The Buddha & The Book of Exodus

The Watercooler
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In all honesty, I will defer to Bhikkhu Bodhi and Walpola Rahula on this matter.

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That is appropriate, but one can find other Buddhist teachers whose interpretation is closer to the one I have given. The texts do not lend themselves to only a single philosophical interpretation. I have just said what I think is the dominant strain in the texts.

I know first hand some of the teachings of the Ajahn Chah school of thought, and indeed they do seem to teach the existence of something he described as “that which knows”, and which seems to be some sort of eternal ground of consciousness. But I see very little evidence in the suttas for this conception of things. It might be that eastern wings of the Theravada tradition have picked up Zen-ish ideas about Buddha nature or the Thathagatagarbha, and imported them into their thought.

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From a strictly Mahayana Buddhist perspective, “that which knows” is our own Dharma-body or Buddha-nature, which is awakened in the attainment of Nirvana.

45

Yes, but such concepts are not to be found in the Pali suttas.

46

If anything, the Bible’s “I AM”/God is more akin to Brahman/Parabrahman of Hinduism.

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47

What if, due to the limitations of human language, Brahman and Nirvana describe the same Ultimate Truth?

48

This is an important and extraordinarily controverted point in Mahāyāna Buddhism.

What is it exactly that the Buddha “knows”?

According to Tibetan presentations I am familiar with, the Buddha lacks discursive thought. According to some Zenners, the Buddha lacks mind.

What does Buddha-nature “know”? How can “it” know? Do we have two cittāni? A Buddhacitta and a regular citta?

49

The unconditioned true nature of all things. Discursive thought doesn’t apply to the unconditioned.

50

That is possible, but it would seem unlikely considering this idea of “I AM”, “I am That”, Brahman=Atman (in Advaita Vedanta). Buddhism rejects the Atman as a reality.

51

From a strictly Mahayana perspective, my own Buddha-nature (the inner potential for Nirvana) is one and the same as the Buddha-nature in all things and beings.

Scholars state that Advaita Vedanta was influenced by Mahayana Buddhism, given the common terminology, methodology and some doctrines.[15] Sharma (2000, pp. 60–63) points out that the early commentators on the Brahma Sutras were all realists, or pantheist realists. He states that they were influenced by Buddhism, particularly during the 5th-6th centuries CE when Buddhist thought developing in the Yogacara school. Eliot Deutsch and Rohit Dalvi state:

In any event a close relationship between the Mahayana schools and Vedanta did exist with the latter borrowing some of the dialectical techniques, if not the specific doctrines, of the former.[16]
Buddhist influences on Advaita Vedanta - Wikipedia

Rather than Hinduism influencing Mahayana Buddhism, what if it was the other way around? Or what if the influence was mutual?

Also, what if the luminous mind of the Pali scriptures is an early reference to Buddha-nature?

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52

Sure, but this Buddha-nature is anatta, not you or yours. Buddha-nature is not an “I”.

Sure. I don’t have a problem with the concept of Buddha-nature. I don’t use it, since I ascribe to the EBTs, but I can understand it through the lens of the EBTs, in a way that is compatible with the EBTs. I don’t see why Buddha-nature would be connected with “I AM”, Brahman etc., though.

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53

Advaitins and Mahāyānikas have the craziest fights. Only people who almost agree but not quite can truly endlessly fight.

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54

From an ultimate perspective, the Paramatman is not an “I” either. It is beyond the ego.

“The Brahman of the Hindus, like the Dharmakaya of the Buddhists, and the Tao of the Taoists, can be seen, perhaps, as the ultimate unified field, from which spring not only the phenomena studied in physics, but all other phenomena as well.
In the Eastern view, the reality underlying all phenomena is beyond all forms (e.g. beyond a god) and defies all description and specification. It is, therefore, often said to be formless, empty, or void. But this emptiness is not to be taken for mere nothingness. It is, on the contrary, the essence of all forms and the source of all life.”
Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics

In Mahayana Buddhism, Dharma-body and Buddha-nature describe the same reality.

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A contrived platitude I have always been a fan of is “Your Buddha nature is your lack of nature”.

Advaitins with a very strong neti neti have a position similar to this concerning ātman.

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56

That might depend on whether you are asking Madhyamika or Yogacara. Even then, there’s a difference between the unconditioned and nothingness.

57

For anyone who knows more about Judaism than I do, are there any similarities between Kabbalah and Buddhist philosophy?

For example, like Buddhism, Kabbalah distinguishes between relative truth and Ultimate Truth:

The nature of the divine prompted kabbalists to envision two aspects to God: (a) God in essence, absolutely transcendent, unknowable, limitless Divine simplicity, and (b) God in manifestation, the revealed persona of God through which he creates and sustains and relates to mankind. Kabbalists speak of the first as Ein/Ayn Sof (אין סוף “the infinite/endless”, literally “there is no end”). Of the impersonal Ein Sof nothing can be grasped. However the second aspect of divine emanations, are accessible to human perception, dynamically interacting throughout spiritual and physical existence, reveal the divine immanently, and are bound up in the life of man. Kabbalists believe that these two aspects are not contradictory but complement one another, emanations revealing the concealed mystery from within the Godhead.
Kabbalah - Wikipedia

In other words, “Ein Sof” signifies “the nameless being”. In another passage the Zohar reduces the term to “Ein” (non-existent), because God so transcends human understanding as to be practically non-existent.[3]
Ein Sof - Wikipedia

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