[Buddha-l] Re: Meditating Buddha

[Benito Carral]

On Sunday, January 22, 2006, Richard P. Hayes wrote:

>> [...]  what  is the agenda of John or Mary for (just
>> an example) condoning the eating of meat?

> To  follow  what  it  says  in  the Pali canon and to
> reject  the  largely unwarranted innovations found in
> much later Mahayana texts.

   Just for using a not so standard argument, if as the
Anguttara Nikaya (V.177) says:

              A  lay follower should not engage in five
              types  of  business. Which five? Business
              in  weapons,  business  in  human beings,
              business    in    meat,    business    in
              intoxicants, and business in poison.

,  I can't understand how John or Mary eating meat in a
restaurant  or  buying it at a supermarket can be right
in  any  way.  I  would  tend  to say that John or Mary
enjoyment  of  meat  has nothing to do with the Dhamma,
call me "paranoiac."


>> So  you  believe  that  all the monks, nuns, and lay
>> followers   since  the  time  of  the  Buddha  until
>> Westerners  rejected  rebirth  have been enslaved in
>> dogmatic   traditionalism.   A   curious   form   of
>> ethnocentrism.

> There is no ethnocentrism involved at all.

   According  to  Barbara  D.  Miller  in her _Cultural
Anthropology_ (2nd edition, 2002:8-9):

              Most  people  grow up thinking that their
              culture  is  _the_  way  of life and that
              other  ways  of life are strange, perhaps
              even inferior. Other cultures may even be
              considered   less  than  human.  Cultural
              anthropologist have labeled this attitude
              <bold>ehtnocentrism:</bold> judging other
              cultures  by  the  standars  of one's own
              culture  rather  than by the standards of
              that particular culture.

So  when  you  say,  talking  about the individuals who
first rejected rebirth in the Buddhist tradition:

              [...]  people who did that were those who
              were  capable  of thinking clearly enough
              to  achieve some freedom from the bondage
              of dogmatic traditionalism.

, you are being ethnocentric, no doubt about it.


>> I'm  also  describing  his  delusion  consisting  in
>> mistaking  his  own  version  of  Buddhism with what
>> Buddhism has been for more than 2000 years.

> So in your view anyone who deviates from tradition is
> deluded?

   Come  on,  Richard,  you  can  do  it better. If you
bother  to  read the sentence that I wrote and you have
quoted,  you  will  find  that the delusion I'm talking
about   consists  in  "mistaking"  the  Buddha  of  the
tradition for something else


> Don't  try  to  dodge  the  issue by pretending to be
> wise.

   I  have addressed your question in a straightforward
way.  I  don't need pretending to be wise nor any other
thing.


>> If people want to follow the Buddha's teachings,

> And  why  one someone want to do that if they have no
> good  reason  to believe that the every single one of
> the Buddha's teachings are true?

   I  have not said what people should or shouldn't do.
What  I  said  (read  my  quote  just above) is that if
people  want to follow the Buddha's teachings, it would
be  good  for  them  to know the difference between the
Buddha  of  the  canon and the tradition (who have been
providing  saints  for  more  than  2000 years) and the
buddhas  of  John  or  Mary  (I'm not going to evaluate
them).


> So far you have not demonstrated anything to me [...]

   That was not my agenda.

   Best wishes,

   Beni