Mayavadi Idea of Sunyata - (vs Gaudiya idea of Sunyata)

This is a thread to consisely explore the idea of SUNYATA and how it's understood by mayavadis vs gaudiyas. I will post in this thread much later, after the 'bheda abheda' thread that it stems from is more thoroughly discussed. Whoever has any ideas on SUNYATA feel free to post anything.

From Wikipedia

For purposes of clarity.
I will use the term Sunyavadi when talking about the actual path as it is understood by the insiders of the tradition.
I will use the term Mayavadi when talking about the path of oneness or emtyness, monistically or nihilistically understood. This is what Gaudiyas think advaita and buddhism is.
Because we've already talked about advaita, and this thread is about sunyata, and sunyata is most clearly explained in buddhism, the focus here will be on buddhism.

Evakurvan, just a word before you start. Please do not patronise everyone by using terms that you think only GauDIyas understand. It gives a nasty image of haughtiness and condescension. Feel free to use the technical terms for any of the concepts that you present. There are enough paNDitas around here who understand.

Because when i was new to vedanta, i was totally annoyed that people kept talking in sanskrit every other word, i wish to talk about things now in ways that are totally clear to even strangers. Even though there are many pandits here, there are also many regular people who feel left out and intimidated by all the jargon, including me. When i talk, i am imagining it is to someone unfamiliar with the jargon, even if im talking to a scholar who already knows every term, because i know most people are not scholars and why should they need to be to participate. Even if it appears you are being condescended upon, keep in mind that this is what i am doing, not necessarily because i feel -you- dont know the terms.

By all means, please go on explaining your terms. I am not a Sanskrit scholar and I would like to be able to follow this discussion too. Plus, when using such words, people from varying traditions may use them somewhat differently in their own context. I think defining them up front helps avoid confusion.

Yes please ..
many here are interested in your presentation, of course you will encounter those who disagree, but what do you expect, it's an orthodox gaudiya forum!

Regardless... your views are of great interest to many here...

namaskar,

bangli

This is to say I will continue this topic at some later time. I did not know that calling attention to a poster's previous history is uncalled for. It is what Tamal Baran Das did in the "Appreciating Madhava' thread, by referring to Keshar Chandan as Sparky Photon from Istagosthi in order to explain his history. Maybe the etiquette is different if you are just a guest here. I did invite Gaurasundara to share his view on abheda from the Gaudiya standpoint. Not to create claims about his studies just to give credibility to his critisizing of advaita. Ramakrishna is not an 'unorthodox advaitan.' He and Vivekananda are among the most "uncompromising" and orthodox advaitans to exist in the past two hundred years (AS). Anyone can come here, make claims about studying raganuga, then proceeed to spread false information on raganuga. The Board rules allude to that and prevent it from happening. Why is it okay to do the same thing, but to advaita.

If someone had come in here making dense raganuga points to challenge you, while pretending to have authority, would you say nothing. Or would you feel the urge to explain their history of pretending to have undertaken grandiose study in other fields too, despite obvious facts to the contrary. Would doing so be an ad-hominem.

I appreciate your thoughtful reading of my posts Audarya-lila dasa, i will reflect on what you said. I will withdraw from this topic for a while, i don't have any inspiration for it at this point but I will take some time and try to have a discussion about it when the moderators are back, radhe radhe.

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[Clumsy moderator's interlude -

Dhyana wrote here orginally, but since transferred to the experiential thread: ]

Nothing clumsy about it, dear Braja. Thank you for transferring the thing (and even for noticing and keeping here the part of my lengthy post that did refer to sunyata...) to where I originally wanted to have it. I see that other thread is no longer closed now.

One problem when discussing a Gaudiya view of sunyata is that there is very little material on it. I believe you mentioned elsewhere that you were referring to local ISKCON devotees and perhaps you have since added a few local GD members, but I think it is worthwhile pointing that out. There is some material on Buddhism in the Caitanya Caritamrita as Mahaprabhu both meets some Buddhists and mentions them when discussing Sankara. AC Bhaktivedanta Swami does have some elaborate comments on Buddhism and IIRC they originate from the understanding of Bhaktivinode Thakura.



As there is a strong difference, at least in the classical sense between mayavada and sunyavada/sunyata, you may need to revise your terminology.

Mayavada is a term, probably somewhat pejorative, that is used--and not just by Gaudiyas--to refer specifically to the doctrines of Sankara. The term mithyavada is also seen. The terms refer to Sankara's teaching that the creation is an illusion. only brahman is real. As Sankara is the pillar of Advaita, you'll generally find that all Gaudiya conceptions of mayavada come back to his teachings.

If you believe that there is commonality between sunyata and mayavada, please explain--in another thread, if you wish--how that is so.

[I've moved Bangli's post here from the Language thread. I think it belongs here but am open to other suggestions. Braja.]

Braja,

We have all heard the explanations of mayavada/sunyavada from an Iskcon/Gaudiya Math perspective and the songs etc.
Could you if possible give any reference to what Ananta das babaji or any other orthodox Gaudiyas have said in their writings regarding those terms mayavada/sunyavada?
And were those terms ever incorporated into any songs like IGM did?

namaskar,

bangli

I don't feel that you did anything wrong by bringing it up. I think the temporary closure was more to give everyone a chance to cool down before it got out of hand. I hope that after you get some rest (I know you've been pouring your heart out into these topics) you will continue, as I for one am learning a lot.

I think it serves to demonstrate that even when difficult, inter-faith discussion can be quite illuminating. The more I think about this and relate it back to my tradition, the more ideas I have and connections I make. It's quite inspiring.

Thank you for making us think.

I should that as a mini-moderator (and as someone who perhaps assisted in driving evakurvan into a defensive position) I too agree that she could keep posting and that these topics are very interesting. I'll leave the issue of ego and etiquette to the gods.

In Prema-bhakti-candrika, Narrotama Das Thakur speaks about the poison pots of jnana-kanda and karma-kanda. I believe that Baba mentions something there about Sankara but only in passing. Similarly there is mention in his Siksastakam commentary of bhakti surpassing brahman--he gives a couple of analogies such as brahman being like looking without blinking and bhakti as looking with blinking. I doubt there is any elaborate commentary though on mayavada or sunyavada per se... But, I am just a babe.

FWIW: Baba has a series of book on tattva, of which we only have two in English--Guru-tattva-vijnana and Bhakti-tattva-vijnana. I have no idea whether the others mention mayavada/sunyavada though but they might.

Ananta Das Baba's commentary on PBC 16 "yogI nyAsI karmI jGAnI" (translated by Advaita Das):

A clarification. I am not pinpointing 'local iskcon' people. I am talking about the consensus of meaning among a really wide range of actual real life Gaudiya people, not what you find written in some small passage in a book. I have asked ritviks, iskcon, narayan maharaj, siddhaswarupananda followers, and other gaudiyas, what do they think about buddhism, vivekananda, ramakrishna, advaita in general, and just listened to their various responses. Their reaction is the same. They are mayavadis. They are impersonalists. They believe in merging into a state of non-duality. They believe in floating in ethereal voidness. There is no personality or taste to that, no flavour.

I did not think it would be neccessary for me to explain the attitude toward these people, I thought it was obvious to everyone, and i'm pretty sure it is. Do not try to tell me that most gaudiyas go around making distinctions between 'types' of mayavadis, embrace buddhists ramakrishna, and vivekananda, yet only reject sankara. It is just not true. Maybe some really wise babaji does this somewhere out there, but it's not the general consensus, not even, it seems, among the extra liberal raganugas. I am interested in that general consensus. If there are Gaudiyas out there who do not lump all these people into the mayavadi box of voidness and oneness, I am not addressing them.

I ask for your forgiveness if when i say Gaudiyas this - Gaudiyas that, you imagine i am trying to complain about Gaudiyas. Please realize that by that im not trying to condemn all gaudiyas or say all gaudiyas think that way. It is even my uneducated intuition that Caitanya did not think that way, and his condemnation of Mayavadis is a condemnation of what i would call nihilists voidists or extreme non-dualists proper. Sunyata simply does not mean that. Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, and the overwhelming majority of buddhists do not espouse that at all. However, some people make them out to look like they do, and they get that idea from the teaching of Sunyata.

Why the word Sunyata? There is no need for wordjugglery with mayavadi / sunyavadi. All those things that I mentionned in the first paragraph about why Gaudiyas disparage those traditions, they are all contained within the sanskrit word, Sunyata. When Gaudiyas say that mayavadis become nothing, lose their self, merge, float in voidness, strive for brahmajyoti (another word that should be completely discarded when talking about buddhists and advaitans), all those things I enumerated, they get them from the concept of Sunyata and their own understanding of it. It is a personification of every little thing that Gaudiyas hate about mayavadis, in one word.

Here is the song where we see this.

namas te sarasvate deve gaura vani pracarine
nirvisesa sunyavadi pascatya desa tarine.

Our respectful obeisances are unto you, O spiritual master, servant of Sarasvati Gosvaami. You are kindly preaching the message of Lord Caitanyadeva and delivering the Western countries, which are filled with impersonalism and voidness.

I only have an Iskcon translation only. I am sure other gaudiyas do not sing the song with all the same words in it, or do not sing the song at all. However, the song is a good example of what I am talking about and you can see why I want to discuss a precise concept like Sunyata because of it.

I hope this has clarified things.

Response to the quote just posted:
Like in that quote just supplied by braja, as i suspected, the root disdain for 'mayavadi' can be pinned down to the most hated term of all 'sunyata,' which is what Ananta das Baba is referring to when he says 'Buddhist Voidism.' As shown in that quote by Baba (sorry i'm using the word baba for simplicity, no disrespect intended), it appears that Gaudiyas disdain this teaching of sunyata even -more- then they disdain Sankara himself. In fact, Baba seems to be saying in that quote that Sankara himself came down on earth to preach Advaita, only as a way to destroy the -even greater- evil of Buddhist Voidism (Sunyata).


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The verse in question was composed by AC Bhaktivedanta Swami as a pranam-mantra for his disciples. It is only used in ISKCON. FWIW, it does distinguish between nirvisesa and sunyavada. nirvisesa--"without form"--being a reference to Advaita/mayavada.



Yes. And you are correct in seeing a common approach between Gaudiyas even if their focus and application differs. The commonality is based on the views expressed in Caitanya Caritamrita by Mahaprabhu.

Nirvisesa is more commonly used in buddhism than in advaita.
Nirvisesa is rarely ever translated as 'without form,' i have never seen that translation.
It is usually translated as 'extinction,' though in the iskcon translation it is translated as 'impersonalism.'
I guess you can say all these translations aim to convey a similar meaning.
Yes, both Nirvisesa and Sunyavadi are named, that doesn't mean that there is any relevant distinction between them. They are both disdained mayavadi concepts that are both taken to mean relatively the same thing: impersonalism, without form, extinction, voidism.
The actual difference between these terms is that Sunyata is the 'teaching' and Nirvana is the 'aim' to strive for.
I can just as well relate this discussion to Nirvana, and how it is understood by Buddhists themselves, and how extinction proper isn't the way a sadhaka internalizes the word Nirvana. Instead I've chosen Sunyata because that is the word that is used when talking about the 'teaching,' and that is and what Gaudiyas refer to when they say 'Buddhist Voidness'

Sunyata is mostly a teaching discussed among Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhists.
These are the Buddhists of China, Japan, Korea, and Tibet.

Please excuse me if my posts from now on aren't as fast as they have been i am going to be slower in responding because i have some things to do. radhe radhe.

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I totally disagree with you about the fact "He and Vivekananda are the most uncompromising and orthodox advaitans to exist in the past 200 years"......

Ramkrishna was a Vaisnava. He was the first person who transmitted the Rasa of Bhakti into traditional Sakta dharma by the influence of Mahaprabu. Please read the biography of Sri ramakrishna and see how he used to get Samadhi by seeing Mahaprabhu in "Noti Binodini" play. He was having intense Bhakti to Divine Mother kali. That Bhakti came from the source of traditional Vaishnava origin. He has some mixed opinion about dharma...... Later from the preaching of Ramkrisna Mission founded by Vivekanada the thought got changed eventually .
Also Vivekanada introduced his own idea about Advaita into the preaching of ramakrishna mission.
So present idea of Advaita Philosophy coming from Ramakrishna Mission is kind of conglomerate of thought of various monk of Ramakrishna Mission.

Have you ever had a chance of getting association of Ramakrishna Mission Bhagavata Patha? There you will feel you are listening Bhagavata from any other Gaudiya.... with some kind of mix of Advaita philosophy. Even the extent of mixture of Advaita philosophy varies from different sadhus within Ramakrishan Mission.
Hope this will clarify.

Nirvisesa is a key concept and term of Advaita: Nirvisesha Chin MAtram Brahma

Monier Williams:






And seeing as it is relevant, more from the same:



from Schools of Vedanta

If you are disagreeing with me, than you are disagreeing with a comment by a scholar who has spent his life researching advaita and other hindu religions. Here is the direct quote: "Even the most uncompromising people who say that Ultimate Reality is Impersonal, like Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, even they have mellowed it out... Ramakrishna accepts both Nirguna and Saguna Brahman"(AS). I think I recall Prabhupada saying something about how Ramakrishna poisonned India. He is not respected as a Vaisnava in those circles. He is seen as an Impersonalist NonDualist Mayavadi. I guess you're under the impression that Vaisnavas can't be Advaitans. And that Advaitans don't practise Bhakti.
I would like this thread to stay focussed on Sunyata only.
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dasanudas, sorry i feel i answered you too strongly so i have editted to sound nicer!

I do feel it is irrelevant in this case because as you yourself have stated, that song i am referring to was composed by Prabhupada, and the way he wanted it translated, as shown in the iskcon songbook, is 'impersonalism.' It is meant to accompany the word Sunyavadi in order to doubly impress upon listeners the IMPERSONALISM AND VOIDISM of mayavadi philosophy. This is why i called the fact that you made a disctinction between the two irrelevant. Because it does not change anything to the point i was making. I am sorry if that word is too harsh.

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No, as per Caitanya's teachings and those of classic Advaita, they are two separate but related concepts. One refers to Advaita/mayavada, one to Buddhism. As stated by Advaitin followers of Sankara:



Anyways, if you want to present sunyata as a doctrine that is common to modern Advaita, go right ahead. Most of us here who have any interest or grounding in Gaudiya views on mayavada and sunyavada are familiar with their traditional depiction, which, I believe is where you think there is a problem.

No, Mahaprabhu says "and lower than the Buddhists are those who follow atheism, while taking refuge in the Veda." Cc Madhya 6.168 (6.152 in Dimock)

The "Buddhist voidism" reference is not that of Baba directly but is from Padma Purana and is quoted in the Caitanya Caritamrta. (Actually, PadmaPur. only says "pracchannam bauddha"--covered/crypto Buddhism. The "voidism" part is an apparent addition.)

Here is what i am concerned with:
(Ananta Dasji)

From that quote by Ananta Dasji, it appears that Gaudiyas disdain this teaching of Sunyata even -more- then they disdain Sankara himself. In fact, Ananta Dasji seems to be saying in that quote that Sankara himself came down on earth to preach Advaita, only as a way to destroy the -even greater- evil of Buddhist Voidism.
Ananta Dasji thinks that Sankara Advaita philosophy is bad. I can accept that i am not that concerned with it. What i am concerned with is that he thinks that Buddhism is even worse, and the reason why it is worse is because of the teaching of Buddhist Voidism. Amid all these posts, this is the ONE thing that crystallizes the heart of what i am concerned with.
The real untranslated sanskrit word for the teaching of 'Buddhist Voidism' is
Sunyata.
I am concerned with the fact that Ananta Dasji's idea of what Sunyata is, does not correspond to the Buddhist idea of what Sunyata is, but that his idea is tainted due to misunderstanding and politics.
I do not want to talk about anything else because i am really not that concerned with it, except that quote.
I want to explain what Sunyata Really Means to Buddhists.
I have spent many years having it drummed into me that Sunyata does not mean emptyness within the strictly limited sense of the word.

As a side note. He is saying that Buddhist Voidness is even worse than Sankara's Advaita, because it is Really Way More Mayavadi.
At least Sankara's Advaita posits an Atman, and equates it with God.
Buddhist Voidness on the other hand is even -worse- to him, because how he has learned it, it does not even posit Atman or God, but just declares Emptyness.
And declares Emptyness, along with all of the Gaudiya ideas of what that entails, like voidism, non-dualism and so on.

I am not going to start explaining what Sunyata Really means to Buddhists now.
I would really rather pause a bit before doing that, to reflect, and i think it would be better if the moderators were here too. I might post some little small things in the meantime.

The intent behind my posts does contain a tone of respect, even though it may not seem that way.
Even though it might get tense at times, I think this is worth it.

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Who is that girl standing next to Krishna?

I am not sure I understand your correction.
I am not used to reading things like this.
Is that a commentary by Ananta Dasji?
Does he say "mayavada is actually a concealed form of Buddhism and is untrue"
and then go on to quote somtething to illustrate that point?
It seemed pretty clear to me at first read and i read it many times over to make sure.

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Please read Sri Caitanya caritamrita, Madhya 6 and it will be clear what Baba's reference is. You can read the BBT version online at http://vedabase.net/cc or get a hold of Dimock's Harvard Oriental Series version.

In that chapter, Sri Caitanya countering the Advaitin arguments of the famous impersonalist Sarvabhauma, quotes from the Padma Purana as to the identity of Sankaracarya and also offers his opinion on mayavada and Buddhism.

There is a reason why some have understood the Gaudiya tradition to be very close to Shankarachargya. It is possible that some (mabe many) traditional Gaudiyas don't know about Advaitic view and esp. Buddhist view is they are not interested and therefore have not studied it at all or very little - let alone took any time to taste some of it - in line with the Achargyas of those traditions. Some of us 'Westerners' have done this. Have gone intellectually, but more importantly, experiencially into some of these traditions - Advaita and Buddhist. Sunyata seems anything but "void" - void of material qualities - yes! - but not void of indescriable spiritual qualities. More later.

It seems im being slow today, bear with me
Is that a commentary by Ananta Dasji? Does he say "mayavada is actually a concealed form of Buddhism and is untrue," and then he goes on to quote Padma Purana as quoted in the Caitanya Caritamrta, in order to illustrate that point of his through sastric evidence?
It seems pretty obvious to me and i keep rereading it, and i dont see what reading that part of the cc would have to do with it.

Even if he isn't saying that, which to me it seems he is, I have heard things just like that by Gaudiyas from all branches.

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He paraphrases and then quotes the verse:

mayavada asat (untrue) sastram (scripture/teaching)

pracchannam (concealed) bauddha (Buddhism)

=> mayavada is actually a concealed form of Buddhism and is untrue

Pardon my butting in, but I can't resist (actually, I'm much better, years ago I had the kind of personality that would try to "answer" every question, but the more I study GV, the more I realize that I don't know much about GV).

Anyway:

Concerning ACBS's praNAma-mantra, it has always been my understanding that it was actually composed by none other than Narayana Maharaja, and perhaps tells more about his own emphasis in preaching than that of ACBS. (By the way, as far as I know, no one has ever been able to parse "sArasvatI deve" -- and one can find several different spellings of this phrase in print in someone's attempt to turn it into real Sanskrit.) With regard to the English translation of the philosophical terms in these obeisances -- one must be very careful whenever assuming that the translations printed in ACBS's works are his. The purports are supposed to be genuine, but in several works (most notably the GItA, the Songbook, and at least some UpadezAmRta verses), the translations are known not to be by ACBS. Sorry if this bursts anyone's bubble. In any case, I would be careful about assuming that ACBS regularly thought of these technical terms of Hindu philosophy as equivalent to the printed English translations, and I don't recall that ACBS himself used those English words very often in his lectures or other printed writings (he usually just fell back on the pejorative "mAyAvAdI" -- sorry to mention the term in this thread, Evakurvan ).

Secondly, I don't think that the verse from the Padma-purANa (cited by Babaji in his PBC commentary) is meant to say that Buddhism's zUnya-vAda is worse than Sankara's nirvizeSa-vAda. Rather, the important distinction between the two is that one rejects the Vedic scriptures, and one affirms them. Even if its philosophy is "wrong" (please argue amongst yourselves), the one that holds faith in the Vedas and UpaniSads is considered "better" by the blessed author of the Padma-purANa.

Dandavats,

Lancer

The Gaudiya criticisms essentally boil down to two propositions:

1. The Advaita philosophy was started by Shankaracharya.

2. It is mainly directed against Buddhism even though it is only a
rearrangement of Buddhist teachings.

Do these arguments hold water?

In the first matter it should be noted that Shankaracharya himself does
not claim any originality for his teachings. In fact he notes that
without a parampara one is as good as blind.

Two pre-Shankaran works on Advaita Vedanta survive today. The Karikas on
the Mandukyopanishad are by Gaudapadacharya who was Shankaracharyas'
paramaguru. Mandana Mishra wrote the Brahmasiddhi. He was a contemporary
of Shankaracharya and tradition says when he was defeated in debate by
Shankaracharya, he became the Acharyas' shishya under the name
Sureshwaracharya.

There are other names we know of through quotes by later authors but whose
works do not survive. Upavarsha wrote vrittis on the Purva Mimamsa,
Brahma sutras, Bhagavadgita, and several Upanishads. Shankaracharya
indicates his reverence for Upavarsha by refering to him as Bhagavan.
Sundara Pandya (whose name indicates he was probably a South Indian king)
wrote a vartika on the Brahmasutravrtti. Brahmanandin wrote commentary
called vakya on the Chandogyopanishad. A certain Dravidacharya wrote a
bhashya on this.

