[Buddha-l] Pure Conversation vs koan

[Richard Hayes]

On Wednesday 01 August 2007 11:40, curt wrote:

> I think that my expectation was that a "pure conversation" would be one
> that was completely heartfelt and intimate. Dang, the Greek philosophers
> had a really good word for it, which I can't remember. It's what
> Socrates was always aiming for - for people to freely and spontaneously
> express themselves without calculation - and without respect to people's
> social rank, age, etc. The Greek word I'm thinking literally means
> something like "speeking freely", I think. It was considered one of the
> perks of being a "real" philosopher that within that circle whether you
> were a slave or an Emperor you could speak your mind and what you said
> was supposed to be taken on it's merits not on "the standing" of who
> said it.

I'm not sure which Greek word you are thinking about. A very similar thing was 
said in the opening of Milinda's Questions. When Milinda invites Nagasena to 
converse with him, Nagasena asks whether Milinda plans to speak as a king or 
as a scholar (pandita). Kings (and some American presidents), he explains, 
become angry when they are contradicted and punish those who disagree with 
them. Scholars, on the other hand, speak openly and freely without fear of 
being challenged. The exact words (in Horner's translation):

\begin{quote}
When the lerned are conversing, sire, a turning over (of a subject) is made 
and an unravelling is made and a refutation is made and a redress is made and 
a specific point is made against it, and the learned are not angy in 
consequence---it is thus, sire that the lerned converse.
\end{quote}

Nagasena's description of conversation among pundits is, of course, the model 
that we all strive to follow on buddha-l, where anger is as rare as New 
Mexican meal without chile.

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