[Buddha-l] liturgical languages

[Gad Horowitz]

I can't remember where I read that there is no enlightened person--only
enlightened actions.  Could this be part of the way to a saner Buddhism?


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dan Lusthaus" <dlusthau at mailer.fsu.edu>
To: "Buddhist discussion forum" <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 8:53 AM
Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] liturgical languages


> Stuart wrote:
>
> >I think it is a big mistake to impute
> > only positive or  the best of possible explanations/spin when we are
> talking
> > about Zen masters/roshi. The tradition does that for us already! In
doing
> > so, it tells its followers that everything the roshi does is enlightened
> > behavior, if only you can see it.  We need to keep a critical eye-
>
> I agree with this, and wasn't exactly whitewashing Kapleau. The
motivations
> I speculatively suggested -- "embarrassment, self-protection, or
nobility" -
> and those would not be an exhaustive list of possibilities -- are not
> whitewash, enlightened attributes (even the third wouldn't necessarily
have
> enlightenment as a prerequisite, though it would be more in concert with
> what we imagine an enlightened attitude would be). I think he went through
> some messy internal conflicts, but basically chose to address it in the
> public sphere in a fairly noble way: relative silence, and avoiding ad
> hominems. Clamoring for copies of Yasutani's letter seems, to me,
salacious.
>
> > Kapleau did not
> > want to go to NYC to do sesshin at Shimano's
> > Zen Studies Society because he did not want to be publicly insulted
again
> by
> > Shimano and perhaps Yasutani and he did not want to be seen as a student
> > under both Shimano and Yasutani in front of some of his students who
would
> > also be attending sesshin in NYC.
>
> So embarrassment and self-protection were not that far off the mark. My
> sense is that things were more complicated still, but to say how would
> invite/require more speculation.
>
>
> Dan Lusthaus
>
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