These authors are quoted by later Advaitins but most importantly for their
authenticity they are quoted by opponents of Advaita too.

The second proposition is more plausible but still falls short. It is
true that Shankaracharya devotes a lot of energy to refuting Buddhist
tenets (which are *very* different from Vedantic teachings) but
"astika" philosophies like Samkhya also come under fire.

The very existence of Advaita Vedanta can be considered a refutation of some
aspects of Purva Mimamsa. In one place in the Brahmasutrabhashya the
Pancharatra school (which was the forerunner of Shrivaishnavism) is
criticized. There is literary, and archeological evidence for the
existence of the theistic sects (though not necessarily in the exact form
they have today.)

In fact the reason Shankaracharya started the practice
of Panchayatana puja was because the many different sects of Vaishnavas,
Shaivas, Shaktas, Ganapatya, and Sauras were too busy bickering with each
other to unite against the nastikas.

Shankaracharya did much to weaken the hold of Buddhism (as did Purva
Mimamsakas like Kumarila Bhatta, Prabhakara Mishra, and Naiyayikas like
Udayanacharya) but it did not disappear from India until several centuries
later.

From advaita-vedanta.org/archives

Your butting in is appreciated, Lancer!

Re: worse/better. There was one famous piece of reasoning somewhere in the vast ISKCON literature (ACBS drawing on his predecessors), where Buddhism was considered less insidious than Sankara's philosophy precisely because it did not seek support for its ideas in the Vedic canon. The premise being that the Vedic literature, when properly understood, claims the supremacy of the personalist path (sorry Evakurvan for the term). So if you insist on advaita or sunyata, then at least present it honestly as your own concoction. Leave the Vedas out of it. So the reasoning went.

As I see it, arguing which group was considered worse leads nowhere. They are both considered bad.

In terms of distance from the Vaisnava understanding, Buddhism would be more remote. Advaitins at least accept, like Vaisnavas, that spirit (another, higher nature that isn't illusory) exists. They may even accept bhakti, but (as a Vaisnava might see it) only as a vehicle of self-realization, a means to a goal. Which is repugnant to a pure Vaisnava, who would consider it exploitative or false, a hidden insult to the Person you profess to love. For a Vaisnava, bhakti is both the means and the goal.

I am talking here of Buddhism and Advaita as understood by Vaisnavas (the kind of Vaisnavas I am familiar with).

It has been a while since I thought about this, but my understanding was that the reading is sArasvate deve, sArasvata meaning "of or pertaining to sarasvatI," here in the sense of "follower of Bhaktisiddhanta." Two words, both in the locative case. This is not kosher, as the noun namas takes the dative case, but the locatives are probably intended to serve instead of datives. So, something like, "Obeisance unto the sArasvata, i.e. the follower of Bhaktisiddhanta, unto the deva, etc."

It is not uncommon that one in Sanskrit texts finds that a noun or verb is construed with the wrong case. Sometimes there are metrical reasons. This, however, is not the case here, as the verse is unmetrical as it stands.

hahaha seriously stop apologizing to me for using biased terms like
'(im)personalist' and 'mayavadi,' i really dont mind what words you use, i use those words myself, they are just words. If I actually paused every time to make parenthesis to make sure that i haven't offended anyone, i would be making parenthesis every other sentence! And then i'd never be able to get out my comment freely without this shackle of constant etiquette rewording and i'd probably lose all my idea and go mute (which probably would be better for my spiritual life haha)

Yeah Dhyana i heard that famous piece of reasoning too now that you mention it. Though it doesn't really matter if they are saying which is worse or better, advaita or buddhism, they are still saying they are both bad. (I am not saying it is wrong to call those things bad, i am just stating the obvious and not judging it). As for that Ananta Dasji passage where he quotes the cc, looking at the passage it's pretty obvious to me he is saying what i say he is saying, it's just clear plain english. Though who knows maybe i'm wrong what do i know.

The point here is, whether he is saying which is worse, he still thinks they are both bad, as does most every Gaudiya. He thinks Buddhism is bad because of the Sunyata teaching because it is a teaching of voidness and impersonalism. If he did not think that he would not be saying it, or to be more precise, quoting sastra that says it, which is exactly what he is doing in that passage as far as i can read it. I am sure if more people read the passage they will see that he is disparaging both sankara and buddhism, unless i am really illiterate and the joke is on me (passage is at post #16).

To discuss if he is saying that advaita is worse than buddhism or not is sort of a tangential point to my main point that i have spelled out pretty clearly already. Most Gaudiyas think Buddhism is inferior because it is voidist. The point of this thread was to explain what Buddhism -really is- to Buddhists, what Sunyata means to a sadhaka, not a dictionary, and to shed some light on the misguided criticisms some gaudiyas make about it. I suggest complete intellectual honesty at all times no matter what.

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What sticks out in my memory about the Gaudiya teachings regarding both Shankaracharya and Buddha was that they were supposedly sent by design to accomplish a specific purpose:

Buddha came to bring godless people a palatable form of religion and promote vegetarianism.

Shankaracharya to bring them back to the Vedas.

then, finally,

Chaitanya to show them the one true way.

In retrospect I am astonished at the arrogance behind my former smug thoughts that these "poor" adherents of these religions didn't know they'd been duped.

The spiritual battle for adherents between these schools over time can be compared to the Protestant/Catholic struggles a few centuries ago. (Though I hope it didn't become as violent.)

And I almost wonder if the best way to get us to understand Buddhist thought is to ask us to forget whatever we've heard before, for the moment, and pretend we are hearing about this for the very first time. At least, that's what I am going to try to do. Because all this time I have been reading Buddhists for some of the ideas I am attracted to, I have been instinctively avoiding coming close to understanding their views that seemed "impersonalist" or "voidist" to me.

I'd like to take off my blinders now.

I wish Open Mind were here for this discussion. Maybe he can email a contribution if he has one, that I can post.

Yes, he repeats what the CC says. Nothing tricky or hidden there.

I suggested reading the CC chapter as you will clearly see the arguments Caitanya Mahaprabhu puts forth regarding both Sankara and Buddhism. They are the same arguments Ananta Das Baba repeats.


And I'll repeat this part in case it was missed:

"and lower than the Buddhists are those who follow atheism, while taking refuge in the Veda." Cc Madhya 6.168 (6.152 in Dimock)

i.e. followers of Sankara--classified here as atheists taking shelter of the Veda--are, in Sri Caitanya's opinion "lower" than Buddhists.

I dont know why you are even telling this to me when i am agreeing with every single word of it. I never claimed that Caitanya never dissed Buddhists. I never claimed that AnantaDasji never dissed buddhists. In fact i am here trying to prove that they ARE dissing buddhists. (p.s. i have my own humble tiny idea as to why Caintanya would diss buddhists that i have already pointed to in my other long posts but i might say it again later, but not now, because i know if i do it will just lead to complete distraction).

and i will repeat this in case it was missed too:

The point here is, whether he is saying which is worse, he still thinks they are both bad, as does most every Gaudiya.

To discuss if he is saying that advaita is worse than buddhism (or better), is sort of a tangential point to my main point that i have spelled out pretty clearly already.Most Gaudiyas think Buddhism is inferior because it is voidist. The point of this thread was to explain what Buddhism -really is- to Buddhists, what Sunyata means to a sadhaka, not a dictionary, and to shed some light on the misguided criticisms some gaudiyas make about it.

is it clearer now what i am saying?
And yes i saw that other quote that u repeated in case i missed it. However, in the actual passage from ananta dasji, it appears he is saying that the buddhists are worse than the advaitans. Whereas in that other quote u pasted twice, it is said that advaitans are worse then buddhists. It doesnt really matter to me which he is saying is worse or less worse, i am saying buddhism is seen as bad ANYWAY.

-----------

Evakurvan,
It seems you have not really discussed what the Buddhist idea of sunyata actually is (at least not in this thread, that I can find). Therefore it seems to be a bit a of a reverse staw-man argument, if you will. Most of us here are familiar with the basic conception of Gaudiya opinion towards Buddhists, but I have yet to see any thing textual we can compare it to in order to give Buddhists the benefit of the doubt.

As far as I can tell, you feel the Gaudiya understanding of what the Buddhists mean regarding the term, is faulty so what is the Buddhist or Mayavadi meaning in your own words or posting textual sources.

I have some (limited) intrest in Buddhism, since I started my spiritual pursuits with a Zen school when I was 17, so I'm not just trying to give you a hard time, I'd like to know, as I chanted the Prajna-paramita sutra many times but never heard it explained (then switched to Vaisnavism).

Angrezi
I already spoke about this on this thread here i will paste it:

I am not going to start explaining what Sunyata Really means to Buddhists now.
I would really rather pause a bit before doing that, to reflect, and i think it would be better if the moderators were here too. I might post some little small things in the meantime.

It's subtle just like inconceivable ACINTYA bheda abheda and i'd rather not get into subtleties when i'm barely being understood in my literal obvious comments and i just keep repeating them. Plus i'm not in the mindframe to be challenged on this. Plus this thread was there to call attention to the fact there is a misunderstanding among most Gaudiyas, explain that i've been taught that sunyata IS NOT just non-dualism and emptyness proper, and i guess i will references that (svh), and not to really come here to dwell deeply on what buddhism is since this isnt a buddhist board. So if you want a quote there is the paraphrase of a scholar who was my teacher.

-------------

I have to admit something. I consider myself to be a Gaudiya Vaishnava, yet I cannot agree with their atitude towards the two other traditions mentioned here - i understand what the differences that are spoken of are and accept that, but experientionly - it changes the storey. All three traditions will lead to what my teacher considered or implied the first level of Realization was - that being the direct Realization of Satchitananda Brahman. Undifferentiated. Then as one continued on the bhakti path - one would have the direct Realization of Paramatman (localized in the heart of all beings God). Then the direct Realization of Bhagavan - personal form of God (more than any kind of darshan (holy sight), but with Realization.

Is this unquestionable law....?

Sorry to bring this up on this thread, but why would Chaitanya be so harsh towards a tradition and at the same time take his Sanyass in it as well and even get his name from them?

It is totally contradictory?

sorry to go off topic,

bangli

I must admit that I'm having the same trouble trying to find references to zUnyata in Buddhis texts that I have at hand. Maybe that's because I respect the Theravada view more than the others. As far as the mAyAvAdI view of zUnyata goes, it appears that ZaGkara uses the term 'zUnyata' to signify different things such as being 'free' of this and that. In the whole of ZaGkara's VivekacUDamaNi, I was able to find only one pertinent reference that suggests a pertinent concept of zUnyata:

JD33,



I am curious as to your teacher's view i find it interesting.
Is he saying that all 3 traditions (advaita, buddhism, gaudiya) follow the 3 stages
that you just described?

So the first stage is to experience undiferentiatedness aka non-duality.
The second stage to experience something related to the heart.
I have a question about the third stage. You say it involves the personal form of god 'but with realization.' I would like to know what do u mean by 'but with realization.'

thanks

He was saying that I would follow those 3 stages, and might have been meaning that most Gaudiya Sadhus would as well.

One can have darshan of God - like Krsna and not have have any revelation with it. Just the holy sight without any realization of who/what this is.

I applaud your reply to Gaurasundara. I am supportive of those who pitch their posts widely for the readership AT LARGE for posterity. I have been involved with Gaudiya, Advaita, Shakta, Mahayana and Hinayana sanga for over 30 years and I did not find your elucidation condescending.

As if by providence, I was reading about ZrI VaiSNavism and I came across this translation and commentary of a TiruvAymoLi verse. While it is neither Advaitic/Buddhist nor GauDIya, I thought a ZrI perspective might be a breath of fresh air.




"Here PiLLAN has used terminology very similar to RamAnuja's in his refuting the zUnya-vAdI. See Zri-bhASya 2.2.30." - Prof. Vasudha Narayanan.

A thing you won't find in the dictionary is when Buddhists see the word Sunyata they do not see just 'emptyness' but they see the following:

Form is Emptyness
Emptyness is Form

I would not like to argue about this right now by respondng to comments about how what i said is an illogical strawman that contradicts its own self so is hence defeated within its own words. This is what Sunyata means i will reference it (VSH) and just keep that in mind, even though that very meaning might sound contradictory or nonsense to your ears.

Yes. My point is to say that that is not what Sunyata really means and that is not what the Sunyavadi really says. My point is that Pillan is not understanding what Sunyata really is, but is twisting what it really is, or just plainly not understanding it, because he never really went deeply into it.

The real meaning behind Sunyata is not to say that all is empty and god does not exist. That is a false way to look at it.

Here is what Sunyata really means again

Form is Emptyness
Emptyness is Form

Pillan is only looking at the first aspect of Sunyata and using that first aspect to defeat or demonize it. He is using the Form is Emptyness aspect. He is completely unaware of the second aspect, or just not understanding it.

What i have said here is from lecture notes it isn't my own opinion on what Sunyata is. Please do not argue with me about how i am wrong, and Sunyata means Form is Emptyness and -nothing- else. I dont really know how to argue about that. What i am giving you is the Real Definition as opposed to the definition of onlookers. So if you want to argue that it really means emptyness anyway, there is really no response i can give you. The meaning I have been tought is from my Lecture Notes as taught by a scholar who has spent a lot of his time studying the meaning of Sunyata. And one would assume he would know what Sunyata is more than an Onlooker or a Defeater like Pillan. Also it is the meaning you might see spelled out somewhere if you actually care to look into it deeply. It is not some fringe alternative meaning, it is the Mainstream meaning.

More explanations to come eventually.

--------------------------------

Dear Evakurvan,

Radhe! I am a bit unsure as to why you are participating in a discussion board yet basically saying that there is no discussion to be had! I don't think anyone has or would accuse you of lying even if they disagree with your points.

You are telling others not to disagree with your understanding as you are giving the "Real Definition" and everyone else can only share a mere "definition of onlookers". I am sure you may understand that some of the individuals here have probably spent considerable time studying outside of the Gaudiya context.

I am sure you find a tremendous value in your schooling and the lectures you are attending but it is a bit silly for you to assert that what you have heard is the absolute truth and no one should dare even disagree.

I am also sure that you understand that even within the academic community there is varying opinions on the definition and context of Sunyata. I think it is great that you believe the lectures you have attended were given by those with the greatest insight in this regard but I think any reasonable person would understand that someone may find equal value in someone else’s definition and explanation on Sunyata.

If you don't want to converse on the various understandings of Sunyata then I would recommend that you not post on a discussion board about Sunyata. I agree that a practitioner would have more insight and/or depth in their relationship with an aspect of their faith but to say that no one else has anything of value or insight into the topic is a bit much.

Anyhow, just wanted to encourage you to not shut others out of the topic. Hope you are well.

Radhe Radhe!

Rasaraja dasa

I am not saying there is no discussion to be had i am saying if this becomes about you thinking i am lying about my definition, and me trying to show you i am not lying, it will be futile.

I haven't only learned this from schooling, please dont try to make this sound like i am being a mundane academic.

If a Christian came in here and started saying that Gaudiyas worship feet and are obsessed with feet (which is a comment i have actually heard), would you not explain to the Christian that it isn't about a foot fetish even though it might look that way. And to an onlooker, with all this talk about lotus feet and fuss on feet, it does look that way. This is why I had to explain to the onlooker it isn't about idolatrizing feet proper, but a way to express humility vis a vis God and Gurus.



Wrong. Any university you would go to, if you would STOP at the explanation that Pillan gives of Sunyata, and not go on to elucidate more, you would get an instant zero or to be more accurate, a 50 percent. Conversely, if you were in a Buddhist monastery and gave that understanding, you would be asked to go back and to think about it more.



Then, I am sure as a reasonable person you would understand that someone else may find equal value in going around saying that Goloka Vrindavan is really Hell.
Sure, someone may find value and solace in believing that, but it is simply Not what Goloka Vrindavan means, in the context of those who are actual Gaudiyas.

An interpretation of Sunyata like Pillan is making is sort of like going around saying that Radha Krishna are immutably joined and never ever become two in order to partake in their lilas. (Sorry i am not well versed in Gaudiya i may have said this innacurately but you get the picture). It is simply incomplete and misinformed.

As i see this discussion is creating a stir, and i do not want that, i will pause for some time.

Do note i mean no disrespect to Pillan or Anantadasji or any other Gaudiya who believes that Sunyata means Voidism Proper. I am sure that even more Buddhists have a wrong understanding of what Gaudiya concepts mean too.

Please forgive any perceived offenses i may have commited toward the Vaisnavas.

Sincerely,
evakurvan.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Hey Rasaraja you did not say that the first time, you added it in AFTER i made my response to you, so i will respond to it. I was not trying to shut anyone out here i was just indicating that it is futile to think i am lying about my sadhaka-perspective definitions, and have this argument degenerate into if i am inventing this stuff, or about pointing out that my sadhaka-perspective definition is 'nonsense' just because it does not comply to the 'internal consistency' of Aristotelian Logic.

And yes, i -was- trying to shut Gaurasundara out of the abheda bheda topic, because i kept repeating in red letters that this isn't even what the topic of the thread is about, i felt he was not reading carefully my posts and then he was claiming in depth Advaitan Studies. This bothered me since i knew of him claiming other similar things before too that were proven to be false. So i felt used up discussing with a person who (to my view) i felt was claiming Authority just to 'defeat' me. I ask you if someone was involved in a philosophical discussion with you and then to bait you started to say he was a disciple of Anantadasji, meanwhile you had heard him claim to have met all sorts of other gurus he could never have possibly have met, would you not say something?

However I now found Gaurasundara's contributions here excellent, sincere, and on topic, and i am very happy he is participating and contributing the valuable information that he has.

Please try not to take what i say, crudify it, and by doing this put words in my mouth. It is what some people did to the Mayavadis!

Thank you for your understanding.

This is a very nice referral, BrajaJi.

You see Eva, the distillation is that both the Buddhist concept and the conception of SOME Gaudeeyas is similar. At least they have similar starting points though they end up at different destinations.

The above definition shows that the Buddhists consider identity is not substantial in essence, that the essence is void and that identity is dependent on relationship. Some Gaudeeyas also posit that the merging of the soul in the essential nature results in its extinction or void and the soul in Brahman realisation can only maintain identity in relationship with Bhagavan.

In this sense, the Advaitin is the least Buddhist. In Advaita, while the essential nature is void of material attributes it is not emptiness but a fullness of being knowing bliss. The Advaitin experience is that there is no loss of consciousness in the essential nature (Brahman) but a flowering in a higher consciousness not dependent on our mundane conception of identity premised on relata. Such a flowering does not deny Godhead and does not need to pitch Bhagavan as a necessary counter to the prospect of extinction. Bhakti in Brahman realisation is pure and without cause. Inconceivable.

Rasaraja, I think the problem is there is a sentimentality to some devotee understanding that feels it has to discount other understandings for their understanding to be true without their seeing that their own truth is an aspect of that truth as much as that truth is an aspect of their truth. Because the devotee has discounted the other truth, they have removed the underpinnings of their own truth.

Its very hard to show this to another as somehow there has become this fear of what is the actual truth as a wholeness of parts. The communication and arguments that evakurvan is presenting are just not being followed and its painful for one to see her putting forth so much effort and all everyone is hearing is their own footseps.

Radhe Radhe!

Believe me I know what you are talking about .

Let's everyone keep it civil and remember that sometimes people do... gulp... disagree. Even in the midst of disagreement we should still ensure we are being respectful of one another and if we are having a conversation with someone it always works better to listen to what they are saying and trying to understand why they are saying it.

Radhe!

Rasaraja dasa

Whether he understood the recursive equation in toto or not is, I think, really irrelevant in terms of his teachings and goal. As a Vedantic theist, that doctrine in whole or in part is devoid of bhakti. As a Buddhist practitioner, you may be able to say that it is agnostic to bhakti or even supportive of bhakti but it would be up to you to make it so. And that is not a slam on Buddhists or anyone else. It is simply the nature of bhaktas to demand bhakti at every step. Even things that are closer to bhakti, that share the same scriptures, such as renunciation, varnasrama, etc., are external and sometimes an impediment to bhakti if they are not composed of bhakti. Frustrating as it may be to be misunderstood or to have ones doctrines misrepresented or even butchered, ultimately you can only reconcile that on an individual level, perhaps with a representative of the bhakti path. On the theological level, there are very real differences that won't go away by greater elucidation. A Gaudiya Vaisnava is not going to say that Sri Caitanya misunderstood Buddhism or Mayavada and an objective view reveals that the gist of his objections is justified given his goal and methodology. If someone wants to say that he was misrepresented by his biographers and followers, that's a whole other can of worms. (Contact Bangli & co. )

To me, it doesn't matter at all whether Caintanya was more Advaitan than some of his Gaudiya-style biographers made him out to be. It is totally immaterial. What matters to me is I have his teaching to see for myself just how close he was to the teaching of Sunyata or not. Talasiga, who has not only had Sangha among Gaudiyans but among Buddhists and Advaitans too, is claiming that Caitanya was an Advaitan Saint (in the Bheda Abheda thread). As for me, I find this point interesting, but not really necessary. Even if he had zero respect for Buddhists, it would make no difference to me. This is partly because i know that from his own teaching, what he is actually critisizing is Voidism proper, which is something that Actual Buddhists would be critisizing themselves.

