Re: [FairfieldLife] MMY on Vedic Cognition (was Re: a Spiritual Master?)

[Vaj]

The historical Buddha, Shakyamuni taught on the impermanence of all compounded things. He also taught the middle way, which means he did not accept "eternalism" nor the other extreme, "nihlism". On Mar 30, 2006, at 7:08 AM, coulsong2001 wrote: In the below Barry says that "Buddhism believes that the universe is eternal, and that there has never been and will never be a moment in which the universe was not manifest and created." In fact, I've noticed (while lurking) that he quite often makes this assertion. But it's my impression that this is just plain wrong - Buddhism does NOT say this. The question of whether the world is eternal or not eternal is one of the Buddha's 'ten indeterminate questions'. In fact, Buddhism says that - it is not true that world is eternal - it is not true that world is not eternal - it is not true that world is both eternal and not eternal - it is not true that world is neither eternal nor not eternal One interpretation (which is plausible to me) of why the Buddha called such questions 'indetermine', is that to give any answer to them (e.g. to the question "is the universe eternal") is to commit a category error. Here is an example of an indeterminate question that is easy to spot as such: Suppose a fire which had been burning before you were to go out. If someone were to ask in which direction the fire had gone, north, south, east, or west, what would you reply? I got this from this website: http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/awakening101/avyaakata.html which has a nice discussion on these issues. Regards, Geoff To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS  Visit your group "FairfieldLife" on the web.    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.