[Buddha-l] Re: How to help the Dharma grow in the USA

[Richard Hayes]

On Wed, 2007-01-03 at 21:20 +0100, Benito Carral wrote:

>    Traditional (Orthodox) Buddhists believe in rebirth,
> hells,  and heavens

I have never seen any suggestion in Asian Buddhism that belief is a test
of being a legitimate Buddhist. Setting up beliefs as a kind of litmus
test is a hangover among a handful of modern Western Buddhists of the
pre-Protestant Christian notion of a credo.

> --do you remember why Hakuin started
> his practice? 

That was before my time. 

> I think that, for Westerners, it's easier
> to believe in the Judeo-Christian cosmology.

I think this may be an overgeneralization. I suspect there are many
Westerners who find it almost impossible to believe in Judeo-Christian
cosmology. Indeed, many of those people find themselves much more at
home with Buddhism than with religions that place an emphasis on what
one believes.

>  Of course,
> liberal  American  Buddhism  doesn't tend to believe in
> such things.

Is there such a thing as liberal American Buddhism? I am certainly
unaware of such a movement. It sounds like something imight find
interesting if I could find it, but I have no idea what its particular
characteristics would be.

>    One   of   my   spiritual   grandpas,   Ven.   Xuyun
> (1840-1959),  said  that  there  is  not  path  without
> precepts.  Since liberal American Buddhism doesn't tend
> to  believe  in  the  traditional  (orthodox)  Buddhist
> cosmology  nor  care  much about precepts, it's rightly
> labeled  a  "downgraded spirituality."

As is so often you habit, Benito, you are making things up. God knows
why you feel a need to invent imaginary adversaries, but I leave that to
you and your psychoanalyst to sort out. Meanwhile, I can only say that I
have never encountered even one Buddhist who does not care much about
precepts. Indeed what I have found among Western Buddhists is something
very similar to the attitude found among many Protestants, namely, a
conviction that what one believes matters far less than how one behaves
and what attitudes one cultivates. So I would say precepts are of
paramount importance to most of the Buddhists I have met in North
America. Perhaps things are different in Europe, but you should be
careful not to assume that what you have observed in your neighborhood
is true elsewhere.

>    Traditional  (Orthodox) Buddhism is characterized by
> renunciation.     Liberal    American    Buddhism    is
> characterized by moral relativism and non-renunciation.

Do you have any evidence for this claim? Can you offer any examples of
American Buddhists who advocate moral relativism and non-renunciation? I
honestly have never seen anyone like that, and I suspect I have quite a
bit more familiarity with Buddhist groups in America than you.

>    I think that you're just wrong.

Just thinking does very litle good. Some evidence would be nice.

>    It  seems  that  the first divison of the Sangha was
> originated  by  questions  about  orthodoxy,  or so the
> tradition tells us.

Not a single one of the issues that led to a split in the early Buddhist
monastic community is parallel to anything you have said in your
rhetorical admonitions. The split had to do with procedural matters
among ordained monks,not with beliefs. As Gombrich and numerous others
have repeatedly pointed out, the split was not over orthodoxy (correct
belief) but orthopraxy (correct practice), and that orthopraxy was
within the very spcialized context of vinaya rules for monks. 

Quite honestly, a Spanish layman who can't figure out whether he's a
Buddhist or a Jew can hardly point to a dispute over the interpretation
of vinaya rules for support in a one-sided jihad against an American
individual who can't figure out whether he's a Buddhist or a Quaker. Why
not figure out a better way to use your time than trying to set straight
the Buddhists who live several thousand kilometers away from your home
turf?

-- 
Richard Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu>
University of New Mexico