I would like to add:
It is proper to answer the so-called objections of Pillan by clearing his misunderstandings of Sunyata. But it must also be mentioned that, in some cases at least, it appears that the misunderstandings are not genuine misunderstandings but misunderstandings introduced on purpose to A) misrepresent Sunyata first and then, B) to try to refute the resulting misrepresentation. Nevertheless, it is best to remove all misunderstandings, whether they be genuine or otherwise

-------
Who is that girl standing next to Krishna?

I should mention that TirukkurukaippirAN PiLLAN was a cousin of ZrIpAda RAmAnujAcArya and was personally instructed in the scriptures by said AcArya. RAmAnuja was pleased with his level of erudition and referred to PiLLAN as his spiritual successor (jJAna-putra), asking him to write the TiruvARAyirappadi commentary on the TiruvAymoLi - the Tamil VedAnta.

Since the work is basically a VedAnta commentary, it is the nature of commentators to assume that the audience are already familiar with the arguments under discussion. Therefore to point out that PiLLAN did not define zUnyata properly or to presume that he did not know what it was is, in my view, a little on the naive side especially since many ZrI VaiSNava AcAryas dealt with Buddhist arguments in their works. PiLLAN is immediately concerned with what he sees as the most 'blasphemous' element of zUnyata - the denial of God's existence - and this is what he is refuting. In fact, that whole section of his commentary deals with various other 'heretical' arguments so zUnyata is not alone in receiving his criticism. I personally think that it is a very good argument. In fact several of the ancient ALvArs are also highly critical of the Buddhist and Jaina systems, and at the very least this shows that the GauDIyas are not alone in their criticism of zUnyata.

Rasaraja-ji, thanks for your incisive comments. One drawback of the academic approach is that it is usually the case that not all viewpoints are considered. For example, I still haven't seen nor found even one quotation from Buddha himself on the matter of zUnyata when this philosophy is supposed to have originated from him. In the whole of ZaGkara's VivekacUDamaNi I could find only one verse that slightly referred to zUnyata, and that was meant more as a quality of a realised man rather than as a goal to attain. I am not able to research ZaGkara's other works since I got rid of them some time ago. It would be helpful if Buddha's original words (preferably from the Theravada school) were provided so we can critique the original idea rather than modern interpretations, which usually harbour later distracting influences.

--

As for the question(s) about my spiritual past, I believe that I have answered the quite thoroughly in the other thread. The issue is not about what is acceptable in academic circles. It is about critiquing the actual words and philosophy of the representative of that philosophy, in this case Buddha. So let's stay on track and not bring that up again, eh?

I have looked at the Untranslated Version of the English passage of Ananta Dasji that was posted in post #16 of this thread, and have asked someone who is familiar with the original language, and i was Correct in my understanding of that passage, though you are not acknowledging it. For the sake of Clarity i will repaste the relevant passage, followed by the understanding I have of it:

My understanding is the following, and it has been confirmed as correct.
From that quote by Ananta Dasji, it appears that Gaudiyas disdain this teaching of Sunyata even -more- then they disdain Sankara himself. In fact, Ananta Dasji is saying that mayavada is a concealed form of Buddhism and is untrue. To prove this point, he then quotes from Padma Purana, where it says that Sankara himself came down on earth to preach Advaita, only as a way to destroy the -even greater- evil of Buddhist Voidism.

I asked you the following because you were acting like i had a wrong understanding of that passage, and you never gave a straight answer:
Is that a commentary by Ananta Dasji? Does he say "mayavada is actually a concealed form of Buddhism and is untrue," and then he goes on to quote Padma Purana as quoted in the Caitanya Caritamrta, in order to illustrate that point of his through sastric evidence?

The Answer to that question is Yes.
You Never Answered it.

I think you had a problem with what I had originally said because I said: 'AnantaDasji says' whereas I should have said 'AnantaDasJi says this and then quotes Padma Purana to strengthen what he just said.

I think it is an evasion to pretend my understanding was wrong and tell me to go read chapters of the CC, when it is obvious that if someone makes a declaration, and then follows it by a Sastric Quote to -prove- that very declaration, it is obvious that he believes in his own Sastric Quote that he is using for the purpose of Sastric Evidence to prove his point.

Please let us be forthright. Jaya Radhe.
sincerely,
Evakurvan

--------------

These aren't 'Modern' interpretations of Buddhism. The Mahayana School that most directly deals with Sunyata, was already firmly entrenched in India by the Second Century, way before Sankara or Caitanya ever existed. So please do not call it Modern.

Do you see now why i get very upset at your points and ask you to stop agitating me with those kind of remarks.

------------------

I am sorry but you are completely losing me. Yes, he said whatever was in the quote. His words are a direct paraphrase of the Caitanya Caritamrita and the only way to know his intention there--if that is the key to what you are asking--is to ask him he was offering his opinion and then illustrating or strengthening that by quoting or whether he was merely repeating what the CC says by way of paraphrase. Perhaps Advaitadas, the translator, can reveal whether some inkling of Baba's personal attitude toward Buddhists shows in the original.

As I have tried to say many times already, I am not trying to be clever or deceptive here. My feeling is that Baba doesn't have an opinion on Buddhists separate from that mentioned in CC. The one time he has mentioned them was a simple paraphrase. I don't know what else I can say about it nor why it really matters. As I've said a couple of times already, the Gaudiya view on Buddhists is quite clear.

As for Buddhism being seen as better or worse, there is possibly a contradiction in the Caitanya Caritamrita. The Padma Purana verse quoted indicates that Sankara is bringing people back to the Vedas and is therefore superior, whereas Sri Caitanya says that the Veda-based teachings of Sankara are worse.

I feel that the question is not really about what PaNDit Ananta dAs BAbAjI says, nor is it about what the Caitanya CaritAmRta says. It is about what the Padma PurAna says originally about ZaGkara/Advaita. Here are the relevant verses. Excuse me for the ITRANS encoding, as I originally copy-pasted it from another forum and the source is reliable. That thread is interesting too since it deals with ZaGkara's nature.

Gaurasundara
I beg you to stop distracting me with points that do not read my posts carefully or that pretend to not have seen my point. Please.
I offer you a flower: -->--o
Please stop doing this.

---------------------

From buddhanet.net:


If what you say is right and that the doctrine of zUnyata is predominant in Mahayana Buddhism, then this is probably why I have not been able to find anything in Buddha's teachings about it. As I said before, it would be more useful to analyse Buddha's precise words on the matter rather than interpretations. Especially when, as far as I know, it looks like Buddha never taught anything about Amitabha, Tantra, etc.

Evakurvan, thanks for the flower. And here's one for you too. If I understood you correctly, you were telling Braja-ji that "Ananta Dasji is saying that mayavada is a concealed form of Buddhism and is untrue. To prove this point, he then quotes from Padma Purana, where it says that Sankara himself came down on earth to preach Advaita, only as a way to destroy the -even greater- evil of Buddhist Voidism."
As I have pointed out, this is not what the Padma Purana was saying. The Purana gives the impression that Advaita is more of an evil than Buddhism since it is only praccanaM bauddham - hidden Buddhism.

By the way, please stop getting so emotional. This topic does not 'belong' to anyone in particular as Rasaraja-ji explained, as in the course of a discussion many interesting points can arise that may warrant further exploration and different participants may want to discuss these. Please present your points in an impartial and unbiased manner that is a chief characteristic of an academic.

Oh is that right....funny how so many scholars 'differ' about what exactly that Purana 'originally' says

seems you can find just about anything in there to back up anything..

The Shavites quote it a lot too..

There are tons of Buddhist Mahayana and Vajrayana Sutras, the Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti, to name one. Buddhists take them as teachings of the Buddha. If you want to pretend that all the Buddhism of China Korea Japan Tibet is a lie because the 'Buddha never said those things,' that's a whole other story. Not even Theravadin Buddhists go around saying that, unless some Theravadin has an ax to grind and tries to act insanely malicious - which is uncommon. But if you want to say the ONLY Buddhism that counts, is the Buddhism of places like Laos, go ahead. I guess that puts you out of this discussion on Sunyata.

I have already outlined what I will talk about and why. You can reread it. I do not think going to look retroactively in dictionaries to save your point is a worthwhile reason to post. I'm going to take a break from this. I need to de-agitate and i am afraid of coming off in a bad way, which will only make some people all the more unreceptive. I'd like to add, not everyone here is making unthoughtful points. Braja, I think you are trying to split a hair in two, but i will drop it. I have spoken to the original translaror of the text about this, and to someone else. They have both confirmed my understanding. Chant and Be Happy. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

----------------------

Which scholars, academic or spiritual? Tattva-vAdI scholars also agree to the existence of these verses. It is well known that ZrI VijayIndra TIrtha used those verses in response to Appayya DIkSit's criticism (which should be around 15-16th century) and the latter has no answer for them. Thus this also shows that the GauDIyas are not alone in their criticism of zUnyata, Advaita, etc. Also, the GaruDa PurAna mentions ZaGkara by name. I have heard that the KURma and VAyu PurANas mention ZaGkara in a negative way also, but I have not heard those verses.

You are too much pal , like when you tried to convince me you had meditated on a dead body doing tantra with Vimalananda some time back in a grave yard..

I mean have you no shame..?

Have a nice day Gaurasundar..

Bangli, I would remind you to respect the rules, namely:


I wrote a long post addressing and thoroughly answering all of your points, but deleted it because it was a waste of everyone's time and bandwidth. If you have plenty of time and bandwidth to waste trying to pick a fight, then by all means go and do it elsewhere. Please cease and desist from launching argumentum ad hominem attacks and posting irrelevant points that off-track the discussion. Lack of proper moderation does not mean that the members are given free rein to act as they please.

I could care less for the rules you quote.

"Truth' is more important to me than RULES or spurious PURANAS you quote to try and put yourself OVER on someone...


Have a nice day Gaurasundar...

Coming from someone who has a long history of disruptive and malicious activity on various forums going back several years, I care less how I look in your eyes. It is very well-known that you haven't been an angel in the past so you are the last person who should be pointing out supposed faults in others.


Then perhaps you should follow Rule 10: The Visitor shall voluntarily leave The Forums, should he be unable to comprehend the board rules and follow them in an acceptable manner. The compliance or non-compliance of any given member shall be decided by the sole discretion of the board of moderators.

Also by Madhava: As a friendly reminder, there is no need to be in a place where one is not comfortable. If someone is not comfortable with the general mood in the forums, we cordially invite him to spend his leisure time with other, more productive hobbies than stirring trouble and unnecessarily annoying others in a place he'd rather not be in. That should be just plain old common sense.


Its called discussion and whether the Puranas are spurious or not was not the issue that was being discussed in this thread. You had no business disturbing the thread with such an ancillary point. Of course you are free to disagree with views as well as the historicity of the PurANa's usage, but it seems you care more about launching personal attacks upon other people and are much happier as a result than attempting to participate productively in ongoing discussions. And that is against the rules of this forum.


I do not consider myself a senior member of this forum or any other forum. However, that does not mean that I do not have respect for the rules and general mood of this forum. Lack of proper moderation does not mean that members are given free rein to act as they please. Madhava requested members to be mature enough to self-moderate while he is away. For the record, I voted in the first option despite my inclination to vote in the second. I should perhaps follow my instincts in future.


You do not 'know' anything about me, but you are free to think whatever you like especially since I do not care.

The topic at hand is far more interesting, thanks for spoiling it. This is my final post on the matter of your continual distraction and disturbance. If you want to be childish and get the last word in then go right ahead, I will not reply as its getting very boring and I have better things to do. You may congratulate yourself on being the first member of my ignore list.

Bangliiiiiii.... phleeeeease! [see how I learned the lesson of the previous time: not to quote? ]

You can't be sure of that, Gaurasundara: have you looked far enough into the past? Maybe our Bangli is really a cute fallen angel?

.....

I have no doubt that he is angelic in the vision of some but his general history is very well-known to those of us who have been around for a while, so he's not really in a position to point faults in others when there are plenty who have had bitter experiences with him. Anyway, enough about this now, thanks anyway Dhyana-ji. I'd really like to get back to the topic at hand.

If that is the question, then we may never know the answer. Purana porridge is so unfathomably deep, sticky, stuffy and inconceivably simultaneously tasty and tasteless, that no mortal has yet succeeded to established any part of any Purana as more original than others.

-ek

My point wasn't to pinpoint what a Purana said.

It was to delineate the topic by clarifying that my understanding of the Baba passage: is correct.
As confirmed by even the actual translator.
Even though hairs are being split for no apparent reason.
Then, after moving on from that obvious point that it seems now everyone agrees on, to continue.
But I will try not to continue for a while. Hey, who is that girl standing next to Krishna?!
Go read my songs on the Lonely Planet Intercourse thread for some inspiration, they have completely brought me back to what matters.
--------------
Hare Krishna

Radhe!

I tend to agree with Evakurvan... we don't need to split hairs. I think there needs to be a point where everyone realizes that they simply disagree. None of these issues are purely Black and White yet we argue to the death like they are. Discussions are discussions... if this was Gaudiya Debate then I would see at least a bit more reason to fight to the death...

Radhe Radhe!

All glories to the Vaisnavas,
Rasaraja dasa

I'll tell you what is the problem. zaGkarAcArya can go wherever he likes, but he has no bloody right to make a blanket statement and tell everybody that the form of the Lord is mAyA. So I would not mind if the buddhists declare that zUnya is the destination of buddhists, but I would see to it that it is proven to be a big senseless contradiction if they come back and told me that those who do not aim for zUnya are going to suffer eternally.

Haha that would be funny
But no, Sunyata does not speak about What to Aim For
It is not a directive about a Place to get to
or an Ultimate Destination to Strive For

Certainly the idea that one has the absolute truth to onesself is highly irritating to others. So many groups have this attitude: many Christians, Jews, Muslims... yes even Gaudiyas and others have this attitude. Is it so bad to admit that yes this is "my" ultimate truth, and you may also have yours?

I used to be involved in a christian group- somewhat of a "cult" actually. They were quite adamant that those who did not follow them (even other christian groups) were damned to an eternal hell. As a young and impressionable person, I bought into the dogma... but when asked to "evangelize" I found that I had no desire to "spread the good news" because I was not inspired in the least by what christianity had to offer. I was supposed to be ecstatic... in fact I wondered what was wrong with me that I felt nothing.

But I digress...

My idea is that devotion to a personal god is somewhat inherent in soceity. People need the devotional aspect.

In a religion like Islam where God's image is never seen, the movement that has the most popular influence is Sufism/Islamic mysticism, which is highly devotional and often includes things like devotion to saints and elaborate and ecstatic congregational dhikr (click here for more information on sufi dhikr) as opposed to the usual solitary dhikr.

In Buddhism (in some places), we see devotion to the Boddhisattvas take over- the Boddhisattvas having taken a vow not to enjoy nirvana until bringing all other creatures into that state (ie. probably for eternity). And the goal if I am not mistaken, to also become a Boddhisattva...

I did not put this together very carefully (If I had done so, I could have given better examples). But I am preparing for an exam in another subject...

Anyway, to sum up, I am fairly sure that the concept of a personal god is in no way in danger of disappearing, even if in scholastic/elite circles the idea of the personal god being illusory were to triumph. If such a thing were to happen, the "ordinary people" would perhaps be convinced for a moment and then go back to that which is natural, which is simple devotional practices.

(I will probably edit this later for better coherence I have an exam now, so I must go )

haha gaurasundara i dont know why i bother at all i cant believe i missed this golden nugget. It is really boring saying the same things over and over again to you, rest assured i am not doing this for your insincere sake, but for the sake of the other interested readers who you might be confusing.

Because it is so boring to repeat myself i will just say this is a response to your post#64, and i will say i guess what you said there means that you understand baba's passage more than the actual translator who translated it for braja.
And that is just one of the things i have mentionned throughout this thread that make your comment irrelevant, and there are others, but like i was advised: it's not worth it. I've been playing ping-pong with the insincerely adversarial too long and i'm tired. P.S. In case you did not notice the topic was about what BABA'S PASSAGE was saying (my interpretation of it being correct), and not what the Padma Purana was saying. Yes i am aware he was quoting from Padma Purana as quoted in the CC. It does not change the point i was making about baba's passage. Anyway, forget this.

WARNING:
Please whoever is reading this, if you haven't thoroughly sifted through this thread since the beginning to see so for yourself, but just read random posts, think twice before taking what gaurasundara says at face value because i think i am just going to let his comments slide and ignore them, because repeating for a coarse understander for an entire week is killing my bhakti!

(braja from post #55)


First of all id like to say thank you to you braja for actually making real points instead of just uncarefully reading my posts, unlike my friend gaurasundara. Thanks for the flower btw Gaura! Braja, I know you understand what i am saying. You just dont want to accept it, that's all. At least you are reading my posts thoughtfully.

Now that my required praises to the Gaudiyas have been said, i can get nasty! (after all my name is eva). It's nice that first you claim in another thread that gaudiyas have a monopoly on dualism, and now you want to claim they have a monopoly on bhakti! I guess you have spent a lot of years in zazen to see that there is no ananda or devotion there, but then again, what do i know, of course i would say that, im just a Zenist!

(Ramakrishna the rascal advaitan had no bhakti either, tell that to his face I DARE YOU!)

Just like i guess Mirabai has no bhakti either cause she merges into the murti like an advaitan would do, so i guess it's all fake bhakti and not real bhakti because only gaudiyas experience true bhakti every step of the way!

I mean, who needs to actually figure out what something is on their own when Prabhupada has already spelled it out for you that anything buddhist has no bhakti and is boring ethereality and impersonalist! Who could ask for anything more!

Sorry if the tone of my last 2 posts has changed into a less 'respectful' serious tone but i think im becoming delirious! (omg expressing yourself with spontaneous emotion on a supposedly RAGANUGA BHAKTI FORUM, how unscholarly and scandalous! (sorry gaurasundara i will try to type more dispassionately and scholarlily, as per your directives, just as you have displayed here with your posts, i hang my head in shame!)

--->--o ----->---o --> little fish for everyone!

I realize only now why openmind said all this would be futile, and honestly did not believe him and thought he was over-reacting. You can keep whatever misguided ideas of Sunyata you want if you need to keep yourself in the dark about it just because hearing what it really means would make you lose faith in your path. I had no idea an entire life in pursuit of love of god was based on such trivial things.

Flowing from my last paragraph above we could say that Bhakti, pure Bahkti, liberated Bhakti, is founded in the Void.

This is just plain silly. Please show where I used the word "monopoly" or even implied it. And you wonder why I was splitting hairs with you? Your earlier premise--and promise--was that if someone understood sunyata according to the interpretation of you and your teachers, that would be fine. Your statement was simply not true.

If you wish to campaign that all Gaudiyas, Sri Vaisnavas, and anyone else who you perceive as misunderstanding buddhism/advaita (and whatever else you feel belongs in the same mix) go ahead. It is fruitless. Your years of practice and a few classes at McGill do not change hundreds of years of history and philosophical inquiry.

The ridiculousness of your accusation is not just in its gross hyperbole but in its total misreading. You want others to read you closely but don't do the same in return? The quote I was referring to was by a Sri Vaisnava, not a Gaudiya. I guess that doesn't matter to you though, does it? Anyone who is not with you is against you. Oh wait, isn't that your whole motivation for criticizing us Gaudiyas/followers of Prabhupada? Nice example. You've given us an experiential lesson to remember!

I'm sorry to have wasted so much time with your PMs and by supplying materials that you seem determined to misuse. You're a lady with a mission. Hallelujah!

you implied the word monopoly in the bheda abheda thread when you said that not only are advaitans trying to one-up the ideas of the gaudiyans, but then they turn around and take from the gaudiyans' own ideas! (as though duality only belongs to gaudiyans).
i'm not going to go through everything.

I'm not wondering why you are splitting hairs with me, i know why you are doing it, you didn't initially acknowledge that my interpretation of baba's passage was CORRECT, because you just did not want to acknowledge it for personal reasons, so instead of just turning around and admitting that, instead you choose to split hairs to hide the fact that you weren't being as intellectually honest as you could have been off the bat.

It isnt only according to 'me and my teachers,' it is nice how you try to dimish things when they dont fit into how you have been taught them.


haha so much for humility, i'm not even going to bother to up the ante of my credentials to make myself more 'respectable' to your eyes, so sorry i'd rather not take this debased bait.

Years of history and philosophical inquiry have proven,
that Sunyata can only mean:
what no Buddhist thinks it means.
Even though it is a Buddhist teaching!

(great poem, i didn't write it - you did. I guess Gaudiyas can be into Paradox too)!


sorry friend i think i have humbly explained many times over that my knowledge of Gaudiya is poor, that i do not know the terms, and it is pretty much assumed that if i dont make that distinction between Sri Vaisnava and Gaudiya, pretty much everyone has the mercy to forgive me for it, because they know what i mean.

haha i guess that's why since i am so against gaudiyas that is why -I- am the one sitting here implying their path is a sub-path, with my "woman on a mission" expedition to defeat them! I guess all my attraction to raganuga is nothing more than a big ploy.

And yes i did say followers of Prabhupada on purpose because that is where you first heard those ideas about buddhists and how they first got entrenched into your psyche. I don't think other Gaudiyas here, whose first contact with this path was something other than iskcon, share your sectarian prabhupadian bent. Don't get me wrong, unlike you, despite knowing all that about Prabhupada, i -still- consider him a person of deep religious potency.


Sorry, but i have mis-used nothing.
I asked you if it was okay to say anything taboo here, that you might not want me to reveal from pm, and you said, there is nothing taboo say as you wish (sorry i am paraphrasing). And i was nice enough to ask you first.

