Before I was "forced" to go on a boat trip, Robin and I were having what I thought was a very interesting discussion, that came out of his post Are Lingo and Technical Knowledge Essential to Practice I see it has shifted to the topic of The Eternal Buddha.

I'm picking up the thread of dialogue again....
Robin wrote: "...still dodging the worship issue, one thing is that Buddhist Cosmology has no real ontological value. However, viewed as a map of the Psychological or Spiritual Universe; it appears to have Epistemological Value?"

Buddhist Cosmology (briefly, being the branch of metaphysics concerned with the universe as a systematic order) perhaps does have ontological value. Ontology is a branch of metaphysics concerned with the essence of things....ontos (being) logos (wisdom.)

"Epistemological Value" is the basis of western philosophy and being, concerned with what are the limits of human knowledge. I would speculate Buddhism is very interested in such.

HOWEVER since Shakyamuni was loathe to speculate in any branch of metaphysics perhaps we should be prudent and refrain as well. The philosopher Kant is little known today, but he was a formidable thinker and once said that theological philosophizing was a "magic lantern of chimeras."

One last $10 word that I see prevalent, at least for me: Allotheism -- the worship of strange gods. Allos belongs to the same family as the Sanskrit ant-aras -- other, "of many with a sense of difference."

So with that semantic housekeeping out of the way we can move on?

What Shakyamuni and by extension we Bodhisattvas are/should be concerned with is the soteriological value  or "doctrine of salvation." Or how to get the poison arrow out of our/their butts.

Nichiren's Great Mandala (Gohonzon/Omandala) is the "Ultimate Buddhist soteriological Archetype/Symbol" to date, that I probably will ever encounter.

I do see the Buddha as the impersonal Dharmakaya (Myoho Renge). Otherwise we get into "Deity Worship" which is a duality and a regression.

And using "door #3" of the ol' Tetralama Robin and I "agreed to disagree" and concluded we both are correct. HOWEVER I now think Robin is from a theoretical stance more correct than I am. And I'll tell you. I hate to admit I'm ever wrong...grin.

As Robin stated: "Lotus Buddhism seems to reject the idea that the Buddha can be reduced to a mere impersonal truth principle; the personal attributes and deeds are also part of the whole."

Freud "turning a phrase" by Voltaire, said that if there were no God, man surely would have invented one. Perhaps some people need a personal deity in order to relate to a teaching -- be that a charismatic, chubby little Japanese ex-bill collector, or a log -- it's a free country (sorta) and who am I to rain on their parade?

Nichiren or Shakyamuni are fine in that role as an archetype/symbol. In the end what do I know about what's rolling around in other peoples minds?

Robin stated, and for what it's worth I agree: "Who is the big 'B' Buddha is not so important. By convention, we should go with the original founder of Buddhism in our history, Shakyamuni."

Also, "It could be that Nichiren was mistaken on this. Or he have felt a need to pander to the people's need to have a personal  model of a Buddha."

My personal concern, as I see it all the time, is that people have a tendency to "concretize" Shakyamuni as THE Buddha, locating him and his teachings in linear time and space, when the Treasure Tower teachings transcend this concept.

I also find a form of duality arising where any personality (even a Buddha) is put above the potential for all to attain Buddhahood. This hierarchy gives me a rash.

For me, at least, the "concept" of an "Eternal Buddha" is meant as a metaphor or archetype of our own potential, inherent Buddha nature.

Auntie stated: "I do not call this 'Eternal Shakyamuni.' I call it Buddhahood or Buddhanature or sometimes Buddhadharma. Meaning, I make no distinction between Buddha bodies and dharma and all that. I don't single out 'Eternal Shakyamuni' as a bigger, better Buddhabeing than the fundamental nature of reality itself."

To paraphrase Alan Watts, it is rather unfortunate that after a great man's death his followers tend to stare in adoration at his pointing finger, rather than trace the implications of the pointed direction.

I "conceptualize" that Myoho Renge is an impersonal/personal LAW much like gravity in the world of Ke. It is comparable to the Gnostic Pleroma and only by a human (Shakyamuni) becoming conscious of this LAW does it exist in our reality. At that point it became Myoho Renge Kyo.

This is a principal and from a principle comes a truth and from a truth comes a practice Nam/u Myoho Renge Kyo. Until it was realized it was like the tree falling in the forest with no one to see or hear it -- it didn't really exist on a human level. This is the necessity for the Triple Body we all possess.

I finally came to terms with this personal concept by cross-referencing with my ongoing study of C.G. Jung and his form of Gnosticism, particularly through Jung's essay "Reply to Job" that could be applied to this personal dilemma of mine.

Now I can almost hear the howls of derision from the Buddhist snobs. Particularly the Nichiren variety in their myopic hubris totally discount almost anything the west has produced in terms of cosmology, ontology, epistemology, philosophy, psychology, and most importantly epistemology.

