[Buddha-l] Re: Greetings from Oviedo

[Benito Carral]

On Tuesday, October 4, 2005, Curt wrote:

> I  got  the  title  of  Julia Annas' book wrong in my
> previous post - its "The Morality of Happiness".

   Thank  you  for the reference. Of course, it's quite
interesting  to  know  what  history  tell us about the
evolution of the happiness idea.

   We  can  remember  Socrates  and  his  Greek _arete_
(virtue).  He  was  "happy"  choosing  death.  How many
people would follow Socrates's example nowadays? We can
also   remember,   for   example,   Sextus  Empiricus's
_ataraxia_ (undisturbed calm).

   It   seems  to  me  that  "happiness"  is  a  social
construction.   (I  don't  know  if  Ian  Hacking  says
something  about  it  in  his  book.)  As  I  said in a
previous  post,  "happiness"  means  a lot of different
things for different people.

   The old Indian Buddha thought as an Indian, we think
as  Westerners (if we think at all). That's why I think
that  it's  necessary to learn to think as an Indian in
order  to  understand  Buddhism.  And  that's  why some
Buddhist  teachers  hold  views  different from the old
Indian guy's ones.

   Once  I  read  (or  heard--I don't remember where) a
quote  from  a  master,  "Before  enlightement,  I  was
depressed.  After enlightement, I'm still depressed." I
use to say to my students, "Buddhas also cry," and they
usually  have  a  hard time trying to understand it--in
their imagination, Buddhas can't cry.

   An interesting topic, indeed.

   Best wishes,

   Beni