The art of happiness

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

Wrong thread? {this one is on Buddhisms}

Originally Posted by seattlegal

It never stopped folks like Zhi Dun...Buddhist monks in China often introduced Buddhist concepts in the context of Chuang Tzu and the Tao Te Ching, just as Chuang Tzu introduced Taoism at times in the context of Confuncianism. (Do you want to exclude the Mahayana school from Buddhism?)

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

Heh, some seemingly distractatory posts actually have clarificatory value.


Could be.

The linguistic aspect seems to have been driven by a certain amount of cultural hubris that was quite pervasive throughout early Chinese history, so much that it makes some historians wonder even now how Buddhism ever got going in China. Apparently the idea of importing something from India into China was so abhorrent to the proud Chinese that they came up with a legend that portrays Lao Tse as the founder Buddhism who went to India to raise the level of civilization there.

It seems the Chinese were willing to adopt foreign ideas only after they did a complete overhaul and repackaged them like they were Chinese. For example, it has been suggested that Taoism is actually a Chinese reformulation of forms of yoga that antedated the Vedas by hundreds of years in the form of oral traditions.

I realize these comments are an aside. Just wondering whether it makes sense to go back to see if some of these ideas and practices can be found in a pure form, without a lot of funky cultural adaptations thrown in.


I though that was interesting, too. The Taoist notion of emptiness is totally different from the Buddhist idea - more of an adaptive social attitude, whereas for the Buddhists it was a more philosophical idea. That's just one example of how these concepts can get reworked and thoroughly weirded out because of icross-cultural differences in concepts and idioms.

Anyhoo, even if it isn't a Buddhism, it's relevant to the questions at the top of the thread (thanks for the derailment, SG):

Opening your heart, you become accepted.
Accepting the World, you embrace Tao.
~Tao de Jing, 10

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

In the book by the title The Perfection of Shantideva's Bodhisattva Way, the Dalai Lama states: "The end to suffering is the goal of the spiritual aspirant."


Let's consult some of Shantideva's writings. Shantideva describes the desire for happiness as a source of misery. From Chapter 1 of Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara:

"Those desiring to escape from suffering hasten right toward suffering. With the very desire for happiness, out of delusion they destroy their own happiness as if it were an enemy."

Moreover, suffering is described as unavoidable: "Only through suffering is there release from the cycle of existence."

Give what we've discovered about Chinese "cultural adaptation" and them developing their own versions Buddhism, should we consider the issues from the pespective of Indian Buddhism rather than Chinese Buddhism?

There is a thread related to this here. It might be interesting to continue this conversation there.