Buddhism and Self

[Gregory Goode]

Are these two statements consistent with each other, or did I misread
who said them?

At 08:38 AM 9/17/97 -0600, Nanda Kumar wrote:

(1)

   >However you define it, if Advaitam isn't orthodox Hindu philosophy,
   >nothing is. In Advaitam, the shruti is considered the final authority
and so
   >discussion on Advaitam would definitely reflect orthodox Hindu thought.


(2)

   >Does it really matter how anybody defines Advaitam? Truth is Truth,
   >whatever the definition.

I'm asking for the purpose of being clear about our terms.  There are 2 major
implicit definitions I've seen of advaita.  One is the shruti-based (or to
a lesser extent, shruti-and-smrti-based) definition, with sources
consisting of Upanishads, the Brahmasutra, and the Bhagavadgita.  Richard
King,
in EARLY ADVAITA VEDANTA AND BUDDHISM (SUNY Press, 1995) is a good example
of a user of this definition, see p. 51.  Not sure, but I take it that
there is also
a living lineage coming from Shankaracharya, with ashrams (10?, 12?) in
India today.  Is this an orthodoxy?

The other definition of advaita that seems to be current today is that
advaita is
a non-dual metaphysical philosophy, with common sources in most of the large
religious traditions.  There are lots of contemporary teachers today who
consider themselves teachers of advaita.  While perhaps never mentioning
Shankara, Gaudapada, or the texts above, they talk lots about Taoism, Sufism,
esoteric Christianity, Buddhism, New Physics, Zen, "New Age"
touchy-feely-ism,
psychotherapy, consciousness, psychology, the Enneagram, Kashmir Shaivism,
and lots of other things.

It's clear that on this list, the first definition seems to be more in vogue.
As Dr. Ruth Westheimer might say, "I'm glad we're having this discussion!"

--Greg