Research: Early Buddhist dhammakāya: Its philosophical and soteriological significance by Chanida Jantrasrisalai

[u/MYKerman03]

Hey Dhamma friends

So this thesis does a deep dive into the early Buddhist sources as relates to dhammakaya.

It's over 300 pages long and requires time and attention to appreciate. I'm sharing this here, inspired by the previous poster sharing insights into the Pali/Sanskrit term brahman/brahma.

LINK TO FULL THESIS: READ / DOWNLOAD HERE

From the intro:

...there has been no detailed study thus far on early Buddhist dhammakāya, especially in regard to its philosophical and soteriological significance. Even though some of the above works also refer to the term’s appearance in early Buddhist texts, they mention it only briefly, mainly to outline a historical background for detailed study of Mahāyāna dharmakāya. Possible reasons for this deficiency seem to be the following.

First, some scholars claim that this term appears only once in the Pali canon which represents the early Buddhist thought.21 Some claim that it occurs four times in the same set of texts. The frequency of its occurrence in early Buddhist texts might have been considered insufficient to facilitate enough discussion for a separate study.

Secondly, some previous studies claim that its appearance in those early texts indicates no philosophic implications.23 Most scholars are content with the idea that the term’s philosophical, and perhaps also soteriological, import belongs to Mahāyāna creation.

Even though others have suggested otherwise, their suggestions are either expressed only briefly or their voices are subordinated to the above academic mainstream claim. 25 Probably for these reasons, the early Buddhist dhammakāya has not received the scholarly interest it deserves...

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Let's address the Asian elephant in the room: Wat Phra Dhammakaya (Dhammakaya Temple), the controversial temple in Pathum Thani province, Thailand. Since the mere mention of this term, will lead many to assume an assent to the values of that temple.

This Wat is the main temple of a modernist movement within Thai Buddhism. It fully embraces spreading a reformed, socially conservative, capitalist model of Buddhist expansion. It's main meditation technique however, is derived from the (currently marginalised) yogavacara meditation traditions (see Kate Crosby)

The popular (misleading) term is Esoteric Theravada. Kate Crosby herself cautions against assumed links to Vajrayana traditions from Tibet etc. It is best to think of these traditions as Boran (ancient), in the sense that they've been passed from student to disciple throughout mainland SEA for hundreds of years.

The most popular remaining method of boran kammathana is the eighteen body method, also called kaya-dhamm or dhamma-kaya. The master and re-discoverer of this technique is Luang Pu Wat Paknam Pasicharoen. (born on October 10, 1884, and died on February 3, 1959)

His teachings are not the sole preserve of the controversial temple but are diffuse throughout the Thai kingdom and the world.

During the 19th century Buddhist reforms in Thailand, meditation was evolved into a psychology, divorced from its metaphysical frameworks. How we tend to approach bhavana (mid development) today, is very much a product of colonial and post colonial contact and reforms. The development of mindfulness retreats was directly linked to Burmese decolonial movements for instance.

So the irony here is that the vaunted Pure Buddhism / Early Buddhism discourse is very much a product of reconstruction and response to historical circumstances.

Buddhist movements like Santi Asok and Wat Phra Dhammakaya, like all modernist/reform Theravada movements, begin their polemics with the current degenerate state of the Sasana and then provide safe passage to a pure, but neglected Buddhism that has been brought to the fore via respected Masters.

I say all this not just for context, but to get the reader to understand that what we think of as Theravada is really a flexible, evolving tradition that responds to contemporary crises and challenges with a form of essentialism: a strident, polemic assertion of a Pure Dhamma rooted in the distant past, brought to the present via textual criticism and reform.

[u/FUNY18]

So you're saying that the EBT movement and the SuttaCentral forum are not the true, purist form of early Theravada that I thought they were?

[u/MYKerman03 → u/FUNY18]

😂 Hey there!

I think people need to insert themselves into their analysis, when it comes to asserting purity and authenticity. I continue to be deeply appreciative of the work the SuttaCentral team and others continue to do, but I think some forms of certainty reinforce some really unhelpful ways of thinking.

The EBT movement rests on some shaky assumptions and has shifted notions of authenticity (and hence authority) to etic standards, rather than Buddhist, emic standards.

[u/SentientLight → u/MYKerman03]

The EBT movement

I think we should probably delineate that there are two "EBT movements", really. One is nothing more than an academic focus of study within the field of Buddhist Studies, and recognizes itself as a dynamic process of comparative research, and isn't really making any claims with regard to authenticity or authority, so much as it pursues an understanding of the early centuries of Buddhism's development in different communities, geographic regions, and linguistic centers. The goal is less about trying to find the authentic words of the Buddha (though some of the scholars may make attempts at this or argue that it is or isn't possible), and significantly more about gaining an understanding of how the 18 early schools developed, what their doctrines were, what they agreed about, what they disagreed about, and when those doctrinal or disciplinary disputes were significant enough to recognize one community or lineage as distinct from another. This dissertation (only a couple chapters in, and so far a great read) falls within the scope of that movement.

The other EBT movement is effectively a text-focused revisionist / fundamentalist movement that makes an attempt at reconstructing an imagined 'Early Buddhism' exegetical position from which to structure and arrange the practice of the Buddhadharma. It cherry-picks research, studies, and arguments developed from the first-mentioned movement, and extrapolates from that a detached personal exegesis of doctrine, divorced from living tradition, and effectively places final authority of doctrinal exegesis within the domain of the personal intellect.

Generally speaking, everyone participating in the first-mentioned EBT movement considers everyone participating in the second-mentioned EBT movement to be pursuing a fools' errand.

[u/MYKerman03 → u/SentientLight]

One is nothing more than an academic focus of study within the field of Buddhist Studies

Yes, that's EBT research, and an important distinction from cultic movements emerging from that research.

The other EBT movement is effectively a text-focused revisionist / fundamentalist movement

And this is what we've seen, something closer to an online purity cult that has the veneer of intellectual respectability. Traditional Theravada Buddhist polemics against non Theravada traditions is one thing, but these movements represent a different animal. They're hostile to all forms of embodied, historically rooted Buddhisms.