XPost: alt.philosophy.taoism, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.zen   
   From: invalid@invalid.invalid   
      
   brian mitchell  wrote:   
   > "Ned Ludd" wrote:   
   >   
   >>   
   >> "brian mitchell"  wrote in message   
   >> news:8gu7vbhk6v4dlqf11npoku6gn5087pvup4@4ax.com...   
   >>> "Ned Ludd" wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>>> Where is that Theravada quote?  It's a great quote.  Nagarjuna   
   >>>> used it, I believe, to help monks NOT think about women, but the   
   >>>> quote is actually just a description of a human being, any human   
   >>>> being.  Ah yes...   
   >>>> ---   
   >>>> Full of many kinds of filth, producer of much excrement, as ripe as a   
   >>>> midden-pool, a tumor, a great wound filled up with pus and blood, as   
   >>>> though   
   >>>> sunk in a cesspit the body oozes water and ever filth outflows. Tied   
   >>>> together by sixty tendons and plastered with plaster of flesh, tightly   
   >>>> jacketed with skin - with no value, this body of filth. A connected   
   >>>> skeleton   
   >>>> of bones bound together with sinew cords producing various postures by   
   >>>> conditioned things combined. Set out with certainty of death and near to   
   >>>> King Mortality but having rejected it just here a man goes as he likes.   
   >>>> Covered over with ignorance and tied with the fourfold tie, enmeshed in   
   >>>> the   
   >>>> net of tendencies this body sinks in the flood.  Hitched to the five   
   >>>> hindrances and so, affected by thoughts, accompanied by craving's root and   
   >>>> wrapped by delusion's wrappings - this body continues on, made to go by   
   >>>> kamma's means, its existence in the end destroyed, all sorts of beings   
   >>>> perish. Those ordinary people, blinded fools, thinking their bodies belong   
   >>>> to them fill up the fearful cemeteries and seize repeated birth. Those who   
   >>>> abandon this body as one would a dung-smeared snake, having vomited   
   >>>> being's   
   >>>> root, will, taintless, Nibbana attain.   
   >>>> - Verses of the Elder Bhikkhus 567-576   
   >>>> ---   
   >>>>   
   >>>> So, can we agree that this is a valid description of each and   
   >>>> every one of us?   
   >>>   
   >>> Absolutely not, for the flesh is the avenue of all delights, at least   
   >>> if one includes the brain in the flesh.   
   >>>   
   >>> Isn't that quote just as dualistic in intent, body vs mind, as   
   >>> dividing consciousness into watcher and watched? There's quite a   
   >>> puritanical streak to be found in Buddhist texts, imo.   
   >>>   
   >>   
   >> Of course it is dualistic.  It's the worst kind of dualism, because   
   >> it makes people hate their bodies.  You, me and everyone is alive   
   >> because 30 trillion cells in our body are working their asses off   
   >> 24/7 to keep us alive.   
   >>   
   >> 'Puritanical' is a pale indictment of much Buddhist thought. Are   
   >> we on the same page that the original, over-arching, fundamental   
   >> goal of Buddhism, was the elimination of desire, to the point of   
   >> "not returning", ie. not coming back, not continuing the endless   
   >> cycles of samsara?   
   >>   
   >> How bleak is that?  What kind of medicine is that quote?  If we   
   >> are to assume that all the sutras are medicine set forth to combat   
   >> a disease, what medicine is the above "Body Bag" quote, from the   
   >> Sutta Pitaka?  And by extension, how powerful and deadly is the   
   >> disease that it is set forth to combat?   
   >   
   >  I suppose I should turn in my Buddhist Badge; I can't see life   
   > as either disease or disaster. Someone show me something better.   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)