XPost: talk.religion.buddhism, alt.zen, alt.philosophy.zen   
   XPost: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy   
   From: epsteinrob@yahoo.com   
      
   Catawumpus wrote:   
      
   > halfawake :   
   >   
   >   
   >>The point is that there is a joyful, pleasant, positive experience given   
   >   
   >   
   >      Point is you regularly erase, ignore, or diminish elements   
   > of  Buddhism that clash with the joyful, pleasant, and   
   > positive experience you have in your hot-tub.  For example, you   
   > very often cite the jhanas, but you've brought them up a   
   > half-dozen times or so without mentioning the Buddha is warning   
   > against the "five strings of sensuality" -- i.e., things   
   > pleasing to the senses -- referring to a monk who is "withdrawn   
   > from sensuality," and describing rapture that's "born from   
   > withdrawal."  _None_ of that makes it into your Disney Buddhism.   
      
   I've acknowledged it repeatedly now, but you won't take yes for an   
   answer and deal with the remaining point - that joyful, pleasant states   
   are promoted by the Buddha along the path, while still in this life.  I   
   acknowledge, as I have said repeatedly, the other stipulations.  So why   
   do you hesitate to accept my statement with that acknowledgment?   
   Because it weakens your unfounded attack?   
      
   >      Same thing time and time again.  You denied that religious   
   > suicide had any place in Buddhist practice even when I'd   
   > already offered the example of medieval Pure Land Buddhism, and   
   > you managed to overlook an explicit reference to it in the   
   > article you quoted in reply:  a nice illustration of the mental   
   > editing you perform.   
      
   I've repeatedly changed my stance to include valid things that you said,   
   but you won't accept them and allow me to include them in my points. You   
   just keep going back to things I've altered or acknowledged.  It's a   
   ridiculous phoney argument.  When the other person says "okay let's   
   include that" you can't keep claiming they are *still* not including it.   
     An amazingly phoney way to support your attack.   
      
      You like to say that Bodhisattvas   
   > voluntarily enter the world of form, but you never mention it's   
   > considered a sacrifice made for the benefit of beings still   
   > trapped here -- not a trip to Disneyland.   
      
   Never said it was a trip to Disneyland.  My point is that they are free   
   to enter form or not.  If it's a sacrifice that's fine; I never said it   
   was Disneyland.  You imputed that yourself.   
      
      At the moment you're   
   > trying to pretend the Middle Way is a compromise between   
   > attachment and aversion to life rather than a path leading away   
   > from the world.  Etc.   
      
   We have a slight disagreement on the equivalence of those qualities.   
   I'm not denying that it's a path between indulgence and self-denial, as   
   you said.  I am extrapolating the philosophical principles that those   
   represent, but you are a control freak and can't allow any thoughts that   
   are added to your own.   
      
   >      In another post you mentioned whittling down your practice   
   > of Buddhism, but it would be more accurate to say you're   
   > whittling Buddhism down to a size which fits comfortably in the   
   > hot-tub.   
      
   That's your own unfounded aspersion, and you plainly don't know what   
   you're talking about when you make up such arbitrary bullshit,   
   mis-applying a statement from one thread to a warped version of another.   
      
   Robert   
      
   = = = = = = =   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)