"Why should we care or read a bunch of old white guys? We're completely happy and quite content exclusively pouring over dusty old sutras and letters from the middle ages." Some Buddhists think they have a copyright on wisdom. Unfortunate at best!

It is well granted that Shakyamuni, with the exception of Plato, was usually about 2,500 years ahead of a lot of these brilliant men. But what I appreciate and enjoy is the fact they are living in our age and face the same problems we all do (namely the 20/21st Century ego.)

I don't throw the gold out because the gold is a little late getting here and the bag is soiled. Get wisdom where you can is one of my mottoes. Another is "take the best and leave the rest." The "rest" being the Oriental cultural layers of religious dogma and superstition brought to the West by certain Japanese sanghas.

As Robin stated: "Some of the concepts might need adjusted, to accord with science. Also, some of the formal methods can be adapted to other cultures."

Aldous Huxley's "Perennial Philosophy" states in short that there is "thread" of wisdom running through all Eastern and Western philosophy/religion that has the common denominator of nonduality.

What does bother me is that people approach this great practice and are confronted with the conception that they must venerate/worship some person/deity or thing as the ONLY way to salvation (a.k.a. the reduction of suffering.)

I see Buddhism as a perfect psychology, NOT necessarily religion. But I still don't want to strip out all the mystical/magical beauty of Buddhism. These aspects of the mystical/magical could be transcended.

I perceive the practice in Jungian Western psychological terms of transference, counter-transference, compensation, projection, archetypes etc.

If all Nichiren Buddhists were so darn "with it" why do we get comments like this: "No one told me that when I came here I would need a helmet, bullet proof vest and hide in a trench."

I left this for last in case you are interested in how I came to revising my position and some insight and background into Jung: From Jung in Modern Perspective Edited by RENOS K. PAPADOPOULOS (Emphasis mine.)

"Four years after The Symbols of Transformation Jung, deep in his period of disorientation, wrote The Seven Sermons to the Dead  as one of his many attempts to-formulate the 'right language' and adequately account for his own experiences. He did not claim authorship of it as he felt that 'it fell quite unexpectedly into my lap like a ripe fruit' and attributed it to a Basilides from Alexandria. Although it is not included in his psychological writings (it is not part of his Collected Works) this short poetical piece occupies an important position in Jung's development of his problematic. it consists of seven sermons that the author gave to the dead who 'came back from Jerusalem where they found not what they sought'.[Jung's rejection of classical Christian religion]

In the first and longest sermon Basilides/Jung presents a universal dichotomy: the realms of Pleroma and Creatura. The first is 'infinite and eternal, hath no qualities, since it hath all qualities' whereas the second, the realm of created beings 'is confined within time and space' and it has qualities. It was to represent these two realms with their various qualities and subdivisions that Jung drew his first mandala.

Anything beyond the outer circle belonged exclusively to Pleroma and everything within that circle belonged to both Pleroma and Creatura Human beings insofar as " we are parts of the pleroma the pleroma is also in us". If however, 'we fall into the pleroma itself' we 'cease to be creatures...." We are given over to dissolution in the nothingness. This is the death of the creature. . . '.We therefore have to remain in the differentiated realm of creatura while at the same time retain our pleromatic nature This delicate pursuit was called  Principium Individuationis and it was the first reference to the 'process of individuation' that Jung was to later develop.

The author [Jung] further reminds the dead of the pairs of opposites which in the pleroma are perfectly balanced producing no overall effect which is not the case with us. By the same token, since the plerorma has no qualities 'we create them through thinking. If therefore ye strive after any qualities ye pursue thoughts which flow to you and out of the pleroma This is yet another hint at the collective unconscious. Thus the principium idividuatioms does not refer to any intellectual theoretical pursuit, not your thinking but your being is distinctiveness. Therefore not after difference, as ye think it, ye strive; but after your own being.

Having established these basic principles the author [Jung] continues in the later sermons to develop the various subdivisions of creatura as progressively smaller, concentric circles and to interrelate their various characteristics and symbolic representations. Since the Creatura presupposes differentiation and includes pairs of opposites, all subsequently mentioned entities and symbols are arranged in such pairs. [This is a feature of the Gohonzon]

In the last sermon the dead ask to be taught about man and Basilides/Jung likens him to a 'gateway through which from the outer world of gods, demons, and souls ye pass into the inner world'. Although man is not the centre of the universe but a 'small and transitory' speck in it, he is also of the pleroma and he has the potential of actualizing his pleromatic nature. The symbol of this potentiality when it becomes an actuality was that of one star lying at the very centre of the mandala, which the author urged the dead to see as man's ultimate goal, as his 'guiding god' and the final aim of life's journey."