[Buddha-l] Dependent arising variants

[Franz Metcalf]

Dan et al.,

In a kind of exasperated "J'accuse!," Dan writes,

> Most shocking to me is the number of supposed leading scholars of 
> Buddhism
> today who proudly proclaim that p-s has them baffled (they usually 
> blame
> that on the model itself, contending it makes no sense). The arrogance 
> of
> that -- since it tacitly asserts that all the Buddhists who held up 
> this
> model as the key to Buddha's enlightenment and Buddhism itself, is
> tantamount to declaring that Buddhists through the ages have been 
> morons for
> not sharing these modern confusions. Talk about viparyasa! To not 
> understand
> p-s, at least to the extent that it is a meaningful model for 
> explaining how
> things really are, is simply to not have the first clue about Buddhism.

I can only say, mea culpa. Well, okay, I'm not *proud* of it, but I've 
had a cordial distaste for p-s from the get-go. I'm just looking 
through my old notebooks from Buddhism courses (mostly with Frank 
Reynolds at University of Chicago), and I'm seeing the centrality of 
three cosmogonies in Buddhism: the saṃsāric, the rūpic, and the 
dhammic. The saṃsāric cosmogony corresponds to p-s; the saṃsāric world 
is created through p-s, and the way out of that world is through 
nibbana. In this sense, the Four Noble Actualities (as Dan nicely puts 
them) are just another partial version of p-s (albeit with different 
metaphors). Yet I cleave to them and shun the difficulties of p-s.

I can at least claim the excuse that I'm into studying Buddhist 
psychology and practice and that these have traditionally responded (as 
I see it) directly to the 4NT/As and not to p-s, so I am merely and 
respectfully continuing a tradition. Still, I strongly share Dan's 
impression that in mostly ignoring the centrality of p-s, we are indeed 
tacitly discounting the Buddha's (supposedly) own description of what 
he experienced in awakening and how he managed to do it.

Ah, the shame! I shall never be free from it (nor likely even try to 
be),

Franz