[Buddha-l] Erasure

[curt]

I hadn't heard of this term before - but I am familiar with the concept. 
Thanks for the little Pali lesson. But at the risk of being tedious I 
will once more point out that you and I fully agree on the nature of 
Christianity qua Christianity. We only disagree about whether or not 
Christianity represents a typical, even paradigmatic, example for all 
Religions with respect to the question of tolerance. You hold that it 
does, whereas I disagree. Despite having our opinions, I would think 
that we both realize that this is really an open question. The 
literature on Religious tolerance is skewed because Christianity has 
inspired an large corpus of written material authored by people who 
enjoy listing the defects of Christianity in lurid detail. I think that 
this is because Christianity has done such a thorough job of alienating 
intellectuals - whose idea of "getting back" at their enemies usually 
amounts to writing books. Other religions have done a much better job of 
co-opting intellectuals. But I suspect that there is more to it than 
just a bias in the readily available literature.

- Curt

Richard P. Hayes wrote:

>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
>
>  
>