[buddha-l] it's not about belief

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Richard Nance schreef:

>Hi all --
>
>I'd just like to chime in for a moment to observe the way that the
>conversation has shifted, and to ask to return for a moment to the
>subject that granted this (now very long, and rather diffuse) thread
>its title. Curt started things out by trying to draw a distinction
>between Christian beliefs (or perhaps "properly Christian attitudes
>toward belief") and non-Christian beliefs (or, say, "properly
>non-Christian attitude toward belief").
>
>  
>
>>"doctrinal" disputes in Buddhism are a different kind of animal from
>>what they are in Christianity - and that is because Buddhism, like
>>almost all other religions, accepts unquestioningly (and unconsciously)
>>what the emperor Julian pointed out so long ago: it's not about belief.
>>    
>>
>
>To keep things on track, I want to ignore Curt's comment that the
>sentiment "it's not about belief" is something encountered beyond
>Buddhism; it may be, but resolving that issue is irrelevant to my
>concerns. What is noteworthy, it seems to me, is that the sentiment
>(or, if you prefer, belief) is regularly held up as something that
>Buddhists embrace -- or would embrace if they were interested in being
>good Buddhists. It crops up rather often in works on Buddhism these
>days, whether or not these works are intended for a scholarly audience
>-- e.g., Batchelor's *Buddhism without Beliefs*, discussion of the
>importance of orthopraxy over orthodoxy in vinaya, etc.
>
>I confess to finding this somewhat puzzling, particularly in light of
>the fusillade of beliefs (and obvious attachments to those beliefs)
>that have been flying around during this thread. I take it as obvious
>-- i.e., not worth arguing -- that Buddhists throughout history have
>believed all sorts of things, and that it's reasonable to assume that
>their actions as Buddhists have been informed by such beliefs. So what
>is meant by the insistence that "it's not about belief"? What is the
>idea at issue here? Three options occur to me (although I'm sure that
>there are many others). Each is a far cry from saying that Buddhism
>"isn't about belief."
>
>1. The idea is that it doesn't matter whether, or what, Buddhists
>believe, so long as they commit themselves to an appropriate program
>of actions. But what exempts that idea from being discarded as an
>instance of the very sort of "belief" that it sets out to dismiss?
>
>2. The idea is that to be a good Buddhist, one need not assent to
>beliefs that are not supported by what we (all of us? Non-Buddhists
>too?) today would admit as compelling evidence. This seems to be one
>way that the discussion here has gone, and it may be true; personally,
>I don't count myself as qualified to speak for the tradition. But if
>it's true, and if we can't help but form beliefs, we're back in a
>familiar epistemological problem: what is to count as a justified
>belief? (So, for example, should a good Buddhist take the fact that a
>Buddhist tradition reports that a Buddha said p as sufficient evidence
>to believe (note that I haven't said "be certain") that p?)
>
>3. Since we've introduced the notion of certainty, perhaps the idea is
>that to be a good Buddhist, one need not -- and, indeed, should not --
>assent to any belief as certain (where "certain" means something like
>"utterly immune to future revision"). If this belief -- i.e., the
>belief that certainty is something to be avoided -- were itself to be
>revised, one would thereby cease to be a good Buddhist. But if this is
>the idea on the table, I'd like to hear more about how one might
>reconcile it with the emphasis on -- and pursuit of -- ni"scaya (a
>Sanskrit term that is typically translated into English as
>"certainty") by Indian pramaa.na theorists, many of whom were
>Buddhists.
>
>Best wishes and thanks in advance for any clarification that anyone
>might want to provide,
>
>  
>
You're too kind, but I must decline, Richard. I think there's a good 
reason to make things even more complicated. We know that the (even 
Buddhist) crowds like to believe anything that sounds nice to them, like 
that people get abducted by aliens, that one can levitate by saying 
mantras and that going to war in Irak makes the people (even in Irak) 
very happy. The Christian church fathers knew they were crowd, so the 
said to each other 'creo ad absurdam', I believe because it's bull. 
Having straitened out this point I come to the complication.
What are good reasons to believe anything? Right, the pramaana's. Now 
Buddhist schools accepted different set of pramaana's. The madhyamaka's 
had all four, not because they like to believe so much, but because they 
thought it didn't matter. In order to believe you have to believe 
something. But if you deny the existence of any thing whatsoever, 
there's no sense in accepting or denying any belief. However in order to 
explain this you have to speak the language of belief. So Nagaarjuna 
could have said: 'I believe because I don't', in other words I believe 
because it's bull.
-- 


Erik


www.xs4all.nl/~jehms