Then i asked you again in pm if you would acknowledge that my interpretation of baba's passage was correct. And it seems you just did not want to ackowledge that. So i acknowledged it. And i was nice enough to ask you first, in private.

I care about honesty more than belonging and i can see this chat isnt based on that anymore so i will retreat until the other people are back.

p.s. my post #137 in the bheda abheda thread is not ironic. Maybe if you parse it out you can see why stuff like that doesn't really affect my faith as it seems to do yours. Just because of the trivial detail that Sunyata is misrepresented in your tradition, you feel obliged to defend that misrepresentation to the core no matter what doing so entails. I find that creepy and cultish. I'm not being self-righteous im being candid.

p.p.s. OMG DID YOU JUST ACCUSE ME OF HAVING PMS?! hahaha . I wouldnt know.
pm's or pms it seems it's all the same to you!
--------------

Gee

Evakuran,

I do think that the basic thrust of your arguments have some merit. I'll restate them in my own words and you can correct me if I've misunderstood - looking at another tradition from within the confines of what you call your own and trying to interpret it within your own traditions meta narrative will necessarily lead to misunderstanding. Further, due to the fact that you espouse a certain belief system - the critique of another, apparently opposing system, will necessarily be biased.

I ran into the same thing in trying to understand Catholicism. Gaudiya critique of Catholic doctrine is hopelessly flawed and misrepresents the tradition it seeks to critique abysmally. I found that the only way to really understand Catholicism was to understand it as it's adherents think about it and express it.

Comparing and contrasting philosophies on life and it's meaning doesn't have to challenge one's personal faith and it also doesn't necessitate that one denigrate a belief system with opposing views.

The reality is though - adwaitavada and sunyavada are different ideologies - they all seek to explain the world in which we live and our place in it - but they all do so differently. What resonates deeply within your own being you will be drawn to. The Srimad Bhagavatam is very liberal in that it define the perfect religion as the one that creates a revolution in the heart of it's practicioner. Our ideology should be put into practice and should yield some tangilbe fruit in terms of the development of our heart.

i am able to hold two opposing (as you call them), belief systems to be just as equally valid and perfect. I am not here to critique Gaudiya i see zero fault with it. I came here to get association. As i was doing that, i began to speak of how Sunyata seems to be misunderstood by Gaudiyas. And this led to a whole can of worms.

I guess you haven't read my posts i consider myself a follower of Caitanya, the Gaudiyan. I just found it a bit uncomfortable to hear others misunderstand Sunyata. That's all.

I agree, i'm not here to say that Gaudiya and Buddhism is the same religion.
Or that Buddhism and Advaita is the same religion.

All that being said I agree with everything you have said in your post, (even though i may have used the comments that you made to apply them to -my- situation instead of how they might have been intended), and i am very pleased to meet you.

There's a Buddhist fellow who come to the bar that I tend. I bought him a drink asked him about some of this stuff the other day and he mentioned that Buddhists themselves will sometimes give a false image of their belief system because its an anti-belief system process that leaves the "what is" up to to the individual to discover and so it appears to present this voidist theology but that that is only so the practitioner is not filled up with all this phantasmagoria of what to expect. The practice istelf seeks to disolve the already pre-existing phantamagoria as we are all very much in a dream to be awakened from.

The Buddhist life is therefore very much textured and filled with passion and poetry and to not see it as some Gaudiyas do, it may be because they have been obscured from the simple beauty within them that needs no emelishments.

You are, by your own profession, a Chaitanyaite. The Gaudeeyas behave like they have a monopoly on Chaitanya. When one bows at the feet of a genuine Gaudeeya or their shrine, one can feel the stream and the Leela becomes alive. One can feel it in one's heart, forehead, the tips of one's limbs and every hair follicle. These Gaudeeyas are certainly in touch. I commend them to you.

But I do not commend their sense of monopoly.

Too funny. I used Prabhupada on purpose also as it was obvious what you were doing. Care to elaborate on "unlike you"?

So I guess you don't accept Sri Caitanya's opinion on Sankara and Buddhism (by way of Krishnadas Kaviraj)?

I really like what your teacher told you.

Form is Emptyness
Emptyness is Form

It seems possible that emptyness can create a very big form, especially in the hands of some. Can you say something about how a sunyavadi would implement that? Would it affect their behavior towards others? The words they speak? How do they view the forms that others perceive?

Actually, on second thoughts. Please don't answer. As we often see here, it is better to snipe than reveal ones heart.

Radhe Radhe!

i find it funny how since the beginning you keep trying to guess the names of my teachers and what they exactly teach, in a sort of repugnant tone, as though this is going to bother me, and trying to make snide salutes to them in japanese from the other thread. I'm sorry you have to be such an insecure 'armchair philosopher' that you feel a need to do that. You have great manners too. Who taught you to speak like that to females younger than you who are here to inquire into raganuga bhakti? You're really giving a great impression i'm sure your teacher would be proud.


**SideNote**
What made me respond this way here is the sarcastic comment:
"I really like what your Pure Land teacher told you." (by Braja)

Braja has editted it out now.
This skews the reason why i replied this way to his unmodified post.
I am going to reply to all his new comments since this post, so as to not distract the topic of the thread by adding it on at the end.

He editted it out after i said that he should stop trying to guess what my teachers are (and guess wrongly at that), thinking it bothers me, with this sarcasm throughout the chat. Yes, i confess, it IS annoying to hear you keep condescendingly guessing about my teachers and about me, to expose a full real life name on a public message board, and mention in passing that you have one of his books, just like you tend to often mention things like that in passing, like in the Sridhar Svami thread, to impress that sort of stuff upon others.

On another sidenote, nobody cares how many books you read, it doesn't matter, this is bhakti not status acquisition from books and sanskrit. I don't mind when people mention books, i value books, but in the tone you do it i just (personally) don't like it. Many people avoid this forum because of that attitude. It's the same attitude you tried to pass on me when you didn't want to acknowledge I was right about the Baba passage, so instead, try to make me doubt my own correct interpretation on a technicality of disengenuous hairsplitting, like Hey neophyte maybe you should read this chapter of the CC and then get back to me with your unread remarks! Guess what, even if i had read it, which you wouldn't know anyway, it doesn't change my point and that's pretty clear to even the translator so stop this sort of disengenuous ill-intended pedantry posing as scholarly thorougness.

The sarcastic comment you editted out is especially biting because i have confided in you confidentially in PM, and in an intimate tone, just how important these teachers have been to me, among other things, in an effort to get you to try and understand where i am coming from.

I really regret doing that.

I guess you really just meant it all as 'word puzzles' because you are a 'nerd.'
No offence taken, I understand. Please drop it along with your explanations. Let's move on.

Dear Braja and Evakurvan,

Dandavats. All glories to the Vaisnavas.

I am officially entering into the discussion and promptly placing both of you in Time Out. It is clear you have both hit a road block so it is best to close down the conversation between you two.

Do not make me talk to you about this again or you will go to your room with no dinner!

Aspiring to serve the Vaisnavas,
Rasaraja dasa

ps. I always wanted to moderate and moderator!

Why oh why do you insist on ascribing the worst kind of motivation to everything? You speak of intellectual honesty but wanted to hide your teachers? I have a great amount of respect for Dr Sharma--and, indeed, that is why I was able to guess that you were a student! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to equate "Montreal" and "experiential (a)dvaita" and come up with a connection to him. If you smelt repugnance, that was your own doing.

Anyways, there is no point in prolonging this.

Haha. Thanks. I feel better. BTW, my resignation is on your desk.

And I blame those of you who were mean to Openmind.

I am going to re-paste something here, that i said to you before, that i guess you just ignored. Or that you knew i said, but you felt like saying your clever comment anyway.

evakurvan:
I am not abstaining from naming professors because I want to act like I have secret teachers. I just feel uncomfortable using names of people I know in a way that can be perceived as 'ammunition.' Yes, he's one of my teachers. In fact, the quote that you dismissed as being a perfect example of an Advaitan 'trying to get the last word in,' is a direct quote from him.

(It's bad how you put me in a rough spot by already naming him. And i did have to name him in response to your guessing. So what's the reason behind your clever comment anyway) Also does it occur to you that some people may not want their full real names on message boards

Here are some of your comments throughout this chat. I have been trying to ignore it and answer you as earnest as possible for an actual week. It's hard to keep caring and talking with your heart open when you're not taken seriously.

My apologies for questioning that. You are an honorary Hindu!

A hearty Nihongo to VSH!

(i guess that remark at my teacher was meant in all due respect too, just like honorary Hindu and your sincere apologies)

I really like what your Pure Land teacher told you.

(Pure Land? Odd Guess, where did you pull that out from. Do you think it bothers me if you happen to hit on the name of my class, why do you try to?)


It's nice you feel the need to add an exclamation point to that. I havent been studying in university for a few years. I suppose you are proud of your shrewd suppositions.
Do you think it makes me vulnerarable for you to keep guessing all this stuff about me?

Stop being intellectually dishonest to cover yourself. it's visible and there and i'm not insane to imagine it. that you would make me feel that i am just imagining things is even worse than all your comments. thank you, the end.

And thank you Rasaraja and i mean that.

Babu. I am so used to your jokes and now you talk about a guy going into a bar...and it's not a joke!? What are you people doing to me? I'm feeling kinda light right now.

Openmind felt he was simply disturbing the minds of those who are wanting pure GV katha. The posts in IGM topic about who should post what where just confirmed that idea for him. And this thread is confirming my belief in the need for another forum.

I can see such passion to defend an interpretation of GV, but basically you are being, in turns, condescending, insulting, dismissive, and simply calling evakurvan a liar in some posts (or words to that effect) and all because she is simply trying to correct your tradition's misunderstanding of her tradition!

In googling around the internet last night I similarly saw some Advaitin misunderstandings of what Gaudiyas or "dualists" believe. I suppose I'd get a similar reaction if I tried to correct them!

I've been frustrated by the carping over every little term or statement rather than appreciating that someone who has spent a lot of time learning and practicing this belief system wants to further your understanding of it, so at least you can disbelieve it for the right reasons!

It would be nice if we could listen to her first, let her actually get through her full presentation, asking only for minor clarification if we're really foggy, and give her the benefit of the doubt about her definitions (for the sake of discussion at least). Then we might see where she's going and how it all fits together in a way we've never understood before. I feel like I'm in a lecture series and the audience is interrupting every five minutes to go off on tangents.

When she's finished, then we can dispute her use of terms or ideas. But maybe, just maybe, something she says down the road will cause a lightbulb to go off and help us understand it and see how her definition fits in.

I'm really curious about where she's going and I'd love to see her be able to get there. I'll be really upset if she doesn't feel safe to finish this topic.

I agree with Tapatiji and I would also like to see where Evakurvanji is going with this, despite her tete-á-tetes. Madhavaji often asks people to present their points clearly so that we can examine and/or critique the points that are offered for discussion. The obvious advantage of this would be that everyone would clearly know the subject matter at hand in its original context, and the subsequent discussion would flow easily since the root was clearly defined. This discussion has become messy because no one was able to provide a clear definition of the arguments to begin with, and there is just "your idea is wrong, this is what it actually means" etc., with no source material. Any serious person with a discursive bent of mind understands the importance of source material.

In the same way, I have asked several times about Buddha's own references on the matter of zUnyata. I was pooh-poohed and told there are 'tons' of Mahayana and Vajrayana sutras that deal with it. Unfortunately I do not have any access to any of these and even the online libraries at various Buddhist sites were unhelpful on this subject. I also think that it is completely unimportant what some university professors say about zUnyata, and I don't even care who they are; the key to understanding this subject is what Buddha himself has said on the matter.

So as a way of regaining focus to this discussion, I'd like to ask again: What precisely did Buddha say about zUnyata?

That is an across the board statement that deserves to be labeled as closeminded period.
How do you know what that university professor knows or does not know?
You are in essence saying because he is a university professor his opinion is worthless. Again that is closeminded.
How do you know for certain that that individual has not devoted his entire life to understanding what the Buddha said...?



reminds me of Iskcon jargon frankly...

namaskar,

bangli

Sheesh. In hindsight I can see where my part in this discussion went awry--the mix of simple misunderstanding coupled with ego and philosophical differences. In this present example, the exclamation mark is not meant to highlight you studentship. It is meant to strengthen the idea that the only reason I guessed Dr Sharma's name and your relationship with him was that I was familiar with, and respected, his writings. I went out of my way to get several of his books on my last trip to India and highly recommend him. I first came across his writing by reading RISA (when it was publically viewable) and by seeing his articles on sulekha.com. The exclamation mark was a form of recognition of his preeminence and the fact that he had influenced you. I have no condescension toward students or studentship and would gladly be one myself if life were a little different. When you mentioned your teachers, both secular and spiritual, I was impressed with your attitude toward them. Please give me the benefit of the doubt here. I *never* sought their names as some kind of ammunition.

There is simply no question of me trying to create a sense of vulnerability and if any was suspected, I apologize for that. As I think I hinted to you by PM, the audience here was likely to be more favorable to your presentation than anything I had to say. My history and name is also known. I feel that my position was more vulnerable than yours. Still, I should have been more attentive to your concenr for that, especially as you hinted at it several times.

The nishongo reference was a joke. I like puzzles; you offered the initials of your other teacher. I used it to show that I had completed the puzzle. Nothing more was intended. I'm a nerd.

While the humble thing to do would be for me to accept the blame for all this, which is probably how some will see it, I think the realistic position is that we have both played off each other's egos and used some base stereotypes that don't do either of us justice, either in delivering them or being the victim of them.

My last outburst was really quite stupid and I'd erase it and ask for it to be erased from everyone's memory but that probably wouldn't be enough.

FWIW, I did go back and erase the "pure land" reference...but I actually did that as a joke--ya know, the "intellectual dishonesty" thing. I'm kinda weird like that. Or is the word "annoying"?

Anyways, Radhe Radhe! There is a crack in everything.

Braja:



With all due respect, Braja, while each of you has criticized the other, I'd like to point out the power imbalance and the possibility that it has an effect on the reception of your words. You are in the group of moderators. Evakurvan may be feeling vulnerable as a guest, under multiple attacks from a group of people. It is up to you to remember that while you participate in a discussion, your position brings with it an added responsibility.

Or you can bring up that imbalance yourself with assurances that it won't affect your decisions as a moderator or that any opinion you express does not represent the opinion or attitudes of the moderating group.

Just a thought. I couldn't help but imagine how vulnerable she must be feeling.

good points iindeed,

bangli

I must also say..

namaskar,

bangli

Point taken. Also, the moderatorship is largely accidental and is temporary...yasyAham anugRhNAmi hariSye tad-dhanaM zanaiH

What I am saying is that I don't see the damn thing as something worth striving for. If you ask me, from the depths of my heart, it is a *Uselsss* thing *for me*. So please, buddhists and advaitis, if you make a blanket statement, you will get hit. Keep to yourselves, that's it. Don't touch my God.

You have completely misunderstood. We are helping you to touch your God.

It's confusing looking at this remark and then looking at your signature which is a quote from Yogananda, a neo-advaitin.


Yogananda even took Sanyass from the Sankaracarya of the Govardhana Math in Puri during his time.

namaskar,

bangli

deleted my own word excess

I as just pointing to what I found as agreeable with his statements. I agree with nearly 90% of what he says except things like "God is formless" (which I think is just environmental conditioning), but anyway he does not seem like a fanatic. At least that is what I felt on reading his books. He agrees that God can have form in one article. So anyway I can "bypass" all that noise and get to the things I like because the noise does not seem to his main concern.

One thing I liked about him is his notion of "direct relationship" with God. The way He speaks about God is like he is having a relationship with a person and not afraid to declare it - love of God is his primary concern not ontology. And he stresses the fact that - you must *experience* God - you can't just wait and hope that God will one day appear - you must make God appear - I like that attitude.

I have found the neo-advaitins (vedantins) and other non orthodox groups to be much more approachable

* Bravo! x 2 *

...But I'd better leave before my sectarian logic turns up.

dude, if i was against your sectarian logic, then that would make me a sectarian too!

It is very gracious of you to point that out.

I follow my branch of vaiSNavism.

=]/

I read in your bio that you said madhvAcArya (tattvavAda) was much closer to your taste.
Do you accept Radha in the same manner as Gaudiyas or do you go with madhvAcArya 's non-acceptance of Radha?

namaskar,

bangli

As advaita says, the law of the excluded middle doesn't hold! neither here nor there.

I do not understand why the gauDIyas need to see their God like this or what fun they get by such conceptualization. However I will leave them to their world. Also I have no *need* to deny Radha's existence.

[deleted: what all things I do not like about gauDIya vaiSNavism]

=[/.>

Ok, having come in after things were deleted I have that let down feeling you get when you arrive too late and miss the party.

nice sarcastic point braja.

braja i am only pointing it out because i feel you are giving me a bad attitude, perceiving me as coming here to bring heresy or as a "woman on a mission," and i am trying to clearly spell out for you many times over that i believe gaudiya is perfect in itself. So you can stop giving me a bad attitude now i am tired of being treated like a non-gaudiya intruder and your tone is one of deaf defensiveness, you can relax now.

yes. i would not look down on sectarianism.
that is an honest statement.
my own grandmother, a very devout eastern orthodox christian, was also sectarian in her own way.
that did not mean she was religiously unpotent
in fact she was one of the most truly devout people i've known.

i do not consider kishalaya's comment bad when she says 'you can take your Sunyata and shove it, but please do not touch my God!'
I think it's a beautiful expression of pure bhakti and i smile to hear it.

This is why i take zero offense at the buddhist bashing
This is why, when some people do it, like Kishalaya, it actually makes me smile sincerely.
I was going to say it in my own words, but Advaita das said it so perfectly for me when I asked him about the translation of the Ananta dasji passage. I am just going to paste his explanation. But this is exactly what my thoughts were before he ever said this

quote:
the rationale of bhakti
in bhakti historical accuracy or even logical accuracy is subservient to the overriding love the bhaktas and their acaryas have for Krishna. For instance, Love makes them consider Krishna supreme, even if there would be ample evidence to the contrary. And so it is also with this Buddhist-Shankar-bashing of the Vaishnavas. They want to profile Krishna and bhakti as supreme, no matter what, out of love."

He is not trying to argue with me that baba never critisized Buddhism. He is not trying to argue with me the ridiculous point that the people who know best what the Buddhist teaching of Sunyata is, are non-Buddhists. He is just being honest about the rationale of bhakti, and it is a rationale i personally have zero problem with.

Now if you need to believe that Buddhists don't even know what their own teachings are, but gaudiyas do, then that is your issue. If hearing what the actual teaching is shakes your faith, because some gaudiyas are wrong about it, then that is your issue too.

Radhe Radhe!

@ekurvan:

i beg you to stop talking about Srila Ananta das Babaji in the way you do.
i read all nine pages of this thread and i am now very confused.

what is your motivation?
what are you aiming at?

mayavad is a concealed form of buddhism, and buddhism is only part-time compatible with Gaudiya Vaishnavism, if at all...

what is all this discussion about mayavad, sunyata and all this creepy voidism about?

this is a Gaudiya -forum.

"emptiness is form
form is emptiness"
> honestly, this is soooooooooooooo far away from the paths many of us here walk upon.
> honestly, this word-jugglery made me sick before and still makes me.
sorry for that comment.
like "clapping with one hand".
it has very little to do with raganuga-bhajan.

i really feel bad hearing you speak about my Gurudeva.
sorry.

nobody wants to profile this as supreme.
Krishna Himself says it.
how can the Impersonal be profiled as supreme?

man, this is getting very weird...

i mean zero disresepect to your gurudeva i listen to his mp3 lectures regularly and they help me feel peaceful and put me in a sweet state.

still,
i got that strange feeling...

still,
WHAT is your point?

no offence taken just a bad feeling

Tarunji

I have already answered this
I will paste it again here.

[I stand in awe at the bhava of Caitanya. I am here to hear more about that bhava and how to feel even a tiny parcel of it.]
I just found it a bit uncomfortable to hear others misunderstand Sunyata. That's all.
That alone answers your question, but here are some other things I said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Madanmohan das said this to me:
Our almighty lord and sole object of adoration is the son of the cowherd chief,
whose dwelling abode is the woodland tract of Vrndavan;
the most delightfull method of worship is that concieved by the young brides of Vraja; the immaculate proof is the Srimad Bhagavat; man's ultimate objective is prema. This is the considered opinion of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabu, aside from which I entertain no regard for any other doctrine.(Srinatha Cakravarty). You might think that sounds intolerant or fundementalist, but I would imagine it is spoken in a kind of exhuberant ecstacy. Like many slokas also in Caitanya Candramrta it is filled with the perception of Gaurahari's mahamahima.

I replied this to Madanmohan das:
Madanmohan das
I don't think it sounds intolerant or fundamentalist at all i think it is the nature of bhakti to make exstatic passionate exuberant statements in order to convey the bhava-beyond-words that you are feeling.

Look at my name, evakurvan, it means to 'certainly and only do continuously.'
How can i have such a sectarian exclusivist username when i'm such a relativist postmodernist. A contradiction.

All Glories to Sri Caintanya the one and ONLY god anyone would ever need.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TarunGovindaDas, your bad feeling probably comes from the fact that i am saying that the teaching of Sunyata that some Gaudiyas spoke to you about as meaning Voidsim proper, is not really what the actual teaching of Sunyata is.

I would like to re-iterate that if Sunyata actually meant what some Gaudiyas keep saying it means, actual Buddhists would preach against Sunyata too.
And they actually do.
They speak against the idea that everything is void proper, they call that Nihilism not Sunyata.

