[Buddha-l] Doxastic minimalism (was: flat earth?)

[Richard Hayes]

I wrote about Vicente Gonzlaes's claim that many people are nowadays trying to 
find a Buddhism without Buddhism:

> Many? I can't think of even one, with the possible exception of Toni
> Packer.

In response, Vicente Gonzalez cited an article signed by our very own Erik 
Hoogcarspel:

> http://www.thinkbuddha.org/article/3/buddhism-without-buddhism
>
> "Buddhism Without Buddhism: a resolutely irreligious Buddhism; a
> Buddhism that is rooted in human meanings rather than in fantasies of
> the sacred; a Buddhism that is pervaded by a thoroughgoing
> this-wordliness: it is, perhaps, an impossible thing to hope for. But
> at the same time, I find the idea extraordinarily attractive, it has
> become a touch-stone for how I think about Buddhism. But with a
> question mark at the end, just for good measure
"

I am inclined to agree with Erik on this. So that makes two of us. And Erik 
and I both admire Stephen Batchelor, so Stephen makes three. And I suppose 
Joanna Kirkpatrick may be with us, since she also claims to like Stephen 
Batchelor. So if George Gamow was right when he wrote that some primitive 
cultures had words only for four numbers ("one", "two", "three", and "many"), 
then I guess there really are many Buddhists who like the idea of a 
non-sacred (or at least not especially sacred) and this-worldly approach to 
Buddhism. (I can be excused; I had one grandfather who was a Unitarian, 
another who was a Freemason, one grandmother who was a Universalist, another 
grandmother who was a Christian Scientist, a father who was a staunch atheist 
and a mother who called herself a small-p protestant but refused to get more 
specific and never went to any church during my entire childhood. Sacredness 
was just not part of my childhood, and I have never felt a need to acquire it 
as an adult. I suspect I am not unique in this respect, probably not even 
unique among Buddhists.)

I don't know how many readers of buddha-l are right-wing enough to read 
Newsweek magazine, but some of you may have seen this week's issue. There is 
an interesting article on the Pope's latest book, "Jesus of Nazareth". In that 
article there was a quote (on page 45) by N.T. Wright, the Anglican Bishop of 
Durham, speaking on the historicity of some of the events narrated in the 
Bible.

\begin{quote}
It's not just about ideas, or people's imaginations. If they didn't happen, 
you might still have interesting ideas, but it wouldn't be Christianity at 
the end of the day.
\end{quote}

That quotation by Bishop Wright (whom I have met and spoken with briefly) 
helped me see an important way in which Buddhism differs from Christianity 
(or at least how my Buddhism differs from his Christianity).
 
For many (perhaps most Christians) the Biblical narratives, especially those 
concerning the crucifixion and resurrection, are of vital importance; if they 
were fictitious stories serving as vehicles for some great ideas, something 
indispensable would be missing. I cannot think of any narrative in Buddhism 
that would be indispensable in quite the same way. Indeed, I'd guess that 
many (perhaps most) Buddhists would feel that the ideas, and the practices 
that help those ideas be actualized, are indispensable, and that narratives 
are valuable only insofar as they serve to illustrate those ideas. Fiction 
may in fact be a much better vehicle than historically accurate narrative 
would be, so most Buddhists would not be bothered in the least to find out 
that every narrative in every Buddhist text was a complete fiction. I may be 
wrong about this, and I'm sure some of you will let me know if I am. I 
suspect I am not wrong, given that Buddhism in India quickly borrowed heavily 
from the already existing storehouse of Indian story literature and made 
those stories say something about Dharma as understood by Buddhists. The 
Jataka stories are a good example of that, as is the oft-told story of the 
blind men and the elephant. 

What I say about narrative can also be said about some of the specific 
doctrines of traditional Buddhism. For many (but perhaps NOT most) of us, the 
doctrine of rebirth is quite dispensable. In other words, we have no problem 
at all understanding the four noble truths and following the eightfold path 
and observing all the precepts without ever thinking in terms of rebirth. Few 
people that I know of reject the doctrine of rebirth as utterly preposterous. 
Those of us who practice Buddhism without giving it much thought are, like 
Stephen Batchelor, simply agnostic on the matter. We regard the rebirth story 
as one that cannot ever be tested and therefore a story the truth of which 
can never be known. Those of us who have been contaminated by the thinking of 
such Pragmatists as Quine, Rorty and Putnam might even say "there is no truth 
to the matter." That is, the story is a story and has whatever function it 
has quite independently of any considerations of its being true or false.

While rebirth (and perhaps other metaphysical narratives) may be dispensable 
to many of us, my guess is that none of the four noble truths is dispensable. 
We all, I am assuming, believe that distress exists, that it has causes, that 
its causes can be eliminated (or at least palpably reduced) with the result 
of a palpable reduction of distress, and that there are reliable ways of 
reducing the causes of distress. And I also assume that all of us who call 
ourselves Buddhists see observance of the precepts as a core component of the 
way of reducing the causes of distress. What more than what I have said here 
is indispensable to the successful practice of Buddhism? To "many" (that is, 
about four--Erik, Stephen, Joanna and me, and I'll bet even Doc Peavler as a 
fifth) of us, nothing more is needed. Everything else is bells and whistles, 
or (to use the more traditional Buddhist and Daoist phrase) feet added to the 
snake.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico