[Buddha-l] Re: Protestant Buddhisms

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Fri, 2005-03-25 at 16:35 -0500, Richard Nance wrote:

> Why assume that norms and practices can be separated so neatly?

It's not entirely an assumption. It's mostly an inference based on my
observation of human conduct and its relationship to the rules,
regulations and guidelines of institutions. The separation is by no
means neat, and there's no doubt that the stated norms of an
organization express what it is hoped the aspirations of the members
will be. There are usually at least a few people in any organization
that strive to live up to the norms. At the same time, it would be naive
to think that the norms of any religion state the actual behavior of
that religion's followers. Even a quick reading of the vinaya rules
shows that monks were in practice very innovative at finding ways to
adhere to the letter of the law while violating its spirit. That, I
suspect, may be human nature (or a reasonable approximation thereof).

> You're right that such texts are philosophically interesting;
> what I fail to see is why we should assume that they're not also
> *historically* interesting.  Schopen seems to think this, and I can't
> for the life of me figure out why.

I don't think such texts are historically uninteresting. I just think
they could well be inaccurate reflections of what people actually did.
Of course they are the main evidence we have of the history of ideas,
which is itself a branch of history.

> He regularly chastises Buddhist Studies scholars on two related
> fronts.  First: we've failed to recognize the normative nature of the
> sources on which we have principally relied: textual sources that
> propound not how things are, but how they ought to be. Second: we have
> mistakenly propounded normative accounts, rather than descriptive
> accounts, of what Indian Buddhism "really was."

I'm inclined to agree with Schopen on these points. Having said that, I
also confess that I have almost no interest at all in actuality. My
principal interest is norms. Some people are "is" men. I am an "ought"
man. Or, to use the jargon of our times, I am not at all interested in
"religion on the ground". I guess you could say I prefer my religion up
in the air. (Although I'd be happy to see some religions buried.)

> Schopen seems to think that these two points are closely related, but
> they needn't be. The second point doesn't necessarily follow from the
> first: an account of Buddhism based on normative texts need not itself
> be normative.

That's right. I don't see the two points as logically connected in the
sense of one following the other. I see them as two independent
observations of what is true.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico