From simplicity to oversimplification
In recent memory, the only person who, in my estimation excavated much of the essence of the Buddhas teaching as found in Pali Buddhism (i.e., Buddhism from the Pali canon); systematically putting it together for the general public, was George Grimm. His main work, The Doctrine of the Buddha which is rife with references from the Nikayas, is quite an astonishing work but mainly for its simplicity. Grimm reminds us in the preface to The Doctrine of the Buddha that the Buddha could cast the highest truth in a form that even a robber chief along with his band, even a leper and even a seven-year old boy could comprehend without more being added. Well, this is certainly not the case today nor was it the case with Buddhism after the Buddhas passing over into parinirvana.
As many will agree, much of Buddhism has gone beyond the message of its founder. In Grimms opinion, Abhidhamma (the scholastic analysis of the Buddhas teachings which was compiled successively between 250 and 50 B.C.) has contributed much to making unnecessary problems for original Buddhism; making Buddhism almost incomprehensible for the average person.
What we have today which is called Buddhism according to George Grimm is as little the old Buddha-teaching as that any one of the present-day Christian sects represent the Christianity of Christ. I would go so far as to say that most Buddhist teachers (particularly in the West) are as far from the Buddha as Pat Robertson is from Jesus. Among other things completely altered, the Buddhas notion of the Sangha is not the same as todays; nor did the Buddha demand that o! ne neede d to go to a certified master in order to confirm their awakening. Grimm writes, The Buddha, in fact, calls his teaching the dhamma anitiha, the truth that carries its confirmation within itself, stands in no need of external authorization.
Where this leads us is back to simplicity; but certainly not oversimplification believing, for example, that living in the secular here and the now is enlightenment, or in the words of Zen master Joko Beck, If you live with a difficult person, thats nirvana! I hasten to add that the original simplicity of Buddhism has nothing to do with secular Buddhism which, among other things, supports a kind of smorgasbord approach to Buddhism: take what you like from the Buddhist canon (one or two Suttas or Sutras) and forget the rest.
