Dear Nina and DC,

many thanks for your suggestions. Obviously I was not aware of the fact that Brahmajala sutta is such a hard nut. Probably I was misled by its place in Digha Nikaya. First sutta and the most difficult!

Anyway, relaying on Bhikhu Bodhi's translation and commentaries, as well as with a "little" help from this list, maybe I could make some progress. So far I came up to 4th paragraph. Buddha just interrupted monks in their conversation and now comes the real "fun" :)

Metta,
Branko


DC Wijeratna <dcwijeratna@...> wrote: Hello, Branko,

Translating the Brahmajaala sutta for 'fun', I think could turn out to be not so fun. It is one of the most difficult suttas in the whole of the canon. Generally left out by the academic community because it is really the Buddhist critique of all theistic positions. Having said, that if you go to the concluding paragraph of the sutta, you will find the following: Ananda, you may remember this exposition as the Net of Truth, and as the supreme Net, and as the Net of theories; remember it even as the Glorious Victory in the day of battle!'' [Rhys Davids translation] So brahma-net is only one of the names of the sutta. The 'net' here is the self-view; and the Brahma represent the highest self-view. So the meaning is that all the thieistic views are caught in the self-view or atta. Only the Buddhist position is free of the self-view. To be a Buddhist one has to give up all views. This is the essential first step to understand the teaching of the Buddha. From
the discussions going on the DSG, you will note what a difficult thing to do that. Regards, DC. [D.G.D.C.Wijeratna]


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