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2011-06-30

Whose Buddhism is Truest?

"Fragments of those manuscripts, recently surfaced, are today stoking a revolution in scholars’ understanding of early Buddhist history, shattering false premises that have shaped Buddhism’s development for millennia and undermining the historical bases for Buddhist sectarianism. As the implications of these findings ripple out from academia into the Buddhist community, they may well blow away outdated, parochial barriers between traditions and help bring Buddhism into line with the pluralistic climate of our times. "

http://www.tricycle.com/feature/whose-buddhism-truest

"Just as our search for an original set of Buddha’s definitive words failed, and all we were left with were provisional versions, in the same way a search for the Buddha’s definitive meaning fails too. What we have are traditions of interpretation. But that’s not the kind of authority we imagine when we claim sectarian primacy. Sectarian authority claims assume solid essentialist ground. That type of ground is just not there. "

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