related to what we were talking about.
If I remember correctly, in a sutta, it's written that a king asks who is the Buddha when he sees a group of monks with the Buddha in the group.
So it would seem that the Buddha had no extraordinary appearance except for being peaceful and serene, etc.
Yeah, I think Thanissaro brings up this argument.
I'm not convinced, but then I'm always ready to contradict a fellow monk.
So it's kind of evil, isn't it?
But let's consider for a second that, you know, this is really just a little bit speculative, but the king in question, I believe, is... I'm going to embarrass myself.
Was it Ajatasattu?
I think it was.
It was either Ajatasattu or it was King Pasenadi.
And either way, they were a little bit foolish.
Jata Setu killed his father.
Pasenadi was just a little bit silly and not totally wholesome.
And so, it's no wonder that they couldn't tell the difference between the Buddha.
The other thing is, as I understand, the commentary actually explains away that passage by saying
when he asks who was the Buddha, it's not that he didn't recognize the Buddha.
That's right, the commentary does go into detail with this.
It says it's not that he didn't recognize the Buddha.
How could you not recognize the Buddha?
How could you say, you know, this is the...
How could you just think of him as just another one of the monks?
But he was saying that because he wanted to allow Jiwaka, who was one of the ministers to King Ajatasattu.
He wanted to give him a chance to extol the virtues of the Buddha.
And it gives an interesting backing to this whole conversation that went on about how he asked, who should we go to see this evening?
He wanted to go see the Buddha.
But he knew that he had killed his father, who was a disciple of the Buddha.
And that if he just went and said, we want to see the Buddha, they'd be like, but you killed your father, one of his late disciples, or something like that.
So he wanted Jivaka.
his father who was his and said we want to see the Buddha somebody's got the YouTube please turn off the don't watch the video go to the comments there's a link to the comments view all comments or something like that on the video page here if you want the comments page and put it again in the chat on our hangout anyway
So he wanted to go see the Buddha and it gives a running commentary of why the king said the things that he did.
And that's one of the answers.
There's actually a more difficult passage to explain away if you're looking at it from that point of view.
Is that the Buddha is said to have, one of his cousins looked very much like him.
So there's a point there that can be made.
But I'm a little bit leaning towards the idea that the Buddha did have the special characteristics, physical characteristics.
There's also the example of, and I can't remember which Sutta it was, but this was shortly after the Buddha was enlightened and he was,
met someone that was looking for the buddha and did not realize that he was talking to the buddha and so that kind of tells me that the buddha had the appearance of a regular person because you know if he looked like he did that description it would uh
you know, get the fellow's attention.
So the fellow was with the Buddha, looking for the Buddha, and didn't realize he was talking to the Buddha.
You probably know which Sutta that is.
The one in the potter's shed, maybe.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Yeah, so there are some good points here.
But, you know, when he's covered up by robes, I mean, I guess it does kind of put a damper on the commentary's idea that there were six rays emitting from his body and so on.
Right.
But, you know, it doesn't mean that he didn't have special characteristics on his body.
Because if he's covered in a robe and so on... Yeah, um...
I was thinking about these type of passages the other day, and Buddhism, you know, at the time, there were several different religions going on, correct?
Buddhism was just one.
And, you know, I can see...
People try to spice up Buddhism in the past with these stories, you know, to make it, you know, sound on par with some of the other religions going on.
That's kind of what I have going on in my mind to explain these things that to me just really pop out, you know, as different from the rest.
You know, they're just...
Yeah, and I mean, again, the point is that they're not really all that important, but it may very well be just the qualities of mind that we have that are getting in the way of our ability to accept something that actually may be true.
I mean, I'm with you, and I understand how difficult it is to accept these things, and it's a perfectly valid argument
in regards to him emitting rays that everyone could see.
Maybe he emitted rays that only people with magical powers could see, so it just means that he had an aura.
But, you know...
Yeah, the bottom line is this is not important, you know.
You're correct on that.
But there is another aspect that getting rid of doubt is important.
Getting rid of, not exactly doubt, but getting rid of our propensity to go out of our way to doubt things and to be skeptical and to, you know, how it gets in the way of our appreciating the...
the marvel, some of the marvelous things, or how it could.
Just being careful, because I see so much, this is so much the tendency is for people to go to the extreme of doubting things that are totally on a different level.
Like there's this one sutta that talks about giving gifts to the Sangha.
And I think I mentioned it before how it became one of the dead certain suttas that is not Buddha's teaching.
And just the arguments were fairly ridiculous and totally unconclusive.
And it's actually a sutta that if you read it in the right light has beneficial qualities.
So more important than us discerning whether these things are right and wrong is to point out our own propensity to reject things.
I mean, for me, part of enlightenment is to come to accept things.
And so I'm ready to say if the Buddha had a long tongue, so be it.
If it turns out that he didn't and it was just made up, as you say, then fine.
I don't particularly need to disprove it.
All of the things in the Tapitika should be...
I don't know what to say.
The Buddha's teachings should be realizable for yourself.
So it's not like if you start to accept things you're going to run into trouble.
You accept them, you accept the Buddha's teaching and you put it into practice and if it leads to results you stick with it.
If it doesn't lead to the results then you give it up.
And also, something's on the back burner doesn't necessarily mean it stays there.
If later on, through your insight, you might take it off the back burner and bring it forward, but it shouldn't be a stumbling block.
No, that's the biggest thing.
Moreover, as I said, I still do think it can be an interesting object of meditation, if you look at your doubts and come to let go of them.
I mean, I'm just coming from Buddhist societies that take these things to be totally true.
If most cultural Buddhists heard us talking like this, they would want to stone us for us heretics.
But some of them are so pure in their ability to accept.
My teacher, he just accepts things.
He'll just recite these things.
He'll relate these things.
How the Buddha had this and this.
He never goes into the long tongue.
Many things that, you know, I just think, well, you know, maybe it wasn't really like that.
But I give it to him because it's not hurting his practice to believe in this and that.
In fact, it's helping him because he doesn't have to think like we do.
Like, is it true?
How do we explain this one?
Or how do we find out?
These people who dissect the Tapitika just to find out what is really the Buddhist teaching and what is not.
And it's really not necessary.
I give up a lot of things and put a lot of things, as you say, on the back burner.
I guess that's it.
You say, well, I don't know about that one.
Okay, so let's put it aside for now and keep going.
I think we're all on track.
I hope that was helpful to the person.
But most important, we have to ask, what is helpful?
Why are people asking these questions?
Why are we here giving these answers?
And so that's why I want to point out this aspect of overcoming your doubt and letting go.
Because in the end, if someone tells you something that's totally false, you don't...
You've given up.
A person who is enlightened doesn't see the need to discern whether what they're saying is true or false.
They go as a matter of course and respond to things from a moment to moment basis.
People might lie to them.
People might cheat them.
They're not upset.
They're not offended by it.
And what I mean is in general we have to, enlightenment is about giving up, letting go and not about finding the answers to every question.
So I got called out recently.
Someone said, all this answering questions is, I think you're going about it the wrong way.
If the answers are inside, why do we have to come out or something like that?
So yeah, we have to be careful here.
Not too many questions.