[Advaita-l] Advaita and Buddhism

[Raghav Kumar Dwivedula]

Namaste Sri Keshav

 From the questions you raised about dvaita and Buddhism, my surmise is
that these were questions posed to you by others around you. The best long
term solution is to develop a commitment to self-knowledge through study of
Advaita texts from a teacher, with the aim of finding freedom from sorrow
and bondage. The understanding of the limitations of other ideas like
dvaita and Buddhism will follow as a corollary.

A Provisional answer to your question - Buddhists deny reality of external
objects without acknowledging any adhiSthAnam or substratum for them viz.,
brahman. So their use of the same analogy of a dream etc., is logically
wrong. Because they don't have access to shabda pramANam or the teaching of
nirguNam Brahma as the Self and they deny existence of  brahman or atman.
So in effect, their denial of reality for external objects is illogical.
That is pointed to in Sutra 2.2.28.  Another point is also made that , in
the idealist Buddhist saying that, "objects seen in our mind are projected
to seem *like they are external objects*" there is a giveaway, since the
idea of 'external objects' is still assumed by them without realizing it.
Advaita says that -  If we deny existence of brahman as the reality, then
external objects become very real and capable of
entangling us. So there is always fear born of duality and the obsession
with mind control and vAsanas and monasticism is quite disproportionate in
Buddhism.

Advaita does not accept something called 'my own experience' as an
independent means of knowledge.
An important point you need to consider is that it's not feasible to study
the Brahma sutras from books and translations. It's only possible to get
the right understanding from slow and detailed study from an authentic
resource person I e., a teacher/acharya who is embedded in the Vedanta
teaching tradition. As you know, you need to have study the preliminary
vedantic texts before studying Brahma sutras.

Om
Raghav




On Sat, 25 Jul, 2020, 12:25 PM Kaushik Chevendra via Advaita-l, <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> What are the major differences in Advaita and the nihlism school in
> Buddhism.
> In 2.2.28 of Brahma sutras the unreality of world was refuted. I read Shri
> shankaras bhasya
> but I couldn't completly understand. Can anyone please clarify what is the
> difference in the budhism concept of unreality of world which was refuted
> by vyasa and the unreality of world in Advaita.
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