You did not address my point. I don't care what the "sects' say, but I do care about what carefully done scholarship points to. Tatahagatgarbha sutras are quite late in terms of Buddhism in India, certainly postdating them by a very long time in comparison to the Nikayas/Agamas. I'll be happy to trot the scholarship on this, but you first, given you are the one making a claim that has a rather poor handle on the issues around the issues of the dates of the texts.

yes and like wise I can trot scholarship who like wise say the entire pali canon does not date back to the time of the Buddha,and that the majortiy if it under went numerous copiling and reworking and put into catagories ect...on top of their views that almost the entire KN was created after Mahayana.so whats your point??

its common knowledge that in the Gandhara scrolls BOTH the Pali canon and Mahayana suttas/sutras are represented.as far as people dating a text to the time of the Buddha without a single shred of evidence well that isn't actually fact that is called opinion (which is in truth what the majority of scholars have done since they don't have any evidence to back up their dating claims)

but your more than welcome to provide ONE single carbon dated pali canon sutta that was carbon dated to the time of the Buddha.

also i'm making the claim that their is no evidence for such, YOU are making the claim there is evidence,it is actually up to YOU to provide actual PROOF(not conjecture) that the suttas OR sutras date back to the Buddha cause i'm saying NEITHER can PROVE to be dated back to the Buddha.

In Buddhism buddha nature has many names, and depend on what Buddha was talking about, he liked to give it different names. Names such as Buddha nature, Boddhi mind, ultimate mind, pure mind, pure awareness, ultimate reality, bare knowingness, emptiness, no mind are some of the words that point directly at the Awaken. In the beginning of Buddha's teaching he never talked about this mind. For him it is important that people learned to let go. Anything that our thinking mind can grasp at, is a defect on the path of enlightenment. Therefore Buddha wanted people to let go. "To let go" does not mean to reject, but to have a relax relation to whatever it is.

Buddha was actually a very clever man and a good teacher. His knowledge was divided into three periods of teaching. The first period is called "The first turning of the wheel". During this first period he stated that life contained suffering. There is a way out of suffering, and the path to end suffering. Actually during this time he never really talked about what Buddha nature is. The goal of this teaching was to reach Nirvana, the end of suffering.

In the "Second turning of the wheel" he talked about the inherit aspect of every phenomena. During this period he talked much about Emptiness, emptiness of self, of no-self, of suffering, of duality...ect. In short everything is egoless. Nothing can exist by its own. It needs everything else in order to come into existence. Even if it seems to come into existence, it is never really there. It is only a vast emptiness display as a magical illusion before our eyes/senses. From this teaching the sutra Prajnaparamita came into the world. During this time whoever encountered Buddha was influenced by his talk about egolessness and his knowledge of Emptiness. In this period he stated, there is no enlightenment nor end of enlightenment. There is no Nirvana, no Samsara, no ignorance nor end of ignorance. Everything was just a vast Emptiness!

People who did not understood him thought, there was nothing at all. They thought everything was just a great blank and void nothingness, but this was not the case. Buddha didn't mean that there was absolutely nothing. Many people - still today - have misunderstood this aspect of Buddha's teaching. To believe there is absolutely nothing then who is it that seemingly live in this physical body?

So because Buddha was concerned that a number of people misunderstood his teaching and hold on that nothing - absolutely nothing - exist then he did the "Third turning of the wheel". During this period he pointed directly at the mind and said within Emptiness something seems to be there. It is not a thing, a subject, a object but a mere Knowingness, Pure Awareness; Buddha mind. It does not belong to anyone, it is not a self, not a body, not a thought. It is pure beyond the concept of being born and not born. It is the Knower without anyone who knows. It is the Witness without anyone witnessing. It is beyond words or any conceptual construct. It has always been there, but if we try to find it (as an object to identify) we have missed the point, have not understood the teaching. It has the capacity to know itself, know about its presence, but it can never look at it, because it is not an object, a subject or any sensory phenomena.

This marked the last teaching of the Buddha. Just before he died, he said "Take my dharma as your light. Walk the path and exam my words!".

So far we know, the sutras were written long after Buddha had entered Nirvana. Today no one really knows with 100% what Buddha said or did not say. There is no deal in making a big quarrel out of that. We just need to use our common sense and exam Buddha's words. Throw away what cannot be used. Collect them up later if they seem to be true! We must be our own light just as the Buddha said before he died.

++++++++++++++++This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

There is freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning. If there were not this freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning, then escape from that which is birth, becoming, making, conditioning, would not be known here. -- Ud 80

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

ancientbuddhism wrote:Judai, “…to be brutally honest…”, you haven’t the fund of knowledge to engage in these discussions.

I tend to agree. To date, we haven't seen any textual support for Judai's bold knowledge claims.

In the immortal words of Christopher Hitchens - An assertion made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Judai, I suggest that if you wish to engage in this discussion in a meaningful way then to put up the evidence.Otherwise, please be so kind as to prefix your statements with "In my opinion...", and "My understanding according to my readings is..."

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

no its ad hominem.you neglect the fact that his statement has nothing to do with our topic of "dating" discussion.his reply in fact was in regard to him making a statement and I posting some suttas in regard to his statement.instead of addressing my sutta passages he dicided to make a personal remark against me, hence the very definition of Ad hominem.

ancientbuddhism wrote:Judai, “…to be brutally honest…”, you haven’t the fund of knowledge to engage in these discussions.

