Isn't Buddha's teaching a universal truth, by that I mean true for all people, whether they know it or not. But then Buddha is said to have said all that he has taught is like a handful of leaves compared to all the leaves in the forest.

All Buddha taught was there is suffering and there can be an end to suffering.

Apr 27, 2012 -- 12:38PM, dio wrote:

Good heavens, I'm not trying to get Buddhist to conform to what I think.

Funny, that seems to have been your M.O. for your entire time on these boards.

Apr 28, 2012 -- 7:01PM, Bob_the_Lunatic wrote:

Apr 28, 2012 -- 1:09PM, chevy956 wrote:

Apr 27, 2012 -- 12:38PM, dio wrote:

Good heavens, I'm not trying to get Buddhist to conform to what I think.

Funny, that seems to have been your M.O. for your entire time on these boards.

Clearly someone sees no value in the phrase, "To Thine Own Self Be True."

Further, duplicity is a lousy strategy to use to convert others to your view.

From what I've seen, people who live by the motto "To Thine Own Self Be True" have picked exceptionally lousy role models.

Apr 28, 2012 -- 7:01PM, Bob_the_Lunatic wrote:

Apr 28, 2012 -- 1:09PM, chevy956 wrote:

Apr 27, 2012 -- 12:38PM, dio wrote:

Good heavens, I'm not trying to get Buddhist to conform to what I think.

Funny, that seems to have been your M.O. for your entire time on these boards.

Clearly someone sees no value in the phrase, "To Thine Own Self Be True."

Further, duplicity is a lousy strategy to use to convert others to your view.

in place of attacks on my M O can you give the Buddhist answer to the question? In you opinion does truth exist outside your knowledge, or not? If a tree falls in the forest and you don't hear it, did it make a sound?

Apr 29, 2012 -- 9:22AM, dio wrote:

Apr 28, 2012 -- 7:01PM, Bob_the_Lunatic wrote:

Apr 28, 2012 -- 1:09PM, chevy956 wrote:

Apr 27, 2012 -- 12:38PM, dio wrote:

Good heavens, I'm not trying to get Buddhist to conform to what I think.

Funny, that seems to have been your M.O. for your entire time on these boards.

Clearly someone sees no value in the phrase, "To Thine Own Self Be True."

Further, duplicity is a lousy strategy to use to convert others to your view.

in place of attacks on my M O can you give the Buddhist answer to the question? In you opinion does truth exist outside your knowledge, or not? If a tree falls in the forest and you don't hear it, did it make a sound?

I doubt there is a "Buddhist" answer to this question.  It can only be asked in the categories of Western Philosophy.  You couldn't have translated it into the language the Buddha spoke.  The respective philosophical underpinnings are incommensurate.

Perhaps there are remote regions of the world where the mindset of the Buddha is preserved, but I am doubtful that any Westerners have any but the vaguest notion about what the Buddha taught.

In my opinion, truth does exist outside knowledge.  But I am a Platonist in that regard.  Materialists would answer no.  But that is a discussion intelligible only to the heirs of Western philosophy and not to those of an Eastern mindset.

To ask the folks assembled here is to just discover which particular set of Western baggage they have chosen to take with them into "Buddhism".

I have read that Buddhists consider the mind a sense organ that detects thoughts.  To my Western ear that sounds like thoughts are external to the mind, just like the falling tree is external to the mind, but nowhere in the discussions do the writers consider the question from whence thoughts arise.

And then there are mysterious statements beloved by Buddhists like "there is no difference between the perceiver, the object perceived, and the act of perception."  Just try to go about your life in a practical manner acting as if that were true.  No wonder Buddhist monks go about with begging bowls.  They are unfit for any honest labor.

Buddhists go around saying all manner of incomprehensible stuff like this.  I don't think it is worth the effort to try and understand it.  I doubt it is even possible.