[Buddha-l] Re: Watery dharma

[Richard Hayes]

On Wed, 2007-12-19 at 08:34 -0800, Katherine Masis wrote:

> (I think Richard has a piece on the misreading of modern pluralism
> in(to) early Buddhism.) 

That piece was written during my blues period. (It's still available at
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes/download.html or
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes/bahuvada.pdf )

The pluralism item is one of several that I wrote on the wrong-headed
anachronicity of seeing classical Buddhism as anticipating modernist
(and post-modernist) positions on politics, the environment, psychology,
interfaith pluralism and religious tolerance. Unfortunately, these
pieces got me a badly undeserved reputation in some quarters as being a
raving anti-Buddhist modernist. That's only one-third accurate. I'm not
at all anti-Buddhist, and I'm not much of a modernist (and decidedly not
a post-modernist). As for raving, I stand as accused. Just name a topic,
and I'll rave until either the cows come home or the sheep run away.

As for Perez Zagorin, I'm sure you realize he taught at Amherst College,
Vassar, McGill, University of Rochester, University of Virginia,
Princeton and several other places. I'm not sure how much I would trust
a fellow who had such a difficult time holding down a steady job. If you
want to read the work of a McGill professor who was much better at
keeping a job, I'd recommend Stephen Leacock. At least he had a sense of
humour and a well-earned reputation for being a grumpy misanthrope. Some
say Leacock was an anti-Semitic misogynist, but that is only a partial
truth. He was equally against---or, at least prepared to make fun
of---pretty much everybody.

-- 
Richard Hayes