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August 14, 2011

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Just curious,

where did you find that book? I have been looking for it for a long time. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Kevin

The statement of the passage is clear, there is only one ultimate refuge. The sense in which atta and dhamma are equivocally that refuge is most certainly the same sense in which the tathagata is equivocally "brahmakaya" and "dhammakaya" or "brahmabhuto" and "dhammabhuto" and furthermore equivalent to the liberated or self-adequate atta in terms of doctrine in such as the Yamaka sutta of the Khandha Saymutta. Also at AN II.34 in the "four best faiths" (The Buddha, 8fp & Nibbana as Dhamma, and Sangha), Nibbana is equated to Dhamma.
So to me here Dhamma is equivalent to Nibbana ie the self-as-only-refuge (where Parinibbana is such "in the very self"; paccattanyeva) which thus means that to have atta as only refuge (as against the impermanent world) is that Nibbana is sole refuge.
Thus dhamma/brahma/tatha/atta/nibbana.

Not dhamma in the sense of environment or phenomena. Rather an ideal or ought-to-be; self-adequacy or the ultimate religious norm; perfection.

dhamma is prakriti not atman

there is no doctrinal substantiation for that Japanese commentators conjectures

dhamma in most instances is = pan or composite totality or the grasp thereof

trash the Japanese linear mental farts

Thank you. Whenever you look online on Buddhist forums and such, you always find what I call "hippie circlejerk", people patting each other's backs and discussing personal issues. More and more I find how all this is highly irrelevant and we should instead shut up and sit down and study Buddhism diligently. I think it's also the fault of some Zen teachers who gave the wrong impression to Westerners ... somehow we've been led to believe we don't have to study the sutras, the studies, but only be "mindful" of everything. It's all brainwashing including this mantra about "mindfulness".

This Blog of yours is a Dharma island on the sea of the Internet. Instead of blathering about your emotions you go into study and analysis, clarifying the foundations and elementary words. It's rare, really. It's what Western Buddhism chronically lacks.

Anyway, you should one day systematize this into a single body of text, list all the most common misconceptions of Western Buddhism and publish it somehow. It would be of great benefit to many.

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