This is the "other traditions - academic, controversial, eclectic " forum.
Please note.

I think that 'acintya bheda abheda' is just as mysterious as

Form is Emptyness
Emptyness is Form

and to say otherwise is to reduce the tattva of Acintya Bheda Abheda just so that you don't get sick from its internal logical incongruity.

To add to Advaita Das' point.

In response to some people who see Radha in the Rig Veda despite the fact that She is not actually in it, Bangli said this:

To twist every little passage as referring to your religious convictions even if it is totally out of context is fanatical.

This was my addendum:

To twist every little passage as referring to your Beloved is fanatical.
The excessive irrational zeal
of a gopi in love

yeah, nice argument.
in no way can you compare this emptiness-thing with acintya-bheda-abheda...

to me, simultaneous oneness ( in quality as a tiny eternal soul) and difference ( as in quantity Krsna vs jiva-soul) makes sense, although i dont REALLY understand it right now.
but emptiness is form and vice versa...
i dont get it and know what?
i couldnt care less to get it.

whoa, tough beans.

actually, i am flappergasted at the absoluteness of this statement.
you the authority?

ridiculous.

who are you to say such a thing?
"logical incongruity"?
that doesnt make me sick.

the emptiness-form-thing could eventually make me sick

I don't sense your attitude behind that comment to be the same as Kishalya's though, even though you are saying the same thing.

Please stop talking to me with the tone as if i am making 'arguments' to 'defeat' anything and be a 'victor.' or to look smart. I couldn't care less about that.
If you don't want to believe im trying to sincerely convey something that is bothering me, that is your own prejudice.

what attitude?
what comment?

more precisely please...



@ekurvan
and by the way, please could you be a little less arrogant?
i mean i dont want to be rude, but you throw away words and phrases, and somehow this feeling of mine crept in.
i know i dont deserve being dealt nice with but wow, what can i say?

(re: being flappergasted )

There are different ways the challenge of existence is being put forward for our minds to chew on. Thank God there are different tastes as well! Each of us ends up with the challenge suited just to our inner disposition, sense of truth, aesthetics, and the rest of what makes us what we are.

I think, TarunGovinda-ji, that the Emptinesss-which-is-Form" (and vice versa) is perfectly content being explored by eager Buddhists and their likes. There is no need for you to feel bad about the fact that contemplating this particular challenge makes you sick.

But that doesn't invalidate the Emptiness/Form idea. Nor does it make it inappropriate to be brought up in a designated section of the GD forums.

It has a right to be. And even a right to blink at us from time to time.

valid points, dear Dhyana.

but still:
how can form be empty and emptiness have a form?

right, toilet! i am sick....

the concept of acintya-bheda-abheda can still never be compared to this emptiness/form-tattva, because the first one (acintya) can be understood at a high level of bhakti.

but the emptiness/form-tattva can NEVER be understood, since the one who perceives, the thing perceived and the perception itself become one.

nobody then can find out ULTIMATELY if form is empty or emptiness has form, because NOTHING IS LEFT.

go figure.

You keep calling me arrogant just because i am opening my mouth. The only way for me to not sound arrogant it seems is if i were to shut up or stop talking about this. Im trying my best to express myself with topmost respect, and this respect i am expressing i genuinely have it. I'm sorry if you want to see it as arrogant, i personally find that characterization that keeps being thrown at me very insulting. I do not keep namecalling people with the label arrogant just for opening their mouth. You can call anyone arrogant for expressing any thought whatsoever, it's an effective way to shame people into shutting up if you do not like what they are saying. Your observation that i am speaking arrogantly is not shared by everyone and i would like you to stop trying to intimidate me by making me out to be an obnoxious know-it-all just because i have something to say.

Thanks for your comments on Sunyata. I guess your path is the only one that can experience logically inconceivable things (acintya). I can see you have no prejudice at all.

not arrogant?
this is just about your way of telling things.
like you are so advanced to decide, judge and state whatever you want.

no, i dont want that you "shut up".
far from that. its not about that. this is a straw argument.
just present your opinions in a matter that doesnt have the label "absolute sunyata-truth".
nothing wrong with being outspoken and challenging. just the way and the tune.



what about them is ridiculous?



not arrogant?
"you gaudiyas, no clue, we sunyatas all clue"-huh?

fine twist of words.

It is --ridiculous-- to think you are the only one who has a monopoly on experiencing logically inconceivable things, and THAT my friend is REAL ARROGANCE.

In case you missed me repeating this tediously, I am the one saying Gaudiya is PERFECT within itself. You are the one saying Sunyata is -sick- (and comfortable with the notion that Buddhism is a sub-path).

If you are going to deny the things you said by editting them out - or as you are doing right now: making me tediously go back to point them out to you, forget it.

ridiculous?

well, your comment?

what? where did i voice up a monopoly on experiencing logically inconceivable things?

forget that "logical"-thing.

acintya has nothing to do with logic.
why you always come up with this "logical"-thing?

at a high level of bhakti, the concept of acintya-bheda-abheda can be understood.
i never claimed to be there.
still, it is to be achieved.

still i doubt that one can understand the emptiness/form-tattva...

why then all that shooting?

again twist of words.

i never said that "sunyata is sick".
it makes me sick, thats different.
thats because i am an arrogant Gaudiya.

this emptiness/form-tattva-experience thing ....
it haunts me... like a ghost....HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!


oh yeah,
and we all can eat what we want, since all things are anyway just random selections of orders of molecules and atoms.

i love SUNYATA.
my last post.
AMEN:

one more post:

now its too much, miss perfect!

you KEEP EDITING THINGS OUT!
show me where i "edited things out".

enough for me.

Radhe



yeah forget it, you know all.
thank you.

I wasn't referring to you with my editting out comment, but i was putting it in there anyway in case you end up doing that, which i wholeheartedly would rather you not. If you want to pretend you didn't say things that you did actually say, I don't see why you wouldn't do that either.

I have no problem with you quoting me saying that your ideas of Sunyata are ridiculous. You can re-quote me on that with my full permission as much as you like. I did change the way i phrased it though, before even reading your other posts, just because i realized the word ridiculous is too passionate and I was thinking to change it to 'absurd' before i just removed it. I did that because this is heading down a bad road and i dont want more objections to my arrogance to distract this thread.

But yes your ideas of sunyata are ridiculous
And yes i know what the word means.
And no you do not.
Call it Arrogant.
There are times you just have to be cut-and-dry like that it's like letting people go around saying that acintya bheda abheda really means that radha and krishna are immutably stuck together and can't ever ever ever separate to enjoy their lilas.
If i was going around saying that that is what 'acintya bheda abheda' really means, would you not correct me?
Or would it be too Arrogant of you to do so.
Or would it be too much like you are showing off your Absolute Truth on the matter.
No, it would not be either of those things.
It would just be you telling me that it is Wrong to think that, because it is.

Dandavats. All glories to the Vaisnavas.

At this point we do not have a conversation going on. We have people making assumptions about one another and tit for tat type responses. I believe it is time that everyone just stop. The last page (10) has gotten to the point that it is embarrassing to even read.

It gets to a point where everyone is talking to only themselves at which time you no longer have much of a conversation.

I believe Evakurvan has made her points, agree or disagree, and others have pointed out where and why they disagree. Now we just have posts littered with and petty comments. So let's leave it be.

Aspiring to serve the Vaisnavas,
Rasaraja dasa

There has to be an intense willingness of one
and a sense that the thinking process one cogitates reality
has been done backwards,
taking the shadow for the form,
to participate in a discussion of Buddhist sunyata.

Because many here are so locked in their preconceptions
and dogmas they have sworn allegiance,
they are unable to consider that which is beyond conception
to make this a more deeper and entrancing communication.

@Rasaraja

yep, thank you.

this is leading nowhere.
i will go check the emptiness of the form.
Dandavat pranams.

Radhe Radhe
Tarunji

All I am saying is "You keep off my back, and I'll keep off yours." I don't care if there's a gold mine in buddhism. I don't want it. I haven't read one single buddhist work except for some nice occult "book of the dead" and like for killing time. Buddhism is not so important for me that I will make "buddhism bashing" my usual recreation.

It is frustrating to come back and see that once again this conversation got sidetracked because people are simply too threatened to find out that the way Gaudiyas were taught about Buddhism and "Mayavadi" philosophies was distorted. Would it also shock you to know that Democrats in America misrepresent Republicans' philosophy and vice versa? This is human nature, plain and simple.

I was hoping that the side arguments and discomfort would have subsided by now and that evakurvan would have been allowed to expand upon her initial defining of terms. I do find a lot of value in Buddhist thought and this was the only area that I had been avoiding, and only because of my previous indoctrination as a Gaudiya.

I am also astonished at TarunGovindadas. This is the controversial area of GD, and if the definition of Sunyata makes you ill then why on earth don't you go read something else rather than attack the person trying to explain sunyata? This is not typical of your behavior and highlights for me what a touchy issue this is.

evakurvan, if it turns out to be impossible to finish this conversation here, I hope you will consider bringing it to GR when it is up and running. This resistance to considering simply that Buddhism thinks a little differently than we were taught only serves to highlight the need for it in my mind, and make it worth the effort to get it going (even if it seems challenging to me technically). Maybe you can expand the topic to not simply include Gaudiyas' misunderstanding of Sunyata, but the general misunderstandings other religions/outsiders have of the tradition.

Blessed Be--

Tapati

PS--So does the emptiness have boundaries that give it form? I am trying to wrap my mind around this and the only thing my mind gives back is the image of a balloon or a bubble.

I am with you there, Tapati. Strong negative emotions towards something -- of the "gut feeling" character, that Tarunji spoke of, are something I view as a hint that if I dig deeper, I may find something valuable and revealing about myself.

What is it in me that feels violated? is a good question to ask. What is it that I fear or hate so much?

In my own case, I know I often didn't dare, or didn't wish to overcome the repulsion to look into such feelings when they arose. So I didn't. But sometime later I was caught between two fires and had to.

Out of that examination came lessons learned that I wouldn't want to be without.

trying again...

I am sorry but this is simply untrue. sunyata = voidism, both literally and doctrinally. If a Buddhist wishes to add that there are higher or different understandings to that, so be it but it does not change the basic assumption of that doctrine. voidism being devoid o even the concept of voidism is infinite recursion...based on voidism. A similar clarificaton or explanation could be given about a "Gaudiya" word, such as bhakti = devotion. That could be clarified so that the common misconceptions are dispelled but doing so would not change the basic fact that bhakti = devotion, both literally and devotionally.

If evakurvan and others feel that they are their beliefs have been given a bad rap, that is understandable and her desire to express that and offer some of the higher understandings of sunyata is welcomed.

Sri Caitanya saw everything as sunya--sunyayitam jagat sarvam--if it lacked Krsna. It is no different for his followers. If an individual can accomodate both teachings, that is fantastic. A similar outlook would be given to hatha yoga or any other teaching that is not derived directly from bhakti literature and bhakti saints.

There is a difference between the word sunya as it is being used there, and what it is intended to mean in that specific context vs. the -Buddhist Teaching Of Sunyata-

which is another story.

Words mean different things according to their contexts, especially in sanskrit.
You can't run a word search to see where the word sunyata is mentionned and then think that what it means in one text is what it always means in every text from every tradition

That's weird how you know that are you Buddhist, did you spend years sincerely pouring over that teaching like Buddhists do? Probably not but i guess you can tell them what it means anyway, cause it's just that obvious to you. You don't need to spend all those years like they do because you already get it.

Oftentimes Sunyata will be translated as Fullness
by scholars struggling to give a more intimate translation

No, Sunyata is -not- Nihilism
I am not giving some esoteric understanding, this it the actual understanding, it only sounds esoteric to you because you were given a fake understanding.

What do you think Buddhism is about? Entering a state of Voidism?

Why are you creating an either/or between Sunyata and Bhakti
You are either Gaudiya or you have no Bhakti?
Do you own devotion? Did you invent it?

Are you going to say things like straw man and fallacy when faced with the logically inconsistent teaching of acintya bheda abheda, in order to discredit it?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Krsna is so great that He permeates all, even Sunyata.
Some people though don't think so they
think that they can find a vacuum of air somewhere out there
where Krsna does not dare reside.

that emptiness in form
is the unending invitation
for soul

I didn't say it was, which leads me to wonder if the beast you are fighting is actually not the Gaudiya doctrine's approach to sunyata but that which you have encountered in the books of Prabhupada and in devotees you have met.

Nagarjuna or any of the great leaders of Buddhism could have made the call to stop using the word, replacing it with "purna" or whatever. They didn't.

That said, I again think that the beast you are trying to slay is not Caitanya's position on sunyavada but that which you have experienced.

An example of Nihilism is the statement,
" To merge in Brahman is to annihilate one's spiritual identity."
Be careful to contrast this statement with another of different ilk which goes,
"To merge in Brahman is the annihalation of identity as we know it".

The Buddhist conception of shunyata is part and parcel of their conception of Nirvana which has been mostly translated as "Non Being". A preferable and equally correct translation would be "Not Becoming". Being as we know it in our mundane identity is an ongoing process of becoming, a time tied movement of consciousness never reposing in fullness of being. A void of gross and subtle material attributes invites the timeless plenitude of being. To cognise shunya in essence of all things is the beginning of surrender. Such surrender is the nemesis of hubris and the rubric of devotional conviction.

Dandavats. All glories to the Vaisnavas.

Today I spent some hours sick in bed researching the different definitions and contexts af Sunyata. What I found, and obviously I don’t claim my findings to be all that developed, is that to define Sunyata as emptiness is a rather nihilistic definition compared that that of what the original Sanskrit word seems to convey. One interesting point which I found in several places was that the sanskrit root su conveys the concept of being swollen with possibility or even 'pregnant with possibilities'.

As we experience with many sanskrit terms sometimes words cannot be adequately translated from Sanskrit to English. In these cases you cannot translate the single word without going into great detail to describe the complete concept. From the little I read it would seem that within Sunyata there is an element of emptiness as well as an element of potentiality - a state where literally anything and everything is possible.

I found one story which seems to illustrate this dynamic: A Zen Master meets with a student who has come to learn about Zen. While they are talking, the Master offers the student some tea. They continue chatting, as the Master begins pouring the tea. He keeps pouring and pouring, until the teacup is full and begins overflowing. Distracted, the student interrupts the Master to point out that the cup is full. "Master," he says, "The cup is overflowing. No more will go in." The Master gently replies to him, "Like this cup, you are full of your own judgments and habits and opinions. In order for me to show you Zen, you must first empty your cup, empty your mind and create space for new ideas and possibilities." In this story, the student is told that his mind needs to be "empty", but the Master doesn't mean "empty" as simply lacking any content but rather full of the potential to learn and understand.

From this example it would seem that Buddhists approach Sunyata as a way of conveying that nothing can exist by itself. Rather everything exists due to causes and conditions and that that they do not have a unchangeable identity in themselves. Thus, "empty" of a separate self, but full of all of conditions, causes, and components.

As Sunyata is many times used as a subset of description, ie. mana-sunyata (pridelessness), it would also seem that Sunyata could mean void of something as opposed to simply void.

Another thing which I thought of during this research is that in many instances I read where buddhists actually define and ellaborate on Sunyata to mean voidism, both literally and doctrinally, as Braja stated in his last post.

So my question is do different schools of Buddhism simply define and interpret Sunyata is different ways?

Anyhow... I just wanted to understand what all of the fuss was about regarding the sensitivity behind Sunyata. As it seems Sunyata means different things in different contexts within Buddhist teachings and practice. It would seem that a Gaudiyas outlook on the word, and how it applies to Buddhas teachings, will never be "right" for all. As when a word holds different meanings to different people there will never be a universal context.

I think if we are going to continue to discuss this topic we need to approach it in a few ways:

1. Look at Sunyata in the cotext of Gaudiya teachings. Again I understand that for a buddhists this may be uncomfortable, as they may define it in a very different manner, but as it is defined differently by even buddhists how can we ever cover every base?

2. Take a deep breathe before you post and keep in mind that Sunyata doesn't translate well into english to begin with so the varying definitions and context of the word don't allow for a universal acceptance of how it should be applied or viewed in either context to Buddhist doctrine or Gaudiya doctrine.

As you all know I am not the most philosophical person in the world, or even in my house for that matter, so this took an incredible amount of energy for me. So I am going to continue to cough my brains out and pray for a few hours in a state of coughing-sunyata (coughinglessness)!

All glories to the Vaisnavas.

Rasaraja dasa

This is why I said






Even within schools there are differences. The position on maya varies even in Advaita from mayavadic (Prakashananda) to Vedantic (Gaudapada/Shankara).
Even among Gaudiyas the polemic on Brahman differs. Even in one book of Prabhupad's we see differing positions.




The fuss arises because experts in one field decry another by citing less than expert expressions or misinterpretations about another field. I think you call it the straw man argument. Those who are expert in Gaudiiya Vaishnavism are expert in the aesthetic bhakti engagement in Krishna Leela. If the terrain does not cover Buddhism, why pronounce on it?

This thread could have easily been centered on "common misconceptions of sunyata" and would likely have received a different response altogether. By using the term "Gaudiya misconception" and linking that to the founders and maintainers of this tradition, the approach is unnecessarily inflammatory.

Why does the thought of an alleged "misconception" bring an allergic response?

I think that those who are unnecessarily inflamed need to examine themselves. For many years I was taunted by Westerners because I did not eat beef. I was never inflamed by this. Now it is fashionable for Westerners to embrace devotionalism with such fervour that they are inflamed by the possibility that someone may ascribe misconceptions to the founders of their new found faith.
I will not be inflamed by this either.

You know something? Evakurvan has many things she could improve on in terms of her communication. Just my opinion. However, I do not challenge her right to raise a comparison of the views of various paths on the question of Shunyavada in the CONTROVERSIAL forum. See? Of this forum the reader is warned, "May contain discussion on views that a devotee may find objectionable."

Dear Talasiga,

Radhe Radhe!

My question was meant in jest. The point of my post and the question was that the term Sunyata and what it implies, which has caused 11 pages of sometimes heated battle, is a term in which Buddhists themselves differ upon both in realations to definition, context and practice.

As Braja said I think we would be a bit more productive speaking of the different understandings, or probably better yet the different understandings of the word Sunyata as opposed to what is perceived as a Gaudiya misunderstanding. We both agree on the premise that this is anything but a word with an absolute meaning and context.

I would be interested in hearing Evakurvan's opinion on my research. Again my research is not conclusive nor can I speak to the more esoteric aspects of Sunyata and how it applies to the different schools of Buddhism. However what I did find is that the word, it's meaning, context and place in Buddhist theology is not absolute. So how can it be understood and studied in absolute terms by Gaudiyas?

Radhe Radhe!

Rasaraja dasa

yes, well .... er, if I may say so ..... that's a question you need to put to
THOSE GAUDIIYAS WHO MAKE ABSOLUTE PRONOUNCEMENTS ON IT!

Q.E.D.

Or anyone for tha matter. So let's move on.

Radhe Radhe!

Rasaraja dasa

(You've changed your comment on inflammation, but anyways:) Dead or diseased cells do not react with inflammation. Inflammation is the response by living cells to external elements that cause harm.


I'm not sure how to take your comment as it is so open-ended and assumption-laden. e.g. Have you never seen Asians embrace devotionalism with such fervour that they ...? I have. History has also. "Fashionable"? Bed sheets and banging symbols are in? Anyways...

If your goal is to avoid inflammation, you have been successful. That is a wonderful accomplishment. Long may you post delicious riddles and insights and be protected from situations that pierce the world you have built.

My life is different. As unfashionable, neophyte, and intolerant as it may seem, my life centers around primordial religious assumptions that give meaning to my existence. I can fully understand the attraction that others have for other doctrines and would have adopted them myself if I hadn't stumbled when I did. I am a child, but please don't hold my faults up as examples that malign the glory of this path. As convenient as it may also be, don't think that I haven't been tested in 18 years of trying to follow Sri Caitanya. I know there are wonderous things in Buddhism and there is no dearth of spirituality around us, but I am simply asking that we avoid ascribing faults to Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and his dear followers.

Why not put them into a new thread? They were very interesting--a tad harsh, but interesting.

In the marketplace of ideas, leaders of various traditions have often simplified the tenets of opposing schools of philosophy by reducing central doctrines to a seemingly illogical concept. It seems so with dismissing Sunyata--and therefore Buddhism--by saying, "Oh they just believe in the void; they are trying to simply disappear or lose their identity." Keep in mind that Gaudiyas normally don't spend many years learning and practicing Buddhism or "Mayavadi" paths. Why would we expect the same kind of deeper knowlege of those paths that a practitioner would have?

Have Gaudiya teachers stated, "Yes I have fully explored this Buddhist concept and practiced Buddhism for many years, rejected it, and now I tell you the truth about it" or have they simply made statements about something based on a little reading? I accept fully that the best person to describe a Gaudiya Vaishnava concept (even such basics as bhakti) is a Gaudiya Vaishnava. I wouldn't expect a deep teaching about bhakti from a Buddhist. Why would you expect the reverse?


I'd like to understand what Buddhists are really trying to attain, and I think some of Rasaraja's research into the meanings of Sunyata is valuable (thank you). It seems to me the key is in the concept of potential. (And consider for a moment the many translations you've seen for the word "rasa.")

Instead of continuing to argue over whether it has ever fairly been represented by Gaudiyas past or present, maybe we can now agree to move on to Buddhist interpretations of the word.

