[Buddha-l] Mere mereness

[James Ward]

On Aug 28, 2006, at 8:53 PM, Richard Hayes wrote:

> So what does "mere" mean?

"Mere" means "lake" in modern English, but in Anglo-Saxon it could mean 
"sea" or "ocean" as well.  Most scholars who have studied this issue 
are now agreed that "mere Buddhism" in this context should not be 
translated as "Lake Buddhism", in spite of the unfortunate popularity 
of this term.  "Mere" is more likely a translation of the Tibetan 
"rgya-mtsho" ("ocean" or "sea"), a word with a significantly vaster 
connotation than a mere lake, which implies that Tibetan Buddhism 
reached England well before the Norman conquest.

James Ward