[Buddha-l] Re: Buddhist pacifism

[curt]

I'm all ears. Lay it on me. I admit freely that most of what I know 
about Asian Buddhism is limited to the official versions that are 
tightly controlled by the Buddhist clergy. I am very interested in 
knowing more about any independent "lay" schools of thought - or 
free-thinking individual thinkers. Apropos to the current debate I would 
be especially interested to here tell of their detailed discourses 
promoting pacifism and condemning the warmongering policies of their 
respective governments (which I assume exist in large quantities and 
that everyone else is aware of but I have somehow missed). I am always 
interested in learning new things, and I anxiously await this new 
information.
- Curt

Richard P. Hayes wrote:

>On Tue, 2005-10-18 at 11:49 -0400, Richard Nance wrote:
>
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>>Curt, I suggest that you put down the Schopen and go have a
>>look at the Pali commentaries, or Vasubandhu's Abhidharmako"sa, or
>>"Saantideva's "Sik.saasamuccaya, or or any of the suutra commentaries
>>preserved in Tibetan (most of which have been ignored by modern
>>scholars). 
>>    
>>
>
>Another thing that Curt might do to liberate himself from the spell of
>Saint Gregory The Protestant-Killer is to look at the rather large
>corpus of literature produced by Buddhists who had no interest at all in
>citing and interpreting scripture but felt that everything of value in
>Buddhism could be derived through careful reasoning. Admittedly, there
>were a few Protestants who held pretty much the same attitude (such as
>Hosea Ballou and Ralph Waldo Emerson), but it was their position that
>the Christian Fundamentalists rejected. And since it seems to amuse Curt
>most to tar some of his opponents with the brush of Fundamentalism, the
>school of rationalistic Buddhists (who existed both in Asia and in the
>modern West) leaves his brush pretty much without any tar.
>
>Curt has availed himself of many a well-known fallacy, but he has not
>yet exhausted the storehouse. There are dozens of excellent fallacies
>remaining that he has not yet tried. I think we should give him enough
>time to show us that he can use them all.
>
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