A cheap view of bhakti would be that it is devotion to an illusion of Deity, for the sentimental and uneducated masses. (Yes, I actually found that being said about Dvaitists on the internet.) I am sure that interpretation would not be appreciated by any Vaishnava, no matter how many sincere and exalted teachers of Advaita or Buddhist traditions offered it. We could easily have a reverse of this argument on one of their forums.

Can we all just get along and move on to learning more about the many faceted understandings of this central concept?

If we ever achieve some level of understanding, maybe that will even benefit Gaudiya tradition. Why argue against a distortion of a philosophy when you can honestly debate it with genuine understanding?

The conclusion I reached about why it seems so threatening, and why I still have a knee jerk reaction to ideas about emptiness, the void, or oneness-without-identity is that I am afraid of being stripped of my devotional approach. If I become convinced that there is no personal God or Goddess, there is No One to have an eternal relationship with. That was terrifying, and still is! So better to ridicule these ideas and keep that particular Pandora's box closed. That is how we were taught, and I carried that notion so strongly that years later, hearing that my friend's father moved into a "Mayavadi" ashram, my first reaction was to feel sorry for him for being led astray, and an urge to convert him to a faith I no longer literally believe in myself as an alternative.

So I guess it is not so amazing that these two topics have brought up such strong feelings (along with the Chaitanya topic I didn't read much of).

I'd like to work past those feelings and at least understand what I was rejecting all these years. I am glad I am not alone in that.

I have a different remedial armentarium for them. Here I am dealing with a predominantly Western peerage who seem to be getting wound up about someone raising conceptual issues in the "Controversial" forum.



I am simply insinuating that faith that is easily inflamed needs to be broadened. If you can taste the rasik mellow, why does shunyavada (however you may understand or misunderstand it) threaten you?

And this is precisely what I have been asking over and over again ad infinitum:

What did Buddha say about zUnyata?

The only way this discussion can return to its focus is if the statements of the founder of said concept can be presented so that we can discuss it. Vague "formulas" by vague people will not do.

Well, the tradition started with what Buddha said about Sunyata, and then people have added to that a whole body of traditional writings until they've reached their present day understanding. So what I want to know is, what Buddha said, and then how they expanded upon what He said.

Just as the Goswamis expanded upon Sri Chaitanya's teachings and added so much to Gaudiya understanding, so have the Buddhists down through the years contributed a body of work that informs present day Buddhist understandings.

I don't think they can be completely separated, anymore than you can simply read the verses Chaitanya gave and ignore the Goswamis. You won't fully understand Chaitanya without their work.

While that is certainly true of GauDIya VaiSNavism, I'd have to respectfully disagree that the same holds true of Buddhism. Much of modern-day Buddhism is so far away from what Sakyamuni Buddha taught that it is near-impossible to figure out what came from him and what didn't. The Pure Land/Amitabha stuff is a good case in point.

And loathe as I am to admit it, I agree with Vivekananda's criticism of Buddhism. Forgive me for paraphrasing, but he said that since Buddhism was so "boring, it is no wonder that they brought all those mandalas and tantric stuff." I can provide the quote if anyone wants.

And this is one reason why I am insisting on the provision of Buddha's original words, if only to see how far the modern followers have strayed from them.

So which Buddhism do you find boring? The one with all those mandalas and stuff or the one without all that?

Are you sure he was talking about Buddhism and not Boredism?

One cannot understand anything about Radha and Krishna through mental speculation. Krishna and His potencies are acintya, inconceivable, and ananta, unlimited. The Vedic literature explains this very logically: "that which is transcendental to material nature is inconceivable, whereas speculative arguments are all mundane. Since mundane arguments cannot touch transcendental subject matters, one should not try to understand transcendental subjects through mundane arguments (Jayadvaita Swami).

[p.s. i know he is not raganuga but i know raganugas do not disagree]

When ordinary mundane intellectuals try to explain or interpret the identity or pastimes of Radha and Krishna, Krishna's unlimited nature bewilders them, and therefore they misconstrue everything (Jayadvaita Swami).

When people try to explain or interpret Sunyata using their mental faculties, they are bewildered, and therefore they misconstrue everything and end up acting ignorantly dismissive with terms like "straw man" or "infinite recursion."

To understand Sunyata with logic, like some people here are trying to do, leads to misconstruing everything, like some people here are are actually doing.

To understand Acintya Bheda Abheda with logic, is equally reprehensible.

Trying to show Sunyata as something that makes no sense and makes you sick yet trying to show Acintya Bheda Abheda as something that all fits together nicely like an internally consistent jigsaw puzzle, is doing a disservice to Caintanya.

In religion, [such] ontological explanations are unfortunately often only pseudo-explanations. They do not serve the purpose of really explaining things to someone whose aim is to understand; rather they are there to placate the doubts of someone who's in it chiefly for some other reason than understanding (Dhyana).

p.s. i kept putting parenthesis with (in my personal opinion) so as to not be accused of acting like a know-it-all authority, but i find reading the post like that is cumbersome, so i removed them, but please take note of these invisible parenthesis.

(Evakurvan)

(Braja)


So first we all agreed that most Gaudiyas critisize Buddhism as being Voidist.
And I thought i could finally move on.
But now we are back to square one where you are denying we ever agreed on that.

So do tell me, if Nihilism is not what is meant when the label Voidism is being thrown out in a negative way, do tell me, what exactly -is- it that is meant.

I don't see the point in perpetual backtracking. Look at Advaita Das' approach, he is not trying to deny that some Gaudiyas see Buddhism that way. Why are you even bothering to discuss this with me if you want to backtrack and act like most Gaudiyas don't see it that way.


That is comical. Buddhists are going to change the name of their teaching, just so that Gaudiyas who misunderstand it, can understand it better.

So I guess that all the other Gaudiyas think that Buddhism is Nihilistic Voidism, but Raganugas don't. I mean if that is the case, which is an odd point to make all of a sudden, that's great.

I will state this point.
Even if Caitanya did critisize Mayavadis, what he was critisizing was Nihilism. To me, this does not mean he was critisizing Buddhists, but Nihilists. Maybe at the time of Caitanya, there were all these Nihilists running around, so he decided to critisize them. What he is actually critisizing though, has nothing to do with Buddhist Sunyata.

Buddhist Sunyata is a teaching that was firmly entrenched in India by the Second Century, and it has nothing to do with Nihilism.

P.S. Please do not take me seriously when i say Gaudiya Misconceptions as though i am saying Gaudiyas are blind or being rude about Gaudiyas. I would proudly call myself Gaudiya. I do not seek to put Gaudiyas on the defensive. I have explained in several places that Language does this to you. You want to talk about something so are forced to use this kind of language, especially when trying to compare and constrast.

I have also stated that this idea of Buddhism as Nihilism, is not only a Misconception of Gaudiyas, but even a Misconception of what I would call, hobby-horse Buddhists. This is not an Official 'School' of Buddhism.

I guess if you take the greatest one-liners and platitudes from pop culture, condense them, cut them out of their their context completely, and then from there twist what is left to assume your own implications, then you have the interpretation of Buddhist Sunyata that you see here. This is just Pop Culture Buddhism that you might hear on Oprah, it isn't -ever- what you will be taught.

The focus on the Buddhist Teaching of Sunyata began with the Mahayana School in Second Century India, and since its Inception, this is what it has always meant and what it continues to mean centuries later in the Vajrayana School and onward.

Sunyata -is- a Mahayana and Vajrayana Teaching, and what i am saying it means, is what it means within these schools who PIONEERED it as a central teaching. When we are talking about Mahayana and Vajrayana, we are talking about the Buddhists of China Japan Korea Tibet. There is an agreed upon meaning of Sunyata among these schools who hold that teaching.When people hear Sunyata, they instantly hear Mahayana and Vajrayana. I am talking about what Sunyata means to the people who INVENTED holding it as a central tattva.

Rasaraja reading your post about your research was interesting. I am positive you have come across Sunyata as being described as 'Emptyness,' and elucidated upon in that way. Here is what Buddhists who read that know, that others are not aware of.

"Whenever you see Negation in a Mahayana Sutra, you should not see it as the Opposite of Affirmation. For example, when you read 'Selflessness' in a Mahayana Sutra, it should not be read as 'the Absense of Self' proper. Negation is not being used as the opposite of Affirmation." (VSH) Hence, when you see 'Emptyness,' it should not be read as Emptyness proper, just like Selflessness should not be read as Selflessness proper.

In other words, it is just an inner language to talk with, that Buddhists understand.Others who are not Buddhists or who are not guided in some way, probably do not understand, so take it to mean that which it does not mean.

Again, i am talking about Mahayana, because they are the school that PIONEERED Sunyata as a Central Tattva. They have been around since the Second Century in India. Vajrayanas -also- hold that same understanding of Sunyata. When people think Sunyata, they think Mahayana and Vajrayana, because they are the ones who taught it as the Key to their Teachings. It was undevelopped as buddhist Tattva before that. GauraSundara i hope this once again clarifies why I keep ignoring your point that we should Ignore Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism
when partaking in a discussion of Sunyata. If you bring it up a third time I frankly don't know what else i can tell you.

Radhe!

first of all i want to apologize if i was a bit too "heated".
but i want to say the following:

1) i wanted to point out that it is not possible to compare the "emptiness/form-tattva" with "acintya-bheda-abheda-tattva"
2) i wanted to know WHY my comments are ridiculous
3) to say that i edited something out was just a lie. please check yourself who edited lots of things out. anyway
....
i realize that this section here is wrong for me, since as a raganuga-sadhaka (trying to be) the doctrine has no value for me right now.



whoa, honestly did u ever read Caitanya Caritamrita? if not, please do.
you will find some really interesting passages where He speaks about "sunyata"...

@Tapati

yeah, you are right. i was pretty much heated.
but somehow this kind of doctrine ....

i personally feel that the doctrines of "sunyata" or "mayavad" are offensive to the Lotus Feet of Sri Krischna.

and i found this very comforting for me:

zreyaH-sRtiM bhaktim udasya te vibho
klizyanti ye kevala-bodha-labdhaye
teSAm asau klezala eva ziSyate
nAnyad yathA sthUla-tuSAvaghAtinAm


O all-pervading Lord! Giving up the all-auspicious performance of devotional service
to take up the difficult task of gaining a realization of their oneness with Brahman, the
jnanis are ultimately left with nothing but their pains, just as a person beating empty
husks of rice gets nothing for his trouble. (Bhag. 10.14.4)


ye’nye’ravindaksha vimukta-maninas
tvayy asta-bhavad avisuddha-buddhayah
aruhya kricchrena param padam tatah
patanty adho’nadrita-yushmad-anghrayah

O Lotus-eyed One! Those who consider themselves to be liberated, but have no
feeling for you, do not possess a pure intelligence. As a result, though they may attain
the highest realms of liberation in this very lifetime through their penances, they very
soon fall down again from this state on account of their disregard for the service of
your lotus feet. (Bhag. 10.2.32)

so again sorry for my passionate approach.

Radhe

eva and others: if you are going to label the entire Gaudiya doctrine and its preceptors as misconceived with regard to sunytata, then please supply evidence of that. It's a simple point. If members of that line used the word "sunyata," the correct term to use, and did not elaborate on what that term meant, where are you finding misconceptions?

If you are uncomfortable with the English translation as "voidism," so be it. It is the meaning of the word. Perhaps translators could be informed that such a translation will cause grievance to Buddhists. It could equally be emptiness or some other term. However the lack of an elaborate footnote each time the word is used is quite understandable.

I do not want to get into the substantive topic of this thread, not least because I lack sufficient knowledge about Sunyata to have an informed opinion.

But, that said, I suggest that the quote above is only one particular perspective on how Gaudiya Vaisnavas approach the task of seeking to understand transcendental subject matter, and that it is quite a high "rasika" type approach. Therefore I'm not convinced it is very helpful in this discussion. My reasoning is that because of the philosophical and analytical nature of the current thread, the Gaudiya perspective set out below, being more analytical and focussed, might assist more. There is also a quote at the end from Sri Jiva Goswami which might be relevant to Gaurasundara's suggestion that the words of Buddha himself should be sought.

Disclaimer: I'm not quoting Ananta Dasji to seek to play a trump card to "defeat" comments in this thread, as I do acknowledge this is the "Other Traditions" area of GD. (...and I hope in turn that no-one will reply by saying "But we don't accept the author as our guru!"... I am quoting him only to show what he wrote about pramana or evidence as accepted in the Gaudiya line.) I do think it is fair to quote him to assert here that there is a broad range of tools which Gaudiyas may legitimately use to seek to understand transcendence (although admittedly, for Sri Jiva, Sruti takes precedence as the others are always, to some degree at least, defective). Personally I believe that deep thinking about each of these categories and how our own and others' arguments fit into them might help us critique eachother's philosophical positions without getting into personal conflicts.


I don't want to get into arguing with people over here, but if anyone wants to continue this discussion within the Rupanuga section on the site there is an interesting thread on Vedic epistemology which is still open...

Radhe!

good point braja.

many acaryas spoke vehemently against "voidism".

i remember two stories of the CC where voidism is a topic.
(if i am remembering something wrong, please correct me)
there is one man who speaks strongly in favour of voidism and against bhakti to Krsna, this man then gets infected with leprosy.

then there is the instance where some buddhist monk attacks verbally Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and then some birds throw a plate on his head...

yeah, i guess i found out why i am so agitated about this "voidism":
i makes Sri Krsna into NOTHING ( no hands, feet, legs,arms).
and it is NOT equally good or equal to personalism.

i posted some questions in this thread and maybe someone can bring in some enlightment!

questions

(braja)


I will restate this here:
So first we all agreed that most Gaudiyas critisize Buddhism as being Voidist.
And I thought i could finally move on.
But now we are back to square one where you are denying we ever agreed on that.

So do tell me, if Nihilism is not what is meant when the label Voidism is being thrown out in a negative way, do tell me, what exactly -is- it that is meant.

I don't see the point in perpetual backtracking. Look at Advaita Das' approach, he is not trying to deny that some Gaudiyas see Buddhism that way. Why are you even bothering to discuss this with me if you want to backtrack and act like most Gaudiyas don't see it that way.

If you want me to become a Gaudiya Specialist in a few days to PROVE to you the simple points that every Gaudiya already has heard about Buddhism, here too, i frankly don't know what else to tell you. People are telling me that everybody already knows what Gaudiyas say, and to stop pressing the point, but
you keep pressing the point, expecting me to become a Gaudiya Specialist to prove it to you that they do in fact say that.

A Note to Kamala's post.
Do you think it is LOGICALLY possible to experience and understand how something can be both bheda and abheda?

IMPORTANT NOTE
In my view Caitanya was critisizing what he saw as Nihilism, not The Buddhist Teaching of Sunyata.

"Radharani is not a different person from Krishna, or, rather, she is both one with and different from Him" (Jayadvaita Swami).

The name of Krishna contains the name of Radha.

Even if you are only able to see the Krishna and not the Radha, it is still ignorant to insist that there is no Radha.

The same as it is ignorant to insist Sunyata is emptyness proper.

"Indeed, You alone know Yourself by Your own potencies, O origin of all, Lord of all beings, God of gods, O Supreme Person, Lord of the universe!" (Bhagavad-gita, 10.15)

To tell a Buddhist that Sunyata is Voidism proper…

Is like robbing Krishna of his Pleasure Potency
Like insisting there is -not-
and never -was- a Radharani.

Left to tread "like a husk;
From which all that was, now has fled."

Leaving him a void and hollow shell
of a broken lonely God.
The Opulance of Radhey expiring out of him
before he is able to take another inhalation and
tell you otherwise.

dear anonymous user,



again, you are trying to compare two totally different ideas...

what then is SUNYATA PROPER?

BTW, the translations of Jayadvaita SWami are not really serving as a good basis.

(Braja Responding to Talasiga)

I was saying the exact same thing that you have just said except I stated it bluntly with no indirectness, as a serious comment.

Why would taking note that The Buddhist Teaching of Sunyata
may be misunderstood / misrepresented in Gaudiya...
Why would taking note of that pierce your faith in the Gaudiya world that you have built for 18 years?

Should it?
Is your Faith hinging upon being Certain that no Gaudiya could possibly ever say anything incorrect about a Religion that is not even his own?

As i said it DOES NOT HAVE TO BE that Caintaya was Incorrect.
It can just be that he was critisizing against what he saw as Nihilists.

And i am just saying, ok cool, though the Buddhist Teaching of Sunyata is -not- Nihilism.

Buddhists would preach against Nihilism too.
So -in that sense- they -agree- with sri Caintanya.

Not to mention Advaita Das' valid point that it does not matter what is objectively true about Budddhism or this or that, Gaudiyas will always insist that Buddhism
is -this- or -that,- even if objectively wrong, out of intense LOVE for their own path.

Dear evakurvan,

i have some honest and humble requests:

please study the teachings of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and of those He empowered.
please stop assuming things like "Mahaprabhu could be incorrect".
please stop playing "authority" over things you do not know very much about.

again i ask:
WHAT IS "SUNYATA PROPER" according to the teachings you have been taught?
feel free to ignore me.

As i said it DOES NOT HAVE TO BE that Caintaya was 'Incorrect.'

I am not ignoring you it is just that you often misread a lot of what i am saying.
I find you aren't reading it, and instead making angry comments. You do not care
about what the Buddhist Teaching of Sunyata is, you in fact said it makes you sick. I am not here to 'preach' about Buddhism as you pretend to care so you can only mock it as being nonsense. Let us just say that The Buddhist Teaching of Sunyata is not what it is made out to be, a teaching of Nihilism, and it does -not- mean that for -any Buddhist School- who holds that tattva as essential.

1) i care
2) i read all of your posts
3) i do not understand your points.

what is "sunyata"?
honestly, please explain the doctrine or show where you explained it.
please.

Dandavats. All glories to the Vaisnavas.

I believe we all agree on a few aspects of this debate:

1. Sri Caitanya and Gaudiya Vaisnavas as a whole do not believe the concept of sunyata to be correct regardless if it is defined as void, empty or even an element of emptiness as well as an element of potentiality - a state where literally anything and everything is possible.
2. Sunyata as a concept which is not a universally accepted within the various schools of Buddhism. I think to sum up all that differ on this term/concept from the Mahayana branch as “just Pop Culture Buddhism” is to be intellectually dishonest. This misalignment came well before “Pop” and Oprah. To cast all practicing Buddhists off as victims of Pop culture and as those who “are not Buddhists or who are not guided in some way, probably do not understand, so take it to mean that which it does not mean” seems a bit naive. Let’s face it this isn’t a cut and dry element of Buddhist philosophy so it will not be cut and dry to outsiders.

As we all go back and forth on what Sunyata does or doesn’t mean as well as who does or doesn’t understand it we all agree that even if one were to include every possible explanation of Sunyata as being the “right” one we still go back to pint 1: it is a concept, when applied as a tenant of Gaudiya Vaisnavaism, that doesn’t mesh. For followers of Sri Gauranga this means that sunyata is incorrect and for followers of the Mahayana branch/school/whatever of Buddhism we are incorrect or misinformed. I don’t think we need 13 pages to all agree on those points.

I feel for Evakurvan as she is being cornered and as we all know intentions, jokes and even plain words take on a life of their own in internet conversations. Evakurvan has an affinity towards Buddhism as practiced by Mahayana, both intellectually and emotionally. At the same time she is greatly attracted to Sri Caitanya. Thus she is trying to work out how Caitanya viewed a tenant of Mahayana. Some have been a bit too aggressive in how the dealt with Evakurvan and her question. How can she not be defensive when there are taunts, smiley faces and blunt comments coming from all directions? In my humble opinion when we are approaching an area of disagreement we should do so with the best of intentions and with respect. I believe it is safe to say that Evakurvan has respect for the members of this board and started this conversation with the best of intentions. That she be in the forefront of our minds when addressing her questions or issues.

We can all do a better job of not trying to read in to what others are saying.

For Evakurvan I think it is important to note that just because someone is a follower of Sri Caitanya doesn’t mean they are always right nor that they can always adequately address every aspect of his teachings. I believe you understand that at the core but, like Buddhism, there are many differences of opinion amongst the followers of Sri Caitanya which range from how he is viewed in our very devotional lives down to how he understood or viewed Sunyata and down to the most seemingly unimportant points.

Of course as Vaisnavas we are followers of Sri Caitanya and all he said and did. Although you have pointed out where you believe followers have misrepresented his teachings on Sunyata it is still relatively clear that regardless of how you define it and cut it there is still a theological roadblock. It is the reality of the situation.

Okay I think I have emptied the water bottle now. I don’t think I have anything more relevant to share on this topic.

Aspiring to serve the Vaisnavas,
Rasaraja dasa

No Buddhist studying Sunyata with a teacher will -ever- see it as Voidism or Nihilism.
Someone trying to read books alone, might.
I am telling you this because I have practised and studied this for thirteen years
alone and with various teachers from various Buddhist traditions, and what I am telling you is just what the tattva is about to those who hold it as essential in their Sadhana.
If you do not want to believe that, and you want to think that I am just from some strange school, whereas other schools of Buddhism who focus on Sunyata Tattva teach it as Nihilism, I will respect your choice to have that opinion, and not keep imposing on you to think otherwise.

Again, if you are including Mahaprabhu in the league of those who were misinformed, please supply some evidence of this. That's all. Suggesting that he was against nihilistic Buddhists is a sweet solution. It does have problems of its own--sri caitanya mano 'bhistham: understanding the mind of Mahaprabhu was not a common accomplishment--but it seems to serve well.

