[Buddha-l] Re: Spread of Buddhism

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Tue, 2005-06-07 at 09:57 -0700, Bill Kish wrote:

> I take issue with the "only" in "only highly specialized scholars",
> at least with respect to Je Tsongkhapa.  There is certainly much
> in his collected works that is impenetrable without an extensive 
> knowledge of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism, but in my 
> experience his lam rim texts, as well as some of his poems and 
> letters, were written in a way that allows the essential points of 
> the Buddhist path to be straightforwardly put into practice by a
> very broad class of practitioners.

But there is no reliable access to them unless one reads Tibetan.

> > "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe 
> > anything upon insufficient evidence."  -- William Clifford
> 
> Did Clifford intend the above statement to be taken seriously ? 

I don't know. I'm not William Clifford, and I have never read anything
written by him, except for a paragraph that contains the sentence cited
above. William James cites Clifford in his essay "The will to
believe." (Will James had the will to believe, but Will Clifford did
not.) James shows many a flaw in Clifford's view and gives ample reasons
to reject it as untenable.

> If so, I am curious what evidence he provided to justify such a
> strong knowledge claim.

You may have to read Clifford to find that out. Even without reading
Clifford, however, it is easy to know that there can be no evidence in
support of his view, just as there can be no evidence in support of
Nagarjuna's proclamations of a similar nature. The unsupportability of
Clifford's pronouncement is what James shows in a variety of ways. He
also says that the vast majority of what everyone believes is not
founded on any evidence whatsoever that the believer can articulate. So
a reason for rejecting Clifford is not that it's unsupportable, but
rather that it is just too cramped and lacking in hope to be attractive.
It's a thought-provoking essay, one of James's best, I believe. (I
believe that, but I have no evidence to support it.)

And now I believe I'll go have lunch. I think I'll have a piece of bread
covered with Buddhism spread.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico