[Buddha-l] "Nature" and eating meat

[curt]

Joy Vriens wrote:

> Yes humanism, the Human project is a project. We can't judge the whole 
> project on the basis of somme rotten pears (as the Curt doctrine would 
> require us to do). ;-)

I wonder what is motivating you to say such an unpleasant thing? My 
psychic powers are extremely limited - but if I try to read your mind it 
seems to me that you misunderstood what I said during the discussion 
concerning pacifism (and if that is the case, then I must first blame 
myself). To clarify very briefly: I never intended that Buddhism should 
be judged by "rotten pears" - in particular I do not consider the first 
13 Dalai Lamas, nor King Asoka nor the less well known Sosan Taesa to 
have been "rotten" at all - merely counter-examples to the claim that 
Buddhism is inherently pacifist. I hold all of them in the highest 
regard (well, alright - I don't know that much about each and every 
Dalai Lama - but I am more than willing to give them the benefit of the 
doubt). I regret that I expressed myself so poorly as to lead to such a 
misunderstanding.

But on the subject of "nature": I know it is something of a truism, but 
I also think that it may be at least in part true, that Buddhism's 
attitude toward nature changed as it moved out of India, and especially 
as it moved North and East. But even in India the later development of 
Tantric Buddhism also represents a more "positive" view of nature than 
that found in early Buddhism. In the case of Chinese Buddhism a lot of 
mileage has been gotten out of ideas about Taoist influences making 
Buddhism more natural and earthy and so forth. I think there is some 
truth to that - but there must have been something in Buddhism that was 
able to adapt to that different intellectual environment - I don't think 
it was just a matter of rank opportunism. The situation in Central Asia 
is even more interesting and messy - where the interpenetration of  
Buddhism and Shamanism has been quite deep.

- Curt