FWIW, hearing this discussion does not pierce my faith at all; it excites it. Sri Caitanya was beyond misconceptions and your discussion reminds me of that. Believe me, when you've danced in public as a painfully shy introverted teenager, wearing orange sheets, watched with antagonism and ridicule by your friends--and not cared because you were tasting something so indescribably sweet in the name of Krsna--you get used to people not agreeing with you. Bhakti is experiential: bhaktih paresanu bhavo. Appearances, logic, good manners or whatever, just don't come close. Our ability to taste that will be hampered if we see faults in Sri Caitanya.

Anyways, I've said my piece.

I gave one explanation of why I do not see Faults in Sri Caintanya.
And Advaita Das gave yet another in his comment that I pasted.
Because of these reasons, I do not see it as Caintanya being Incorrect - as you seem to think that that is what I am saying.

p.s. I would like to say i am touched by your last post and i understand what you are saying. I myself have gone through that situation also antagonized by people because of my affiliation. I have run into people I used to know on the street while in sankirtan and I see their assumptions. Some people think I am partaking in a sentimentalist cult and question my credibility as a person because of it. I have ongoing tension because of this in my household. I have watched countless strangers not only laugh at me and the devotees but aggressively shout profanities. Still that does not matter. Who cares what other people think about you that is no reason to change what you believe in.

Sorry, I'm returning to my "briar patch..."

This didn't really strike me as something that only GauDIyas could misunderstand. The very word 'zUnyata' means empty, so anyone could "misunderstand" if they knew anything about Sanskrit. This was Braja's point.


So do you have any references about it from those Mahayana and Vajrayana sutras, just so we can understand the concept better? I am talking about references you know, just so we can have a verifiable source instead of "this guy said, blah blah blah.."


Yuo accuse everyone else of misunderstanding you when you have just done the exact same to me. I never said anywhere that we should ignore Mahayana/Vajrayana Buddhism. Anyway, it is nice that you have finally admitted that the concept of zUnyata was not taught by Buddha himself, but was pioneered by some second-century or so followers. Aside from the obvious complications of believing/following/studying/practicing a doctrine of Buddhism which did not originate with Buddha, I still haven't heard a reasonable and easily understandable cogent explanation of what zUnyata really is. Evakurvan quoted "form is emptyness and emptyness is form," but from where did that quote originate? Also, isn't this thread supposed to be about the mAyAvAdI concept of zUnyata versus the GauDIya idea? Since no quotes from Buddha are available on the topic of zUnyata since He didn't start it, my question could be easily adapted to include what Buddha taught about nirvana. Anyone with even a fragment of an idea about Buddhism would surely know about nirvana, and am I close to getting to the source here? Probably, since Buddha did actually teach something about nirvana. So now maybe we can consider this as a side-point of this discussion?

Evakurvan, a question please. I am just curious to know what makes you attracted to the Mahayana and Vajrayana schools of Buddhism, and what draws you to a concept that was not actually taught by Buddha?

Kamalaji, nice quote from JIva GosvAmI, thanks! That explains a lot!

Gaurasundara says:



Isn't that exactly what references are? Just what somebody said, written down.

Let me repeat things i have said because you do not carefully read but jump to post quickly. I have stated several times it is not just Gaudiyas, i guess you keep missing it. I have explained i am only talking about Gaudiyas here because this is called gaudiya discussions and the shackle of language is leading me to speak in this comparative tone. Also it is from Gaudiyas that i mostly hear this misunderstanding, since i associate with many. Sunyata will be translated as 'fullness' by scholars trying to give a more intimate understanding of it, and no, anyone who really knows sanskrit would think twice before thinking that a sanskrit word is so unilayered and easily conveyable. I have said all this before. No, i am not saying this guy said blah blah, i am giving you the concensual understanding of Sunyata as it is understood by those who fixate on Sunyata.

This guy you are referring to that i am quoting has a Phd in Philosophy from Stanford, was a Buddhist monk living in Japan for 20 years, and has left the monastery to teach Religious Studies in universities. He isn't lying about what Sunyata means to those who spend their lives on Sunyata, because he is a person who has done that. I don't like to list people's accomplishments but you keep goading me with haha who cares what some mundane scholar said, as though your understandings are more accurate than his, meanwhile you are not even a Buddhist.

I am not going to repeat myself to the unreceptive.
To the mahayana and vajrayana buddhists, meaning the buddhists of japan china korea and tibet, they have sutras that deal with sunyata, and to them this -is- what the buddha taught. It is obvious that if you are responding to critisisms of sunyata, that you are going to talk about the buddhists who focus on sunyata as their guiding tattva in sadhana.

Yes i can point to Buddhist Sastra to illustrate this Buddhist Teaching of Sunyata. However, where i think we differ in Approach to Sastra is here. When you dont read Sastra with clear obvious prabhupada-style purports, yet read the raw sastra alone, you are dealing with something that looks more like a songpoem as opposed to clear definitive declarative statements. This is why the majority of commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita have absolutely nothing to do with what Prabhupada wrote in his purports, but mostly deal with Atman=Brahman philosophy. This is why people who read Bhagavad Gita before ever encountering Iskcon, get confused at these peculiar purports. When people demand Sastra as Evidence i get the impression that they don't really acknowledge this about Sastra.

All that being said, for the Buddhists who focus on Sunyata intensely, there is pretty much a -concensual understanding- of what the sastra is clueing them in on. This is what i am expounding upon. If you would like me to right now start quoting from the Buddhist Sutra songpoems, to illustrate to you from where they come to this understanding of Sunyata, I can do so. However i feel i am mostly being asked this only to have it ridiculed, and -no matter- what i say to get deeper into what the teaching really is, some people just -need- to believe that it is Nihilism, so they will hear whatever it is i say as Nihilsim no matter WHAT it is I say. Others are even all-together denying that some Gaudiyas view Sunyata as Nihilism! How am i supposed to get into this difficult discussion of intimate Buddhist Sutra, when some people don't even want to admit that. And when i am being goaded into quoting just so people can mock it as nonsense I would really rather not bother to start explaining.

It is going to sound like nonsense to you because you are not a Buddhist Sadhaka. Acintya Bheda Abheda sounds like nonsense to people too because how can anything be both dual and nondual. Sunyata is going to sound like nonsense to you because how can anything be both dual and nondual. These are not logical riddles they are Realizations. You want to see Acintya Bheda Abheda as logically consistent, even though to me it is not nor is it supposed to be. So if I explain Sunyata, which is just as logically inconsistent, not only will you not have the ears to hear about it because you need so much to believe it means Nihilism, but you are going to start throwing 'straw man' comments at me. Do you not think Acintya Bheda Abheda is also a straw man, hence this is why it is Acintya?

This said, I would have enjoyed to try to give some evocative quotes and stories so as to illustrate what Sunyata actually means to those who pour over it. That is what I thought i would originally do. Instead I was stampeded with hostility and the resistance to believe that it can possibly mean anything but Nihilism. This has lasted for well over a week. Because of this, I would rather not talk about it. I am stating the concensual understanding for those who focus on it and I am telling you this understanding is derived from Buddhist Sutra. I don't know what else to do short of bringing in monks and scholars so that you believe me that -yes,- this is indeed how Buddhists who focus on Sunyata see Sunyata. Not Voidism, but like -this.- Somehow i dont think even -that- would make anyone believe me, because you need to believe it is Nihilism -at any cost.- I will see what i will do, maybe i will do that, but for now in this hostile climate and defensive atmosphere it is not the time to discuss these matters, especially when so many moderators are not here.

To answer your personal question, i did not make myself get attracted to this, i stumbled upon it by chance thirteen years ago and it insinuated itself. If you would like to know why anyone would be into this you would need to intensely do the sadhana, because to me that is the heart of any path and if you don't intensely do the sadhana first, you can't know much except what other people say about it. I personally find this an issue in pursuing the Official Gaudiya path, because it seems you can't really know anything deep about the Gaudiya Sadhana unless you are already initiated. But how are you supposed to know if you want to be initiated, or even attract the mercy of a guru, if you are not deeply doing the real sadhana first. And getting initiated because you are greedy for the sadhana is an insincere option. I should put this in Questions and Answers later.

Just for the sake of information - There is a section in the brahma-sUtras where previous philosophies (from point of view of vedAnta) are discussed and refuted. Therefore every school of vedAnta, advaita included, has to, by necessity, refute buddhism. In fact, as far as I know, zaGkara himself was instrumental in containing buddhism and re-establishing faith in the veda in India.

Yes I know and here are the comments I made before on that.

Also in one sastra it says that Buddhism is worse than Advaita
And in another sastra it says that Advaita is worse than Buddhism.
In the sastra that was quoted by AnantaDasji, as it was quoted, it was saying that Buddhist Voidism is worse than Sankara.

Here is my hypothesis as to why a Gaudiya would say Buddhism is worse than Advaita (repasted).

Buddhism is Really Way More Mayavadi to a Gaudiya.
At least Sankara's Advaita posits an Atman, and equates it with God.
Buddhist Voidism on the other hand is even -worse,- because in the way it is perceived, it just declares total Voidism. And with that come all the Gaudiya ideas of what that entails, like total nondualism, impersonalism, no bhakti, no flavour and so on.

In another sastra though it says that Advaita is worse because at least the Buddhists are not trying to use the Vedas in order to support their atheist beliefs.

Anyway that was just a Tangential Sidenote.

Shunyata is the the insight that there is no substantial essence to the world.

You cannot understand this? It is a subject of contemplation and you want to grasp like its a butterfly on your collar. How Zen of you, how New Agey!

You want it to be explained more. Still you will not understand it. Firstly, my explanation may be faulty. It takes two to tango, does it not? Or do you just approach the Gaudiiya Baba and say, "Sock it to me. Let me have the creme de la creme".

You want the simple explanation? Sure I can give it. No contemplation needed. Here it is. It is the belief that Nothing exists, not even God, not even you. Its a really self evidently stupid belief and it is astounding that leading sages and sadhus contemporary with Buddha accepted it. But the reality is that the sages and sadhus just went along with the charade because, hey, guess what? The Buddha was an incarnation of Krishna whose only purpose was to stop the Brahmins eating meat and performing all those Aryan animal sacrifices. So the contemporary sages and sadhus went along with his crappy creepy doctrines just so he could stop the animal scarifices.

The way it worked is that he gets the Brahmins to believe that there is NOthing in the meat. Thats the whole purpose of sunyata doctrine.

Come to think of it, there is nothing to it really. I don't know what all the fuss is about.

Frankly, I don't know why Bhaktas are threatened by sunyata, seeing as they are all vegetarians n all.

Crikey mate! Even an Aussie could understand it now. Well done.

We loves you Dead serious. Although, certainly, there is some emptiness quality to that love as well... Ah anyway, it was probably Braja's and Gaurasundara's warm feelings you wanted to gauge. But I did jump up in joy upon reading your text -- not only wise but also beautiful.


You gave an insightful interpretation of why the wise may in the end give absurd explanations -- too much pressure from the crowd who insists on black-and-white answers. But I don't think what made them yield was just the issue of meat-eating, although it probably played a role. Similarly today, what makes Evakurvan's points hard to swallow is not the meat issue, of course!

Most of us are on a spiritual quest because we are sick of the confusing complexity of existence, we find it unfulfilling, we want certainty, order and meaning in our lives. To do that, one submits to a spiritual authority.

If that authority, who we have learned to trust and love, were then to proceed to tell us that nothing is literally real -- not even God, oh God! -- we would be back to square one. Or even worse, because our faith has been shattered.

I believe that at an advanced state of religious practice, one will somehow accept and learn to live with this nonliteralness, elusiveness of things in a way that doesn't cut one off one's religious roots. (I am speculating here -- I have never been anywhere slose.)

Maybe in some traditions the transition is easier, gentler, than in others. Buddhists denounce the "grasping" mentality, and one of Buddha's most famous teachings was "Be ye lamps unto yourselves, be ye a refuge to yourselves". (Admittedly out of context.)

Rasaraja Prabhu has touched upon this beautifully in his recent post about the communication between Evakurvan and some Gaudiyas here.

I thought, upon reading: How can a Gaudiya accept Evakurvan's points about sunyata, when doing so would require assuming that Caitanya Mahaprabhu, their source of authority and order in existence, behaved as if He were not omniscient -- He commented, apparently, on a sunyata that was not the real thing but a common misconception, without straightening that misconception. Doing so would shake the Gaudiya faith to its foundation.

Evakurvan points out that she doesn't have a problem with Sri Caitanya speaking as if He were misinformed. That's easy for her to say, whose world is not founded on the belief that whatever Lord Caitanya said in the Caitanya-caritamrita is literally true.

The day can still be saved. Say it was His lila to speak as if he were misinformed. It could have been. The acaryas have employed such explanations in the past.

But the lila solution has its emotional cost as well. As every ad hoc solution, it makes things complicated and raises further doubts: what else might Lord Caitanya have said that was not really, really true?

The lila solution is therefore best reserved for contradictions that are central to the doctrine. The sunyata issue is not worth it, for a Gaudiya, being peripheral.

I am sorry if I have misinterpreted anyone's position here. Much of what I say are not paraphrases of what has been said but ideas of how the discussion might develop.

If Jagat were here, I am sure he would be able to reformulate Evakurvan's points in a way that would be acceptable to most others here and to Evakurvan herself.

But still I find this discussion to be very valuable, despite its many painful turns.

Let me end this with a quote I found today that made me think of the Sunyata issue:

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through. (Paul Valery)

Just to make it super clear I do -not- believe Caintanya made Errors. I -do- believe what Caintaya said is True. And I believe that in the context of two other factors, one explained by Advaita Das, and another explained by me.

Yep, true. You said only that LC condemned a notion (of sunyata) that happened to be a misconception. From this position, He may have known very well that the sunyata properly understood is a concept with some value and merit. (Even if He left it to the Buddhists to follow and Himself taught another doctrine.)

But, having been a devotee and having read the sastra with that mind, I can relate to why some Gaudiyas may not be happy with your explanation: because their gut feeling is that condemning the Buddhists on invalid grounds is not a behavior of a person with high moral integrity. And Lord Caitanya obviously had such moral integrity. Which suggests that perhaps He spoke in honest conviction but happened to be mistaken in His beliefs.... which He couldn't be, being God.

Puhhh. This begins to resemble the classic theodicy problem.

Anywa, this is a side twist to the issue of sunyata.

1) Here is the explanation I gave to Braja a while ago in private.

i just want to add this
i love caintanya too. i am not doubting that it is possible that he said that mayavadis, buddhists, whatever, REALLY SUCK. It's totally possible he did say that. I can picture him saying they really suck because they preach voidism and emptyness proper. My little humble hypothesis is that during his time, there were some buddhists or mayavadis or whatever, actually teaching VOIDISM PROPER , instead of the real teaching of sunyata.

Kind of like how some organizations, who are also gaudiyas, sometimes might preach a false version of gaudiya.

So maybe at the time of Caitanya there were all these lost souls stuck on voidness proper, so he did like any great guru does, look into their souls and give them what they need according to where they are at.
====================================================
2) This was Advaita Das' explanation on the matter when I asked him in PM about the Baba passage he translated for Braja. Even before he answered this, i was already thinking this myself, before he gave this explanation. I have already asked permission to paste this a while ago:

quote:
the rationale of bhakti
in bhakti historical accuracy or even logical accuracy is subservient to the overriding love the bhaktas and their acaryas have for Krishna. For instance, Love makes them consider Krishna supreme, even if there would be ample evidence to the contrary. And so it is also with this Buddhist-Shankar-bashing of the Vaishnavas. They want to profile Krishna and bhakti as supreme, no matter what, out of love." (Advaita Das)

He is not trying to argue with me that baba never critisized Buddhism. He is not trying to argue with me the ridiculous point that the people who know best what the Buddhist teaching of Sunyata is, are non-Buddhists. He is just being honest about the rationale of bhakti, and it is a rationale i personally have zero problem with.

Now if you need to believe that Buddhists don't even know what their own teachings are, but gaudiyas do, then that is your issue.

Certainly but I was thinking more of what is actually written in those sutras just so we can examine the concept better. It is usually the case that modern interpretations of spiritual concepts differ largely in terms of how the original was meant. So it would be helpful to have the original ideas at hand which, I trust, would be more reliable in terms of understanding.

For example, this discussion has provoked an urge within me to take a 'crash course' in Buddhism (at least from online sources) just so that I can familiarise myself with its concepts. I have found tons of stuff like "Buddhism in today's world", "Buddhism for the 21st Century working man", "Buddhism for pregnant mothers!(!); this is not what I am looking for. I always thought that to a good starting point for the study of anything is to examine the original views. Just my thoughts..

Like I have already explained, what I am talking about derives from Buddhist Sutras. Please read my posts before posting. Do you think that when you are studying Buddhism you do not read Buddhist Sutras? I have explained already in detail why I am not getting into that now. It is fun to read on Buddhism if you want, but I recommend a teacher and Sadhana and Sutras, and better not to waste your time with trying to understand Buddhism alone with the funny materials available like you mentionned. Though at the same time I am sure they can be helpful to you potentially in some way. No disrepect to those materials intended.

[I already responded to your original comment that Tapati was commenting on.
So why add another response as though I did not do that]

I was responding to Tapati.

hmmm, but there is.
it is Krishna´s external energy.
that is how the Gaudiyas (and all Vaishnavas) differ.

there IS substance, but not the RIGHT substance, so to say.
not right for the spirit soul.
but it is not "nothing".
Krishna´s external energy is not nothing.

the underlying substance is the impersonal brahman.
but this is the effulgence of the Lord, not NOTHINGNESS.

still my questions on the other thread have not been answered (except by Talasiga).
so, dear evakurvan after 13 years of practice, please give a short answer to these questions.

i do not want to mock you, honestly.

but i guess no answer might also be an answer...

also to translate "sunyata" with "fullness" seems a bit to far out...

Serendipitous Day Planner Wisdom:

Wise men argue causes; fools decide them.

Indeed. Now we currently have 14 pages of 'sunyata' in this forum. I guess the Buddha is now heartily laughing ...

Contrary to your beliefs, I actually do take a lot of time to read each and every post carefully before I reply to a specific point. I have also read this entire thread at least five times, and I must say that your reposting of previous posts has not helped. Bear in mind that my replies to certain points are either to re-focus the discussion when it is going off on a tangent, or otherwise it can stimulate the discussion to discuss new explorations. Unfortunately you do not pick up on these.


There is a specific danger where generalisation is concerned. Throughout this discussion I have found you discussing the "GauDIya" perception of zUnyata and invariably referencing Prabhupada/ISKCON material as a platform. You will have to be aware that not all GauDIyas have the same viewpoint on Buddhism/zUnyata, and just because most of us have ISKCON backgrounds does not necessarily mean we are closed to learning new things. However, there is a basic premise that everyone has to start from. However, I have noticed that you have several times said you are not actually talking about all GauDIyas, but only those whom you have met. Thank you. But its generally a great tip not to generalise anyway, because that sort of misunderstanding leads to more misunderstandings, ad infinitum. Since you're so enthusiastic about people reading and re-reading your past posts I might ask you to do the same for mine, especially the ones where I speak about the absolute necessity of clarity that is required.


Ok, thanks and I appreciate that. But then again, remember that this thread was supposed to be about the mAyAvAdI idea of zUnyata (versus GauDIya), and as far as ZaGkara's VivekacUDamaNi is concerned the words means 'empty'. See? We have to start from a basic premise and then work our way up from there. Now if, according to you, Buddhist scholars who practice zUnyata translate it as 'fullness', then what we see here is a dichotomy between the Buddhist and the MAyAvAdI traditions. This is the sort of thing I am talking about; clear, precise definitions or explanations will help in discussion.


Now where did I say anything like that? I simply state and re-state the importance of original source material. This professor may have been a Buddhist monk and thus able to expound upon it from an experiental point of view, but how do you know that he hasn't misunderstood what zUnyata is? When I am asking for original source material, I am asking for the original basis for this philosophy. If early criticisms of Buddhism focused on its supposed 'voidist' nature, then how has it now come to mean 'fullness' in recent appraisals? My constant requests for original source material are so we can attempt to track down this change in meaning, and maybe we will even find out something about the original meaning of zUnyata by whoever pioneered the concept. As far as your professor's mundane qualifications are concerned, they do not interest me in the least. I am more attracted to the fact that he used to be a monk. That is what interests me; a guy who actually knows what he is talking about as opposed to an academic who has merely studied the books. All along you have been giving the impression that your professor was of the latter category.
Evakurvan, do you know how to have a discussion? Or at least, a discussion on a forum like this? You will see everywhere that people are asked for original source material on whatever thread they discuss on and it is presented so that everyone has a clear idea of what is being discussed. I just wonder at what point this thread would have been locked by Madhava since it was apparent early on that this was not going anywhere. It took 13 pages for you to finally admit that the concept of zUnyata was not even founded by Buddha. I only hope it won't take another 13 just to have some sutra quotes produced?


I may actually do that if I so wish, but first I am making attempts to find out how far/close it is to the teachings of Buddha. You may be talking your own thing, but I am trying to explore different things here. That said, let's just see what you said:

Evakurvan: To the mahayana and vajrayana buddhists, meaning the buddhists of japan china korea and tibet, they have sutras that deal with sunyata, and to them this -is- what the buddha taught. - And after 13 pages of discussion you finally admitted that zUnyata was not what Buddha taught. Now you are telling me that this is what Buddha taught as far as the Mahayanas are concerned. How do you explain this, logically and rationally?


