> Gilberto: > Ok, I believe you. But then when you are in your Bahai paradigm, and > read that the Buddha is identified with being a Manifestation, but the > teachings of real live Buddhists in the world don't seem to be > consistent with the Bahai teachings, I'm not sure what you do. Do you > bracket the paradigm of the real live Buddhists away from the Bahai > paradigm so that they are never compared with one another? Or do you > do something else?
As I see it, the differences between the "teachings of real live Buddhists" and Baha'i understandings are largely due to the accretions of humans over time, rather than the original teachings of the divine Manifestation, to the core spiritual truths taught by Buddha. It's my understanding that very little of Buddha's message was written down until after the advent of Christ, by which time there was a lot added to the original teachings. And . . . the Buddhist texts have been added to ever since. To me, the important paradigm is Buddha's enlightenment obtained under the "fig tree" (i.e. tree of life--he clearly obtained enlightenment from no other place, person or object) and consequently the teachings he shared under auspices of the "Tree of Life", the Holy Spirit, the Sadrat'l-Muntaha, or whatever metaphor you might use. Patti __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:archive@mail-archive.com To unsubscribe, send a blank email to mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, use subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:bahai-st@list.jccc.edu Web - http://list.jccc.edu/read/?forum=bahai-st News - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Public - http://www.escribe.com/religion/bahaist Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/bahai-st@list.jccc.net New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/bahai-st@list.jccc.edu
