Did the message of Buddhism get changed when it was translated from Indo-European languages into Chinese?
-
-
Replying to @ericlinuskaplan
1: Another angle from the Chan school: By the time Buddha-dharma took root in China it had already ~1000 years of development in India. So, LOTS of texts came to China, and different Chinese schools developed largely through coalescing around different texts/ sets of texts.
2 replies 0 retweets 8 likes -
Replying to @bodhidave3 @ericlinuskaplan
2: The Chan school, though, eventually focused itself instead on a practice. It understands itself as "the meditation school" (Chan ≡ "meditation").
1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes -
Replying to @bodhidave3 @ericlinuskaplan
3/3: And, in hyperbole, Chan spoke of itself as "not relying on words and letters" (although, in point of fact, many Chan monks were quite literate, and they could "toss" the texts because they'd memorized them).
1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes -
Replying to @bodhidave3 @ericlinuskaplan
Some misleadingly suggest Chan is not a literary tradition. In actuality, Chan is not a tradition that values the *literal,* which is why despite being a "special transmission outside the scriptures (教外別傳), not established upon words and letters (不立文字)"...
1 reply 1 retweet 6 likes -
…Chan has among the most vast literary corpuses of all Buddhist schools. Its relation to this literature is not to take it *literally.* Stories are means, not ends. Iconoclastic hagiographies are there to shock & ideally awaken their audience. We need not get stuck inside them.
1 reply 2 retweets 8 likes
The point is to integrate the teachings into everyday, lived, embodied practice. Experiential realization takes precedence over intellect. Language is a finger pointing at the moon.
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.