Nikaya Puritanism

Religious fundamentalism, to be frank, is the drawback of it, and the pushing of simplified narratives (e.g. “The entire Dīgha is fake” and nonsense like that) instead of what I would call “real EBT studies.”

Three-nikāya purism verges on the EBT equivalents of pseudoscience and conspiracy theory, really, IMO. The only people I have never known to be three-nikāya purists all claimed to be arhats or stream-entrants on the internet, so we (and by “we,” I mean “I,”) know it can be a gateway drug to prelest as well.

For instance, five-nikāya purists don’t believe in the monastic vinaya or in EBTs like the Dharmapada, because it’s not in the five nikāyas. In my experience similarly, oftentimes three and five-nikāya purists are the most vocal and angry opponents of rebirth and karma, generally claiming the beleifs to be Mahāyāna or Hindu in origin. I hope that contextualized somewhat what I meant.

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