‘The oldest account of the history of the Order after Buddha’s death is in the last two chapters of the Cullavagga of the Vinaya, which give the
Tag: theravada
Rule of St Benedict: Buddhist Texture and Design
There are curious similarities between certain aspects of Buddhist and Christian teaching, this fact is beyond a doubt, but as to whether this constitutes a direct developmental ‘influence’ between the earlier Buddhism upon the latter Christianity is open to debate. Certainly
A Few Words on Loving Kindness…
Whilst visiting the Ganga Ramaya Temple in Beruwela, Sri Lanka in 1996, I saw Theravada Buddhist monks continuously exercising ‘metta’ (loving kindness) and ‘karuna’ (compassion). The surface and
Definition: Mahayana Term ‘True Self-Nature’ (自我真性)
As the Mahayana Buddhist tradition adheres to the Buddha’s teaching of ‘anatman’, or ‘non-self’, this term cannot be used to refer to a permanent self, or ‘soul’. T
Buddhism: Pali Bhavana and Chinese Ch’an
Chinese transliterations and translations are useful as the early Chinese scholars had to understand the Indian Pali and Sanskrit terms before they could be rendered effectively into the Chinese language. Obviously, some of the early transliteration of Indian Buddhist terms are purely ‘phonetic’ in nature and in themselves do not convey much meaning as ideograms. This represents an initial process of a slow, careful and gradual building-up of knowledge in China about a thoroughly ‘foreign’ Indian philosophy that had to develop an ‘interface’ with existing Chinese culture.
Buddha’s Material (Atomic) Theory
Although the different Buddhist schools argued over the existence or nature of the atom, the Theravada thinkers conceived of an atom comprised of ‘space’ and ‘sub-particles’ (dravya-paramanu) which is physically complex (rupa-kalapa), whilst its constituent parts exist in a state on constant flux (kalapanga).