[Buddha-l] Erasure

[Richard P. Hayes]

Who were the "creed-making fishermen" that Dr. Steinmetz (PhD,
Chemistry, Purdue) tells us the Emperor Julian referred to?

Gee, I wonder if the creed-making fisherman might have been Christians?
If so, then Dr Stienmetz is suggesting that those who try to distinguish
science from technology, which just about all philosophers of science
routinely do, are caught in the trap set by those crafty Christians. Yet
another malaise we can attribute to those awful people, eh?

I wonder if Dr Steinmetz is familiar with the Buddhist concept of
prapanca. There are various translations of the term, one being
"obsession." It refers to the enterprise, which all of us indulge in to
some extent until we become arhants, of preserving one's pet theories at
all costs. The Buddha recommended that we try to drop our prapancas. In
one of my favorite passages on the topic, the Buddha said:

\begin{quote}
Others will misapprehend according to their individual views, hold on to
them tenaciously and not easily discard them; we [followers of the
dharma] shall not misapprehend according to individual views nor hold on
to them tenaciously, but shall discard them with ease---thus effacement
can be done. (Sallekha Sutta)
\end{quote}

The "effacement" being talked about here is the prevailing metaphor or
the Sallekha Sutta. "Sallekha" means scratching something out that has
been written. It is the act of erasure. (People who grew up using
computers probably have no idea what erasing is. It's what people used
to do before they had delete keys.) The idea is that we achieve peace
and tranquility by erasing the self that is delineated by various
habitual patterns of behavior and thinking. We erase our prapancas by
recognizing them as such and then seeing what damage they are doing. 

Of course, when one is throughly caught up in a prapanca, one cannot see
either the prapanca nor the damage it is doing. One simply thinks one is
defending the Truth. So sometimes it takes a kind-hearted friend to
point our prapancas out to us.

Dr Steinmetz, my dear friend, you have a potentially dangerous prapanca
about Christians. In the interest of giving yourself some peace of mind,
you might consider erasing it.

Your kind-hearted friend,
Dayamati

-- 
Richard Hayes
***
"The spiritual path is never one of achievement; it is always one of
letting go. The more we let go, the more there is empty and open space
for us to see reality." 
                                              --Sister Ayya Khema