[Buddha-l] angels

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Fri, 2005-05-27 at 09:42 -0700, Gad Horowitz wrote:

> He [Magliola] refuses to lay claim "to absolute or universalized
> truth...except for one conviction,which I insist is binding on all:the
> obligation to loving kindness" And I wondered: whence the exception?

Magliola has a genius for getting almost everything about Buddhism dead
wrong. What I wonder is why bother trying to sort him out? The fact is
that there is, and never has been, anything obligatory about the
bodhisattva vow. It is supererogatory and has always been understood as
such. So all that need be said to sort Magliola out is to point out that
he is insisting on a falsehood. That could be said in a footnote.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico