M-Buddhism: Hinduism for export? Alan Watts

Hindus: "Don't be fooled. They're all just incarnations of Lord Vishnu, Buddha, Jesus, Mo..."

Alan Watts: Don't be fooled

O, Great Lama, if our Vajrayana Dharma is Mahayana, is it also Sanatan Dharma (Hindu)? - OK.

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Chanda, what is that, a human or deva? - He is a
shramana, a truth seeker, a wandering ascetic.

(DaQuote) May 12, 2024: What is "M-Buddhism"? We abbreviated Mahayana Buddhism, the Dharma co-opted by the Brahmins in India and transformed into a kind of Vedic Brahminism (now called Hinduism), which the historical Buddha spent so much time debunking, rejecting, and correcting. So Buddhism and Hinduism today share many terms and concepts, but they do not mean the same thing and are defined separately. People hear "karma" and think they know what the Buddha meant by this term or nirvana or moksha. Hindus mean one thing, the Buddha another. Conflating them for the sake of convenience will lead to trouble and paradoxical statements like it's all woo-woo and nonsense. It does make sense. But it is a teaching for the wise (who go from hearing and faith to direct wisdom).

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Buddhists need to become Hindus - Shankara

The Buddha was not a Hindu, not only because there was no "Hinduism" yet but because the old time Vedic religion did not align with what he had realized and was teaching as the path to liberation (moksha). Many terms and ideas are the same as other Dharmic traditions, but they are given a new meaning by the Buddha. For instance, whereas Brahmins (Hindus) would say that "liberation" is rebirth in the company of Brahma or Brahman, the Buddha redefined it as the end of all rebirth in this very life (here and now not only hereafter) with the realization of nirvana. Where is nirvana? It is not like that and cannot be correctly conceptualized as a place where one goes. Rather, it is the deconstruction of all the strata of the illusion (maya) that the ego is separate and enduring all of this suffering. However, to say it this way introduces the misguided idea (wrong view) that if the ego (self, soul, personality, being, atman) is not separate, it must therefore be One (united, identical with the supersoul, oversoul, the ocean of Brahman).

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  Let's ask Mahavira, the naked shramana.

  It is not, but perhaps this is a less bad way to think about it. But consider this: Point to Brahman. Let's say you pointed at space in the zenith or north. Now imagine that everything that passes away goes to be in the company of Brahman (unless it has a load of bad karma and is going elsewhere). Now imagine a great fire. And that fire is quenched. When the fire goes off, where does it go? Of course, it doesn't "go" anywhere. It simply goes out. But out implies an in, so it must carry on somewhere else, we say. It must go to Oblivion, to the great Void, to Emptiness. These are all poetic, but it is not this way. It simply goes out because what it was wasn't a separate flame existing independently as it and observers of it imagined (which is an illusion) in their wrong view. It existed utterly dependent and relying on its impersonal factors: heat, wick, fuel, oxygen, and the mysterious process-of-combustion (analogous to our Five Aggregates clung to as self).

Hindu Gods became Buddhas

Let's let the much more interesting and enchanting translator of Eastern philosophy, the British-born Californian Alan Watts, a Zen practitioner and Taoist post-Anglican preacher put his spin (and stank) on it. Watts is extraordinary for making sensible the Dharmas of Buddhism and Hinduism to Westerners with all of our assumptions. He did so early even before the 1960s he helped usher in in San Francisco. He was a groundbreaking speaker and writer.

Support the Alan Watts Organization at: alanwatts.org. (Video reuploaded by daquote. TikTok: its.daquote, Instagram: itsdaquote).

• [Truck question: By the constraints of the language, we say "our" Five Aggregates, as if self is the owner of the aggregates (heaps, piles of form, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousnesses). Who is the "our," who the owner of these karmas (deeds) and aggregates (heaps)? It must be the soul/self (the Atman)! And Atman is one with Brahman (the reality behind the illusion) and need only realize this -- stop playing hide 'n seek -- and again merge like a separate drop of water returning to the vast ocean from which it came. It is all advaita (non-dual)!
• Answer: That's all beautiful, and think of it that way if you must, but the impersonal aggregates belong to themselves not to an us, not to a self or soul: Form (the "Four Great Elements," the maha-bhuta, the dhatus analyzed) forms and belongs to form. [What we call the "body," form, is ultimately composed of the Four Great Elements, which are not things but characteristics of materiality, which is composed of particles or rupa-kalapas, and this collective "form" belongs to form.] Feelings feel and belong to feeling. Perception perceives and belongs to perception. Mental formations [50 processes lumped together and usually called impulsions or volitions, which is but one item in this category] form and belong to mental formations. [Interestingly, feelings, perceptions, and consciousness are also mental formations but are so important that they are singled out into their own categories, so what we have are form and formations or body and mind as the processes clung to as "self."] And, most intriguingly, consciousness is conscious and belongs to consciousness, not to "us," not to an independently existing "soul" or "self."
• To really understand this honest question, "Who is the watcher, the knower, the doer, the experiencer of the results of deeds?" it is essential to come at the question from the understanding that all of these things are dependently arisen and therefore to understand them one must understand Dependent Origination. Whenever anyone pressed the Buddha with such questions, really trying to understand what all of this is that is experienced in life, the Buddha gently explained how it was on account of not knowing, not seeing, not understanding (the principle of) Dependent Origination that we travel and endure this illusion, this endless round (samsara) of rebirth and suffering. But knowing and seeing it, the perplexity is resolved. To see the Buddha (the Awakened One) is to see Dependent Origination and vice versa.]
• Speaker: Alan Watts (alanwatts.org, alanwatts.com) via Daquote (video); explained by Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly