[Buddha-l] [Fwd: [skepnet] Documentaire: Jesus Camp (2006)]

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Joy Vriens schreef:
>  But if this Buddhism with balis and all is then taught to a society where Kaula, shivaism and balis are unknown and one first is taught bodhicitta and then has to learn totally foreign rituals in which balis are offered with the understanding that they symbolize bodhicitta, then you say that the real meaning of balis would be bodhiciita. Fair enough, but I think it is also fair to ask what do we still need those balis for? If they can be integrated then they can also be disposed off. 
If you ask those ritual engineers, they will say that it's tradition and 
keeping up with tradition is more important than anything. Tradition 
makes ritual work, they would say. Personally I wouldn't mind if you 
would dispose off the balis but  ritual engineers and ther public think 
differently. And also in Europe people are attached to funny useless 
rituals like voting governements and dressing up for marriage. Who still 
knows why we celebrate Pentecost? Who cares, it's a day off. So 
rationalising life as a whole seems to be a never ending project, which 
of course doesn't mean that now and then it's a relief to get rid of 
some outdated stuff.
> And wasn't Buddhism dissociating itself from the language community by giving bali a different, symbolic meaning?
Yes but you can do it if you're with a crowd big enough to start you'r own. The lokayats didn't make it, the Jains did. 


>> I don't think there ever has been a religion or a society for that
>> matter without rituals. It's like a town without traffic signs. But  
>> maybe such a thing is possible and will ever exist somewhere. 
>>     
>
> It probably does. I don't know about quakers, but the way Richard talks about them, it seems to function as a society of friends and their rituals seem to express equality. That would be the sort of rituals I can accept. I am coming to terms, very slowly, with the probability that equality in society is an impossibility. But that doesn't mean that I will not keep that dream alive in my head.  
>   
Well, Joy, it's probably not very far away. Only maybe it's not the way you imagine it now. The 'fields' as Bourdieu calls them where the 'games' are played in which we participate grow in number. So you may be a musician, priest, banker, sportsperson, writer, blogger, dancer in Second Life and so on. Even if we're not equal to each other in every field, there's no inequality over all fields as long as those fields are not made commensurable and grouped into a super structure. The only thing which keeps us away from that situation is the grip the economic field still has on the other ones and we both hope, I guess, that this will end some time soon. 

Erik


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