[Buddha-l] Where does authority for "true" Buddhism come from?

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Richard P. Hayes schreef:

>On Thu, 2006-01-26 at 13:20 +0100, Benito Carral wrote:
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>> I think that it's a pity  that  the  modern  human  being  is caught
>>in the dichotomy between science and believe.
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Those of us who know that that is a false dichotomy are not caught up in

>it. In fact, just about the only people I know of who are caught up in
>it are fundamentalist Christians and Muslims.
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I agree with Richard: ever heard of philosophy and art?

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>>I  think  that  it's  important  to  be  faithful to history  and  preserve  the  teachings. 
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>I think just about everyone on buddha-l shares this priority with you.
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There may be different ways of preserving texts. The Asian way is to 
learn everything by heart and not change anyhting. This is the model of 
the direct quote. The model of the indirect quote was followed by 
Western philosophy. Almost every philosopher read the old Greeks and 
tried to figure out what they really meant. The consequence was a stream 
of interpretations and reinventions that kept the old texts much more 
alive then many classical Buddhist texts.
So the question is: what do we mean with the preservation of a text? 
What is a text? An ordered collection of words or a lived meaning? Or, 
as Chuang Zu would say, does a text flourish in a golden box or in a 
muddy pool?

Erik


www.xs4all.nl/~jehms