[Buddha-l] the 22 vows

[Franz Metcalf]

Gang,

I can well understand (or at least I *think* I can, being the white 
Anglo-Saxon Protestant-Buddhist male that I am) how Dalits would 
desperately want to repudiate the strictures that traditional Hinduism 
imposes on them in India. But--no matter how oppressed the Dalits 
are--my particular sect of Protestant Buddhism just won't let me accept 
or support their calling the Hindu appropriation of Buddha "sheer 
madness and false propaganda." Sounds like something Christopher 
Hitchens would say. I enjoy listening to Hitchens as much as the next 
person, but such words are not sammā vacā. And now Sherab tells us they 
believe in some kind of atman as well?

It bothers me that Buddhism in the land of the Buddha should at last be 
reborn... and should be reborn like this. Yet I trust Sherab and 
Joanna--who have seen this living Buddhism--if they say it reduces 
suffering. That is the bottom line; I should let go of my dogmatism. 
Ah, those stubborn Protestant roots!

Franz