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BSR - Latest Issue (Equinox)
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This paper explores the contemporary encounter between Western cultures and the Buddhist tradition of monasticism. I have investigated attitudes towards this institution in the forms of contemporary Buddhist memoirs, blog websites, interviews, and dharma talks. This article argues that the institution in general is not ideal for some Western Buddhists— it is seen by some as too restricting or anti-modern. Others find value in monasticism; they are aware of those who critique the institution, and offer instead a model that removes anti-modern elements that they see as problematic. As an extension of these attitudes, this article also draws on the issue of female monasticism. Western Buddhists argue that all women should have the choice to be ordained because this shows that Buddhism is modern. I conclude that Western Buddhists are interested in creating a modern, universal tradition, and this can be seen by analyzing conceptions about monastic life.
view article | [Buddhist Studies Review]
This paper critiques the standard translation of ariya-sacca as ‘Noble Truth’ and argues that the term refers to four saccas as ‘true realities’, rather than as verbalised ‘truths’ about these realities; the teachings about them are not, as such what the term ariya-sacca refers to. Moreover, only one of the ariya-saccas (the fourth) is itself ever described in the suttas as ‘noble’. The four are ‘true realities for the spiritually ennobled’: the fundamental, basic, most significant genuine realities that the Buddha and other noble ones see in the flow of experience of themselves and/or others. The first of them is not best translated as ‘suffering’ but as ‘pain’ – in all its many senses – or indeed ‘the painful’: the upādāna-kkhandhas as ‘bundles of grasping-fuel’ which are described, adjectivally, as ‘painful’. The paper includes a new translation of the Dhamma-cakka-ppavattana Sutta in line with this analysis
view article | [Buddhist Studies Review]
The present article studies the meditative approaches to imperturbability depicted in the Āneñjasappāya-sutta and its Chinese and Tibetan parallels. By way of introduction to the main theme broached in this discourse, I briefly survey Pāli discourses relevant to the early Buddhist notion of imperturbability. Next I examine the presentation given in the Āneñjasappāya-sutta based on translated extracts from its Madhyama-āgama parallel, noting variations between these two and a Tibetan version extant in Śamathadeva’s commentary on the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya. In the concluding part of the article, I turn to the relationship between tranquillity and insight reflected in the Āneñjasappāya-sutta.
view article | [Buddhist Studies Review]
Scholars have pointed out that the arguments for not-self (anattā, or “non-self”) recurring in the Buddhist texts are meant to refute the “self” (ātman) in the Upaniṣads. The Buddha’s denial of the self, however, was not only pointed at Brahmanism, but also confronted various śramaṇic trends of thought against Brahmanism. This paper investigates the extant three versions of a Buddhist text which records a debate between the Buddha and Saccaka, an adherent of a certain śramaṇic sect, over the relationship of the self and the five aggregates (khandha). There exist divergences among the three versions in regard to the account of this debate. The account in sutta 35 of the Majjhima Nikāya is generally consistent with that in sūtra 110 of the Saṃyukta Āgama in Chinese translation, whereas sūtra 10 of Chapter 37 of the Ekottarika Āgama in Chinese translation tells a very different story. Judging from Saccaka’s title, Nigaṇṭhaputta, and his background as given in the Pali commentary, he was an adherent of Jainism. This paper demonstrates that Saccaka’s view, which was refuted by the Buddha, as stated in the two similar versions has nothing to do with Jainism, but rather it is an “invention” created by distorting Brahmanical thought. This “invention” has led the Pali commentaries and contemporary scholars to interpret the ‘self’ denied by the Buddha as what comes under one’s mastery or control, and to understand the statement “Each of the five aggregates is not self” in the Buddhist texts as denying the idea that each of the five aggregates can be seen as what comes under control. This, however, misses the point. The mainstream thought in India at that time conceived the ‘self’ or the essence of the individual or of the universe as a ‘controller’, and it is this concept that the Buddha exerted all his energy to overturn. Therefore, the account in those two versions of the text apparently has some mistake. As to the Ekottarika Āgama version of the text, Saccaka’s view as stated therein is very different from what is found in the above two versions. An examination of this version shows that the views rebutted by the Buddha are very similar to those of the Ājīvikas. Since the Buddhist texts frequently confuse the Ājīvikas with the Jains (Nigaṇṭha), it is very likely that Saccaka was actually an adherent of the Ājīvika faith and that this discourse is meant to criticize the Ājīvika doctrines. Since the Ekottarika Āgama version seems to make better sense, this version may be fairly close to the original account, while the other two versions have considerably deviated from the original. By comparing these three versions of the text, I also attempt to explore some important issues regarding the sectarian development of Buddhism, and to shed some light on the unique values of the Chinese Ekottarika Āgama, which is, in terms of sectarian affiliation, significantly distant from the Pali Majjhima Nikāya and the Chinese Saṃyukta Āgama that belong to two closely related schools.
view article | [Buddhist Studies Review]
This article is part of a series on the Shorter Chinese Saṃyukta-āgama (BZA). Continuing the investigation from previous research on the provenance of the BZA, it is concluded that the attribution of the BZA to the Kāśyapīya school is mistaken. A comparison of the BZA’s Śakra-saṃyukta with the Pāli Sakka-saṃyutta shows that, with minor exceptions, the narrative content of both saṃyuttas is identical though the number of suttas varies. Finally, the article completes the translation of the Śakra-saṃyukta, the first part of which appeared in BSR 25 (2).
