[Buddha-l] Are we sick of dogma yet?

[Richard Hayes]

On Tuesday 21 November 2006 18:19, [DPD Web] Shen Shi'an wrote:

> "Self" is a remarkably stable, well-organised and persistent illusion
> too. 

If self is stable, well-organized and persistent, then why call it an 
illusion? It seems to me that to the aptly chosen adjectives you have used, 
one could also call self useful and perhaps even indispensable, So why, aside 
from being dogmatically loyal to a 2500-year-old taboo, call self an illusion 
or a delusion? 

I know all the stock answers, so no need to repeat them for me. What I'm 
interested in is something more like a good answer than a stock answer. 
One stock answer is that the construct of self leads to dukkha. But is that 
really the case? None of my own personal experience confirms that claim, nor 
does it seem particularly reasonable. Might there be an occasion for 
questioning this whole matter a little more deeply?

I've been reading Leonard Priestley's book on Pudgalavada, and Mark Siderits's 
staggeringly intelligent book <cite>Personal Identity and Buddhist 
Philosophy</cite> and am close to giving up on the classical Buddhist project 
of reductionism. 

Does anyone know of any decent Pudgalavadin Buddhist temples in the Rio Grande 
valley?

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes