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Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Mahaparinibbana Sutta: freedom of thought

It is on this principle of individual responsibility that the Buddha allows freedom to his disciples. In the Mahāparinibbāna-sutta the Buddha says that he never thought of controlling the Sangha (Older of Monks)[1], nor he did want the Sangha to depend on him. He said that there was no esoteric doctrine in his teaching, nothing hidden in the ‘closed-fist of the teacher’ (ācariya-muttbi), or to put it in the other words, there never was anything ‘up his sleeve’.[2]

The freedom of thought allowed by the Buddha is unheard of elsewhere in the history of religions. This freedom is necessary because, according to the Buddha, man’s emancipation depends on his own realization of Truth, and not on the benevolent grace of a god or any external power as a reward for his obedient good behaviour.


[1] Sangha lit means ‘Community’. But in Buddhism this term denotes ‘The community if Buddhist monks’ which is the Order of Monks. Buddha, Dhamma (Teaching) and Sangha (Order) are known as Tisarama ‘Three Refuges’ or Tiratana (Sanskrit Triratma) ‘Triple-Gem’.

[2] D II (Colombo, 1929), p. 62.









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