[Buddha-l] Conze on monks' busywork

[Mr Michael A. La Torra]

Richard P. Hayes wrote:
...
>All this reminds me of an observation that Edward Conze made once about
>abhidharma. Monks did not have enough to do, he said, so they kept
>themselves busy by putting every teaching into a neat category and then
>drawing an infinite number of meaningless correlations between one
>category and another. Better to do that, I guess, than starting wars.

I quite agree with Conze about this! I've often wondered how much 
better those monks could have contributed to the reduction of human 
suffering if they had spent their time in other ways. Too much 
intellectual effort was expended for the small return of value.

I am reminded of a cartoon I once saw in some magazine (possibly a 
science periodical). The drawing showed a Buddhist abbot standing 
before a seated monk. The abbot says:
"I want you to think about the protein folding problem."

I biochemical joke here is that no one has yet discovered a method for 
predicting how very large protein molecules fold into the shapes that 
make them effective as catalysts. If such a method could be developed, 
it could lead to vast improvements in the design and manufacture of 
medicines.

Now THAT could relieve a LOT of suffering!


---------------------------
Regards,
Michael LaTorra
mlatorra at nmsu.edu
Department of English
New Mexico State University
MSC 3E, PO Box 30001
Las Cruces, NM 88003