said re
the above Kathavatthu atthakatha quote.

> The commentary continues and cites the Dipavamsa
> The Bhikkhus [of the schismatic sects] "settled a doctrine contray
> [to the true faith] Altering the original redaction, they made
> another. they transposed suttas which belonged in one coleection

to

> another place;

This has definitely happened in the Theravada. Even in recent times
(the last 200 years), the Burmese have removed the Satipatthana
Sutta (MN10) and replaced it with the Mahasatipatthana Sutta (DN22).
The Satipatthana Sutta no longer exists in the Burmese version of
the Pali canon. Why is it that the ultra-conservative Theravadins
have ignored this outrageous tampering with their texts? The Burmese
have also added several later books to the canon, which are excluded
by the Sri Lankans and Thais.


they destroyed the true meaning and the faith in the

> vinyaa

Again, please, i beg you, do not simply accept such polemics on face
value as absolute truth. There are 6 Vinayas available in Chinese!
Would they have done this if they were intent on destroying Vinaya?
Get Pachow's A Comparative Study of the Pratimoksa. Read it, with
rubber gloves if necessary, but read it anyway! We can see what
these people said in their own scriptures, and it proves Buddhaghosa
utterly wrong.

Rejecting the other texts- that is to say the Pavara, the

> six sections of the Abhidhamma, the Patisambhidhida, the niddessa
> and some portions of the Jataka they composed new ones. They

changed

> their appearance, ..forsaking what was original..."

That's interesting that it says the 'six sections of the
Abhidhamma'. Since there are now seven books, if your translation is
accurate, it would seem that even at the late date of the Dipavamsa
the Abhidhamma Pitaka was not yet settled.

This passage is very significant, in that the texts mentioned were
rejected by some Indian Buddhists as late insertions. Exactly the
same texts have been rejected by modern scholars using historical
criticism. The Parivara, for example, is believed to have been
composed, or at least finalized, in Sri Lanka (see the article 'Sri
Lanka's Contribution to the Pali Canon', by Ananda Guruge (available
online).

This shows that, contrary to the opinions of some, the question of
historical authenticity was an important issue to the ancient
Indians, and it also confirms our confidence in the methods of
historical criticism.

>
> There is more along the same lines. Thus we see how fragile the
> Dhamma is - and open to abuse by foolish monks changing and
> rejecting sections of the Tipitaka at their whim.

Exactly. So can we join forces to encourage the Burmese Theravadins
to restore the Pali canon?

Recent work has been done by the Taiwanese master Yin Shun to
restore the samyukta Agama in Chinese. His work was independently
duplicated by another Chinese scholar. Then both of their findings
were unexpectedly supported by the diggings of some Berman
archeologists. They dug up a fragment of the Nidana Samyukta, and
noticed that the sequence of suttas was the same as the Chinese. But
they didn't notice that there was a slight difference, and, being
unaware of Yin Shun's work, they didn't notice that the manuscript
they had dug up was in fact identical in sequence with Yin Shun's
reconstructed SA.

Again, this reconfirms our confidence that historical methods can,
at least sometimes, come up with reliable results. This is not based
on 'whim', but on careful and painstaking research.

It is only becuase

> of the steadfastness of the Theravada that we have the Dhamma
> preserved until today.

There is more early Sutta, Vinaya, and Abhidhamma preserved in the
Chinese canon than in Pali. The Theravada remains unique since they
maintained an Indic language, but they are not, by any objective
standard, the only preservers of Dhamma.


yours in Dhamma-Vinaya

Bhante Sujato