From: fstawit@icomp01.lerc.nasa.gov (Tawit Chitsomboon)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: revelations or lack thereof...
Date: 7 Jan 1993 10:43:27 -0800
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Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: gap.caltech.edu

In article <1igmgpINN887@gap.caltech.edu> 
Roger Adams <RADAMS@cerritos.edu> writes:

>In article <1ifs8cINN23q@gap.caltech.edu>, 
>billc@devnull.mpd.tandem.com (Bill Carter) writes:
>

>>> [somone, sorry couldn't remember, writes:]
>>>A wealthy prince who renounces *everything* to go out into the
>>>wilderness in search of Truth is hardly an "ordinary guy"!
>> 

(i don't quite get it. Are you saying the B was devine or that
he was an exceptional guy who renounces everything. I'll assume
the former interpretation)


First, he did not renounce everything, not his sanity.
Second, he probably thought he was ordinary and the rest were insane
in attaching to everything.


>>    Buddhism appears somewhat unique in that even on the surface,
>>    there is no claim that Guatama had some special divinity apart
>>    from ordinary people like us.  
>
>We all have the same divinity but some like Buddha and Christ manifested it
>fully. Therefore, they can be said to be divine regardless of whether or not
>any particular religion wants to say they are divine....................

According to many of your posts in the past and this one included,
divinity is common place. Everything seems devine except perhaps
Satan himself.(The Satanist probably disagrees)
If divinity is common place, why care for it anyway?
If we are already devine then not being able to realize the devine
is also devine. If that is so then being immersed in
greed, hatred, and delusion is also devine. 

I hear a simile that our Self is like a diamond coverved with mud
and we need to work hard to rid the diamond off the  mud so that
it can shine all its brightness. If everything is devine, why not
at least give the mud equal value as the diamond? Better yet,
keep the mud and throw the diamond away!
BTW, buddha used the same simile for defilement/enlightenment.

A wise man like the buddha will never say anything as controversial
as 'everything is devine' (he says the opposite: 'everything is 
dukkha' :-) OK, if we all agree that dukkha is devine then all
religions can really be united. But he also said we should
try to get rid of dukkha. If all religions are same then we should
try to get rid of the devine. Or should we try to praise the 
dukkha instead?

Forgive my narrowmindednes, i'm a fundamentalist buddhist who wants
the buddha to remain what he is - an extraordinary ordinary guy.
Yes, his teaching is a revelation -- revelation of the sweat.
The difference beteen Gotama and others is that he had worked extremely
hard for 6 years, nearly paid his life for it while others got
instant revelation effortlessly. Of course, many would say that
it's the devine's wish to reveal the message to Gotama that way.
Sigh, might as well prostrate to a pile of refuse.

I agree with the poster who originated this thread (Alan?), that
buddhism is unique in its lack of the almighty. Let's keep it
that way for the sake of religio-diversity.


-tawit chitsomboon


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Here's chitsomboon's law of cyclic illusion,
The Big Bang was there, by man's pure imagination,
Out of the debris, emerged god, through evolution,
She then created man, out of compassion.
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