Recently banned for one day

The reddit moderators sent me this DM:

This is a temporary ban as a warning. Please do not promote "oneness" or a "higher self on this subreddit", whether or not you think it is implied by the sutras.

It's quite astonishing for people who are familiar with the Pali Nikayas and Mahayana Sutras like the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, for example, which is all about the self or atman. Here is a passage from this Sūtra:  

"The Buddha said: "O good man! "Self" means "Tathagatagarbha" [Buddha-Womb, Buddha-Embryo, Buddha-Nature]. Every being has Buddha-Nature. This is the Self."

There is nothing to be found in the Pali Nikaya where the Buddha categorically claims that there is no self which in Pali is natthattā which I hasten to add, also happens to be the doctrine of annihilationism which the Buddha rejects!  He says to Ananda,

“Had I answered, ‘There is no self (natthattā),’ this would have been siding with those ascetics and brahmins who are annihilationists” (SN 44.10). 

A contemporary of the Buddha, Ajita Kesakambali, who was one of the great annihilationists basically taught that there is no self for the reason that the person is composed of material elements and that with death all this is annihilated.  Thus, the idea of a transmigrant was out of the question whereas for the Buddha, consciousness (vijñāna) was the transmigrant that survived death.

Then the question comes up, "Who or what realizes nirvana if there is no self?"  The answer is not all that difficult.  It is the very self or in Pali paccatta what attains nirvana.

"He [thus] dwelling contemplating impermanence in those feelings, contemplating dispassion, contemplating cessation, contemplating renunciation, does not grasp at anything in the world, and not grasping he is not perturbed, not being perturbed he attains utter nibbana in his very self.  He knows ‘Destroyed is birth, lived is the holy life, done is what was to be done, there will be no more of thus-conditioned existence" (MN I.255-256).

So I am been banned for a day by the great moderators (gatekeepers) of reddit who felt I was a threat to the docile sheep who come to reddit Buddhism to post pictures of their Buddhist shrines, tell us about their depression and PTSD, and wonder if Buddhism can help them which would be much cheaper than going to a psychologist. These people are not from my generation. I am 74. I took Buddhism as my path in 1965 and have had one heck of a great adventure.  Those who visit this blog I consider part of my Buddhist family and mavericks like me.

Comments

[n. yeti]

Well...this did come from reddit. Have to give credit where credit is due ...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japanese-rail-workers-build-special-tunnels-to-save-turtles-from-train-deaths-a6757466.html

[n. yeti]

This is the same small group which bans discussions of vegetarianism even though the unrestrained habit of consuming flesh is a very great offense. Did not the Buddha say that EVERY being trembles for its life? I would like these cowards to spend a week in a slaughterhouse and take in those sights and sounds and smells and still uphold the outrageous lie that meat-eating is a perfectly acceptable part of Buddhist practice. By the way, I am not condemning those who do eat meat (or more specifically, those who have not fully considered what that means) I am challenging the moderators who position themselves as the gatekeepers of Buddhism, and who insist upon shutting down discussion around the topic of vegetarianism for what evil purpose I cannot even imagine.

[Jung]

Don´t you worry. Life, with its inbuilt uncertainty principle, given sufficient time, has a penchant of wrecking every single theory, ideation, and otherwise created position, by these putthujanas, to the very end until the system shuts down and reboots in a new medium, as long as there is the slightest trace of attached avidya prohibiting a vertical ascension and right view of their true nature.