I tend to agree. To date, we haven't seen any textual support for Judai's bold knowledge claims.

In the immortal words of Christopher Hitchens - An assertion made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Judai, I suggest that if you wish to engage in this discussion in a meaningful way then to put up the evidence.Otherwise, please be so kind as to prefix your statements with "In my opinion...", and "My understanding according to my readings is..."

Ben

no its ad hominem.you neglect the fact that his statement has nothing to do with our topic of "dating" discussion.his reply in fact was in regard to him making a (previous)statement(which was on topic and about atta and anatta) and I posting some suttas in regard to his statement.instead of addressing my sutta passages he dicided to make a personal remark against me, hence the very definition of Ad hominem.

Until 1994, the only Gāndhāri manuscript available to the scholars was a birch bark scroll of a Buddhist text, the Dhammapada, discovered at Kohmāri Mazār near Hotan in Xinjiang in 1893 CE. From 1994 on, a large number of fragmentary manuscripts of Buddhist texts, seventy-seven altogether,[1] were discovered in eastern Afghanistan and Western Pakistan. These include:[2]29 fragments of birch-bark scrolls of British Library collection consisting of parts of the Dhammapada, Anavatapta gāthā, the Rhinoceros Sutra, Sangitiparyaya and a collection of sutras from the Anguttara Nikaya. 129 fragments of palm leaf folios of Schøyen collection, 27 fragments of palm-leaf folios of Hirayama collection and 18 fragments of palm leaf folios of Hayashidera collection consisting of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra and the Bhadrakalpikā sutra. 24 birch-bark scrolls of Senior collection consists of mostly different sutras and the Anavatapta gāthā. 8 fragments of a single birch-bark scroll and 2 small fragments of another scroll of University of Washington collection consisting of probably an Abhidharma text or other scholastic commentaries.

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

You made the claim about the tathagatagarbha sutras, you need to support it.

.

++++++++++++++++This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

There is freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning. If there were not this freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning, then escape from that which is birth, becoming, making, conditioning, would not be known here. -- Ud 80

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

++++++++++++++++This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

There is freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning. If there were not this freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning, then escape from that which is birth, becoming, making, conditioning, would not be known here. -- Ud 80

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

You made the claim about the tathagatagarbha sutras, you need to support it.

I did support the claim did you not even read what I posted???you might not know the name of all the Buddha nature sutras(Tathagatagarbha) what i highlighted in BLUE is the main Tathagatagarbha sutra so I have supported my claim.

as far as our seperate discussion about "dating" what I am saying is not a bold claim,its common knowledge that the oldest carbon dated Buddhist texts is a mixture of BOTH the Pali canon and Mahayana textshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C4%81ndh ... B_language

Until 1994, the only Gāndhāri manuscript available to the scholars was a birch bark scroll of a Buddhist text, the Dhammapada, discovered at Kohmāri Mazār near Hotan in Xinjiang in 1893 CE. From 1994 on, a large number of fragmentary manuscripts of Buddhist texts, seventy-seven altogether,[1] were discovered in eastern Afghanistan and Western Pakistan. These include:[2]29 fragments of birch-bark scrolls of British Library collection consisting of parts of the Dhammapada, Anavatapta gāthā, the Rhinoceros Sutra, Sangitiparyaya and a collection of sutras from the Anguttara Nikaya. 129 fragments of palm leaf folios of Schøyen collection, 27 fragments of palm-leaf folios of Hirayama collection and 18 fragments of palm leaf folios of Hayashidera collection consisting of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra and the Bhadrakalpikā sutra. 24 birch-bark scrolls of Senior collection consists of mostly different sutras and the Anavatapta gāthā. 8 fragments of a single birch-bark scroll and 2 small fragments of another scroll of University of Washington collection consisting of probably an Abhidharma text or other scholastic commentaries.

Judai wrote:as I said BOTH the Pali canon and Mahayana sutras are found in the Gandhara scrolls

But you did not answer the question as to the actual date of the tathagatagarbha sutras, and it is not the "Pali Canon" found in the Gandhara scrolls.

.

++++++++++++++++This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

There is freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning. If there were not this freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning, then escape from that which is birth, becoming, making, conditioning, would not be known here. -- Ud 80

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

Having read the Suttas the Buddha does not say No-self is suffering. The Buddha said self is suffering and this self and any idea of self or independent entities are only a construct of the Skandha. There can neither be self in any of the aggregates. What makes the self appear is clinging to it and also any other concept of independent entity. Dependent origination negates the possibility of any entity that is a self.

The Buddha equates existence with suffering and self. Once existence is eliminated the threshold of Nirvana is gained. Who sees dependent origination sees the Damma and who sees the Damma sees the Buddha. Beyond the damma there is no Buddha and no self and no suffering.

The twelve components of dependent origination are the three categories of afflictions, actions and suffering. Past, present and future. These again are nothing but ignorance, craving and clinging causing the delusion of existence causing suffering. The twelve components are 1) ignorance 2) volition 3) consciousness 4) name and form 5) Six senses 6) contact 7) feeling 8) craving 9) clinging 10) becoming 11) birth 12) death