Ok, that's a fair point. But I am actually trying to get at the doctrine here. If doctrine does not matter to Buddhists as much as experiential sAdhana, for example, there there is not much anyone can do by way of discussion. We all acknowledge that the living practice of a tradition is poles apart from what is delineated in the scriptures (GauDIya VaiSNavism with its maJjari-bhAva is a perfect example), but right now for the purposes of this particular discussion, we need the doctrine and the theological concepts that have been put out. In short, you need to bear in mind that you started this topic about the mAyAvAdI concept of zUnyata as opposed to the gauDIya concept. The first thing you need to do is to precisely define all three: the Buddhist concept (whatever it is), the mAyAvAdI concept, and the gauDIya concept. So far, I have provided both the mAyAvAdI and gauDIya concepts (as far as Padma Purana was concerned), so now it only remains for you provide the Buddhist concept of zUnyata. If you had done this at the very beginning, a lot of time and energy would not need to have been wasted.


Yes, please do that. And if it is possible, please quote chapter and verse too.

Its upto those people who want to mock you and I can't do anythign about that. I am the one who has been asking for original source material so I, for one, would appreciate it. There are other reasons why people may have been hostile to you but I do not want to get into that now. This topic has suffered enough deviating.


Did you address all of that to me or to everyone else? If me, then all I can say is that I personally do not give a hoot about the logical consistency of acintya-bhedabheda. That sort of stuff used to interest me when I was in the mood for VedAntic debates, but these days I am much more focused on the lIlA and have no time for debates which I feel are mind-numbing and a waste of time. But however, whether I regard zUnyata as 'nonsense' remains to be seen as it depends on what you present. Or rather, how you present. Much as you might like to think so, this is not about knocking other philosophies down just to prove the 'superiority' of our own faiths, and I really cannot understand what has led you to think this way. All along I have been asking you for original source material so that we can understand it while you have been ascribing "evil motives" to me and everyone else at every turn, I really cannot understand why. Personally I do think that zUnyata is a load of nonsense, but that is just my opinion of it and it may very well be ignorant since I have all along admitted that I know next-to-nothing of Buddhism until at least a few days ago. Maybe you can change my opinion and explain to me what zUnyata really means; this all depends on how you explain it right? That is the whole point of this discussion.


How do you think that looks in a discussion?


What do you mean by "it insinuated itself"? As far as your next point goes, I understand it perfectly well but I was curious to know your perception of it. I mean, you intellectually know that it was not taught by Buddha as you admitted earlier so I am just curious as to what it "insinuates" to you?


Yes that seems like an interesting topic.

Indeed. They also say: do not argue with a fool, for others may be unable to tell the difference.

Sounds like something Buddha might say!


You said it!

(Gaurasundara)

In this context, sounds like an ad hominem to me. Ouch.

(Angrezi)

I think he would like it! It is a truly philosophical thread. Good exercise.

"Philosophy is an activity, discursive reason's quest for the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters -- not any particular doctrine or proposition, a product of this activity." (William Valicella)

Dhyanaji, I did not mean it as an ad-hominem so I apologise if anyone took it that way.


Here's an example of what I am talking about:


Now while Dhammananda spends the rest of that section elucidating upon the concept of nirvana, I have to take notice of the fact that he takes a certain amount of effort to refute the concept of nirvana as 'nothingness'. Why would he do this? What possible reason could he have to outline this particular thing? Could it be that he is aware that there is a 'nothingness' concept out there which he seeks to refute? And this is precisely what I would like to track down; what are the origins of the 'nothingness' explanations?

And here's something for Angrezi to ponder :


Hmmmm, seems like quite an effort to discuss 15 pages about something that is ultimately undefinable.

(Gaurasundara)

Then I apologize for ascribing to you such motivation.
I have just read your earlier post (#211) and appreciated your points there. This kind of discussion benefits from source material being quoted. At the same time I sympathize with Evakurvan's reluctance to go through the trouble of locating and typing up quotes when she isn't feeling secure or when she is concerned that the readers won't be open enough to relate to the truth behind the paradoxical language of the sutras.

These kinds of discussions really require an impartial moderator. It's a pity we have none right now.

fifteen pages! *faint*

I don't know much about buddhism, and I don't much agree w/ advaita, but Adi Shankaracharya certainly understood something about Krishna, so I will take whatever brings me closer to Krishna, and leave the rest.

Let's all worship Krishna now!


BHAGAVADGEETA KINCHIDADHEETAA
GANGAAJALALAVAKANIKAA PEETAA
SAKRIDAPI YENA MURARISAMARCHAA
KRIYATE TASYA YAMENA NA CHARCHA

BHAJA GOVINDAM, BHAJA GOVINDAM, BHAJA GOVINDAM
GOVINDAM BHAJA MUDHAMATE!

PUNARAPI JANANAM PUNARAPI MARANAM
PUNARAPI JANANEE JATARE SAYANAM
IHA SAMSAARE BAHUDUSTAARE
KRIPAYAAPAARE PAAHI MURARE!

BHAJA GOVINDAM, BHAJA GOVINDAM, BHAJA GOVINDAM
GOVINDAM BHAJA MUDHAMATE!

No problem!


I certainly agree. Personally I think that the members of this forum would freak out if they learnt that Buddhist doctrine entails a denial of the soul's existence. When there is a certainty of disagreement at the initial stage (vis-a-vis having a soul), how is there a possibility of discussing the end, viz. Nirvana?

Satyabhamaji! Trust you to chime in with a GREAT bhajan!

I'm just going to correct a few things fast in response to what is being said cause this is killing me.

1. There are Buddhists sutras that speak of this and they are seen as Buddhist teachings. Please stop saying 'the budha' never taught that. Go tell that to a japanese so he can attack you with a chopstick and spare me.

2. Thirteen Years ago i was bored so i read a book and followed the sadhana in it and and what resulted on that day (june 21) made me feel like my life is just a pleasurable waiting room until the time comes when I can go somewhere to devote myself to religious discipline full time. Do not ask me what my thoughts are about this now though I am a lazy debauchee. Note I am not really talking about this or that religion.

3. That's my point. Acintya Bheda Bheda is not -supposed- to be logical. Just like Sunyata isn't. If these things were logical I would just read them and understand them with my tiny human brain and be Realized. In that context, it is hypocritical to call Sunyata 'nonsense' just because it is not hinging on our tiny little human logic understanding. If you want to believe the Caitanya Tattva is about human logical rational understanding, that's your perrogative and i respect that.

4. I am not only talking about iskcon people, i have spent some years interacting with more gaudiyas then you can imagine. Bangli asked what Raganugas have to say about Sunyata and Braja posted a passage in regards to that where 'Buddhist Voidism' is critisized.

5. For the sake of argument, even though people know that when talking about Buddhist Voidism we are talking about Sunyata, so we are talking
about the Mahayana and Vajrayana schools who fixated on it as their
-Most Esstential Tattva,- let us pretend that there are some other Buddhists
out there -obsessed- with Sunyata too, and who see it as Nihilism.

The point would be, it would seem that Gaudiya condemnations of Buddhism do not make distinctions between the 'good sunyata buddhists' and the 'bad sunyata buddhists,' but just condemn buddhist sunyata. So even if this imaginary scenario were true, that there are all these imaginary Buddhists running around out there as an Official School, fixated on Sunyata and proclaiming it to mean Nihilism, it wouldn't make a difference to the chat we are having.

It is very hard to proceed with this chat when some people here do not even want to admit that some Gaudiyas misperceive Sunyata as Nihilism. More than that they do not want to admit that Buddhism is critisized in their tradition and are asking me to become a Gaudiya Specialist to go and point out instances of it. It is weird this denial of what most people here already know, and what we had agreed upon before as self-evident now being retracted. It would be like talking to phantom ears. But haha wait I should like that since as an apparent buddhist i am apparently about how nothing is real so it is okay just like it's cool to hit me on the head with planks since planks are just empty according to me.

To the denial that anything critical is being said about buddhism, I would like to say:
Tell me, if nihilism is not what is meant when the label Voidism is being thrown out in a negative way, do tell me, what exactly -is- it that is meant. There is a lot of word-jugglery going on here for the sake of protecting existential needs, and as a person who is intimate with those needs I can respect that, even though I am not a fan of that other stuff.

p.s. just because i am trying to not react to them do not think that the constant biting sarcastic remarks in here do not emotionally affect me or that i am blind to them. And please do not make extra posts now to deny them and say it's all in my head and you are just being playful. I am not oblivious even if this is indeed 'just the internet.'

I don't think you're going to understand unless we cut off your thumb!



I am afraid all our brains are going to explode from overheating if we keep on like this indefinitely... eek!

Radhe!

i found this very interesting.



again i would like to point out that one cannot compare the philosophy of acintya-bheda-abheda with the philosophy of Buddhist sunyata just because they "seem" to be illogical.

acintya-bheda-abheda-tattva is NOT illogical.
the Lord is simultaneously ONE with and DIFFERENT from His energies.
ONE WITH in the sense that the energies and the one from whom they come are ONE in tattva and DIFFERENT FROM in the sense that He Himself exists in His Absoluteness as the Supreme Person.

so the energies of the Lord are one with and different from Him.
how this works is inconceivable.

yeah, of course, my comments are ridiculous.
so maybe i should not take shelter of the mahajanas...

If we were on a Buddhist forum and the debate was this heated, would any of us want to display our cherished Gaudiya verses to be mocked by the audience? (And yes, there are still some I cherish, even without 100% belief.)

I suspect that GR will be the place where this can really be talked about in full, since questioning Gaudiya authority won't be so alarming. Though it amazes me that we can't question such authorities on statements about someone else's religion.

Don't be surprised if it turns out that evakurvan doesn't want to hold up Buddha's words so you can nitpick and mock them.

I noticed a link was posted elsewhere suggesting that a link was a good place to learn about how to argue logically.

Among the things I read from a link on that page was the following:




Naturally this one is touchy in religious circles because one always wishes to trust spiritual authorities who have taught a doctrine or written scriptures. I have often had fundie Christians pull out Bible verses to advise me that I am guilty of worshipping idols or all sorts of things, only to be dismayed when it does not sway me because I don't believe in a Divine origin of the Bible or accept it as an authority. I am similarly unimpressed by the Pope's position on issues, though I respect his devotion to Christ. Yet I recognize that to a Catholic his word is straight from God.

Ultimately when having an interfaith dialogue, one can't really expect the other side to bow in reverence and awe before your own scriptural references and concede defeat.

I think for such a debate to be possible, one must be on an even playing field where no one faith is favored over another in terms of respect or legitimacy. It appears that even in the controversial area of GD, this is not that field.

It appears that sincere GV bhaktas and those of us who don't share that faith will have to agree to disagree about whether GV tradition distorts the definition of sunyata or not.

I hope sincerely that evakurvan will be able to find a safe place to go further into what she sees as this misunderstanding on the part of many, and help us approach some basic concept of sunyata. I understand that only a person following Buddhist tradition will likely understand it in the fullness of realization, but perhaps we can appreciate its barest echo.

I also want to add that I prefer discussion aimed at simply understanding another's point of view, rather than "defeating" them in argument. If this really is the Age of Kali, should we be feeding into it by trying to go around defeating people, or should we try to counteract it by seeking to humbly understand?

Blessed Be--

Tapati

My Dear Tapati- you are my worshippable senior devotee here, but I have seen the Bhaja Govindam referenced multiple times on this thread and feel compelled to attempt to make a clarification. Sri Adi Sankaracarya's Guru was Govinda Bhagavatpada. The verses of the hymn itself only have to do with the practical teachings of Kevalyadvaita Vedanta and are instructions to the mind of a sincere seeker after liberation (sanyasi). The chorus "bhaja Govindam" is an admonition to Himself and a glorification of His Guru Maharaja.

It was I who quoted it. I am pretty sure it is about Krishna though.

But anyway I *don't* want to get involved in any debates.

Oh, you are right, Satyabhama, it was you. Sorry

How kind of you to think of me that way, even though I am not a devotee any longer although I suppose by age alone I might be considered senior. (I certainly feel it in my bones.)

I would never presume, however, to tell you the real scoop on anything connected with your faith since I am extremely rusty in my knowlege of it. I would be likely to preface any remark of mine by, "I thought I remembered that..." or "It was my understanding that..." and bow to more current knowlege from even the youngest Vaishnavas here.

I might claim to know a thing or two about some other philosophies, however.

Blessed Be--

Tapati

This is just a hypothesis, why the buddhist sUtras are not coming out. Of course, I know nothing about buddhist teachings except from hearsay, so I could very well be wrong.

If evakurvan is going to come out with sUtras like "There is no God" or "God is a manifestation of the realm of suffering", then there is going to be a little problem here. Perhaps it would be better for the buddhists not to defend these sUtras as unshakeable truths but to realize that they were misconceptions of the buddhist adepts themselves.

Hello a few are just not understanding me .
I am not here to say that buddhism is true or better, or gaudiya.
I do not care about that at all I would never even start such a discussion, ever.
I had studied buddhism sunyata before i came to gaudiya, and i am saying that the things i hear gaudiyas say about it, are -not- what i learned about it.
So I am confused and saying hey the things you are saying about it that it -is,- that is not how i learned it at all
I think for the time being i will only discuss this issue one on one with people confidentially because i am being completely misunderstood and i am not here to make debates about what religion is better ; i find where this is being taken and how it is being understood very wrong and very upsetting.

OFF TOPIC
deleted and
sent as a PM.

Radhe!

You are not completely misunderstood. I, for one, do not misunderstand you. I may not agree with you about everything but I don't feel I misunderstand you. Nor do I believe that I have interacted with you in a way so as to upset you.

Talasiga I know you haven't.
TarunGovindadas if you think my signature is meant as some rude remark about Sri Radhika, that is completely your prejudice and it pains me to even hear you say that to me. If you want to think my devotion is a joke go ahead. It probably is a joke and a lie - what more could it possibly be from someone who is making these sick buddhist topics. If you want to partly know why I don't feel comfortable to discuss this further except in private right now, -that remark- is why.

My goodness!

i was just expressing my feelings about your signature and i realized that it was OFF TOPIC so i sent it as a PM.

there was NO HARM intented.
but i have a right to express my feelings.
yep, better to do it via PM.
sorry.


peace
Tarunji

Radhe!

one more thing...

i know that i was sometimes to passsionate in my responses and therefore i heartly apologize.

i am currently studying "Madhurya Kadambini" by one of the prominent Gaudiya Acaryas Sri Vishvanatha Cakravartipada Thakur, where he is for example discussing the supremacy of bhakti.
the commentator, Srila Ananta das Babaji Maharaja eloquently explains the verses and highlights their meaning.

and quite honestly he quotes many times statements of our acaryas like Sri Jiva Gosvami and very often one can find remarks about the path of jnana ( including the philosophy of "oneness/voidism/etc...) that are pretty tough and heavy.

so why should a follower of Gaudiya philosophy "whitewash" the standpoint of our tradition in regard to Monism/Buddhism/Voidism/Oneness/Mayavada/...(you know what i mean) just to please the opponent?

i understand that very easily "feelings" can be hurt via the internet, true.
but this works both ways.

if one for example states that the the philosophy of voidism (not you, dear evakurvan) is equal to the philosophy of acintya-bheda-abheda then it is only natural that responses will come up referring to the standpoint of the Gaudiya acaryas.

this is a very touchy topic and i pray for forgiveness if i have hurt anyone´s feelings.
it was not my attempt to discredit the person of evakurvan.

peace and love
Tarunji

deleted comment in response to Tarunji's deleted post

@evakurvan

this post was not about you.
please check your PMs.

If there is a controversy involving several individuals on this board, please don't start flaming each other in public about not reading PMs. Instead, send another PM if you feel the PM wasn't given due attention. (Some people may just not reply to PMs right away.)

As a sidenote to the Misconception that Buddhist Voidism has no Bhakti no Emotion and is Jnanic.

In Mahayana buddhism, the buddhism that embraces Sunyata as Central, they say all the deepest wisdom on Sunyata in the world is completely useless and meaningless if you are not able to have the bhava of compassion, and without that all your wisdom is just bondage and -not- liberation.

That compassion has to be "anupalambha" and "ananunayadrstimahakaruna." This means "indispensable compassion that has no object," compasion for the sake of compassion and not for the sake of selfish motive, and also a compassion that is "not a sentimentally conceived emotion."

Wisdom is the "Father" and Compassion is the "Mother:"
"Wisdom as a solitary possession is plainly declared to be bondage; even meditation, trance, concentration, and so on, are declared to be vain."

------------------------------------
The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti translated by Robert A.F. Thurman
"Robert A.F. Thurman, who was ordained a Buddhist monk in 1964 by Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama, is the Jey Tsong Kharpa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies at Columbia University, where he chairs the Department of Religion. One of the world's most respected scholars and translators of Tibetan and Sanskrit."

Dear gentle souls,

during the last days i (except making useless posts!) was contemplating a lot the point why am i so angry at Mayavad/Voidism/Impersonalism/...

i guess i found the answer.
it was not easy for me to digest, but somehow i will manage it.

at the core of my heart i want to be a personalist, and i know that i will become one, but deep inside myself sits also a big impersonalist.
i tend to be very selfish and i tend to be pretty impersonal within dealings with other human beings. this is part of my dark side of the soul.
also taking advantage of other people too.
Rasaraja das knows what i am talking about, since i was being VERY impersonal with him a while ago.

so i thought about this "enemy" within myself, the impersonalist, who is very selfish and arrogant, and i know that it is true.
and i hate this part of me so much so that it will be reflected into dealings with topics like this.
i know that i should not hate this dark side of me, but this is easy said. i dont like being an impersonalist (especially with other people and therefore also with the Supreme Person) and i know that Krishna also doesnt like it.

fortunately my Sri Gurudeva showed so much mercy upon me and i am allowed to become transformed. and honestly, i will do my best to become a personal human being, CARING about others, SEEING them as spirit souls.

pheeew, tough beans spilled out.

maybe someone has an advice how to deal with "hating that impersonalist within" so that i can move on becoming a balanced human being...

begging for your understanding and help

Tarunji

I hope we can be friends and I can be listened to with an open heart, Tarungovindadas.
I don't like the fact that you label all the aspects of your character that you do not like, 'Impersonalist,' and by extention, implying them to be mayavadi buddhist.
I will say I am not here to debate.
I am -not- here to say what is the Truth about Reality, of course I can't know that.
I am only here to say that the things I am hearing by some people about buddhist voidism, are not what buddhist voidisim means to buddhists who focus on that tattva in their sadhana.
If this thread is disturbing you, it is in controversial so that souls who want to remain undisturbed by disturbing thoughts, can do so.
I'm sorry it disturbs you and you feel the need to respond to it even though you would rather ignore this stuff and just focus on what you are doing.
I do not want anything I say to distract from anything that you are doing, if this thread is troubling you I beg you to reconsider paying attention to it.

With sincerest apologies for any disturbace this may have caused the last thing i want to do is alienate myself from gaudiyas, which is why i have been bottling these topics inside for years.

Please understand this is a Gaudiya forum, with the moderator and most people against what i am discussing, a lot of people here already know eachother and are friends, i am a complete outsider to all of you and it is taking a lot of courage for me to bring this topic up to mostly be berated. I frankly do not know where else to turn with these things.

-evakurvanji

@evakurvan
no, no,
i think that it is a part of healing and transforming.
my taking part here means that something within me MUST BE worked out.
you are not disturbing me and i can learn a lot from you.

but one thing is sure: within my person there is this guy who is very impersonal, not in the philosophical sense, but in dealing with people.
so i will try to learn to confront this dark side and see, i already learnt a bit.
(my last PM to you)

Radhe Radhe

I am not here to teach anyone anything i myself am in the mode of ignorance and passion.
I know this thread is going to disturb you and i don't have the skill to learn how to type in a way that it will not disturb some people.
I have been trying every day for two weeks and i fail miserably every time I write anything.
I don't see why this thread would matter to most people, if you already have an idea of what buddhist voidism is about, there is no reason for me to impose on you the buddhist version.
I do not want to fight or have debate about what it really means, I was just thinking to say, hey, I studied this and that's not how buddhists explain it.
I do not want to fight about what it means and I don't see a reason to convince anyone that it means anything other than what they already believe it means.
Especially not if that leads to bad feelings between me and the people here.
This is not a thread for convincing anyone anything that they do not want to believe, everyone has the right to believe what they want.
I should never have started this topic in public I had no idea it would cause this kind of stress in this particular forum.
I might write some tidbit here and there but I am not doing it so I can be attacked over it, and I am not doing it in a mood of battle.

Dear Tarunji,

I bow down to you and thank you for this touching and inspiring post. (Rest in a PM).

TarunGovindadasji,

I can see that you are really working on understanding your strong reaction to this topic and these very ideas. If there is one thing I have learned from it is to not refer to "impersonalists" or "personalists" as these are gross generalizations. I can see it is a bad habit I must overcome.

Instead of thinking of this part of yourself as "the impersonalist within" you might borrow the concept in psychology of the shadow self, or shadow side. Our shadow side is thought to consist of those parts of our personality that we are taught from childhood are not "nice." You normally want to be a kind, compassionate, and forgiving person. Your shadow side would contain the opposite of those qualities.

Sometimes it helps to get that out in the open so we can acknowledge those feelings and thoughts which aren't pretty, so we can deal with them and not inflict them on others. Have compassion for yourself for having a dark side, like every other conditioned soul here. You are not alone!

The shadow is what I was referring to in another topic over my struggle to forgive someone.

We all have shadows. Thank you for so openly sharing your struggle with yours.

Blessed Be--

Tapati

Well moderated MadhavaJi! Wellcome back.