[Buddha-l] Conze on monks' busywork

[Joel Tatelman]

> Richard et al,

In graduate school, I wrote a paper on Conze's contribution to Buddhist 
studies and remember quite clearly a remark in praise of abhidharma in 
one of his published pieces (can't give a reference right now though).

The context was EC's criticism of Western Buddhists' enthusiasm for Zen 
and Madhyamaka.

Conze remarked that it we want to run before we can walk, that we wish 
to engage the most advanced Buddhist teachings when most of us would 
benefit far more from disciplined analysis of and meditation on the 
rise and fall of dharmas as set out in the various Abhidharma 
traditions.

> If the mark of genius is freedom from having to be consistent, I guess 
> that's a few points for Conze.

Regards,

Joel Tatelman.


>> 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.