[Buddha-l] Historical vs Psychological Religious Narratives

[Richard Hayes]

On Thu, 2007-05-17 at 12:23 -0700, Franz Metcalf wrote:

> Gang,

That's English for sangha.

> For the central Christian dogma that Christ has redeemed the world to 
> be valid, this remarkable narrative, in my own view, not just "should" 
> but MUST have historical validity. Marginal forms of Christianity have 
> taught that this narrative can be metaphorically extended to a notion 
> of the incarnation being what Mahayanists might call the "Christ 
> Nature" in all of us.

That seems right. I suppose this means that the Quakers are marginal
Christians. They certainly were so considered at one time; they were
banned in some colonies in the Americas, and a few were publicly beaten
and even hanged. From the outset, however, the Quakers dispensed with
all sacraments and with the substitutionalist theory of atonement;
Christ was not seen as a savior but as an exemplar, so the focus among
Quakers has always been on the life of Jesus rather than on his death
and resurrection. Most Universalists also had similar views of Christ,
which may explain why they too were persecuted in the new United States
of America with its proudly heralded separation of church and state. My
feeling is that the Christology of Quakers and Unitarian-Universalists
has become more widespread than it used to be, and this may be part of
what caused Pope Benedict XVI to feel the need to articulate his much
more conservative Christology in his latest book. 

As an aside, I am finding it intriguing to see how much of an issue the
religion of one of the candidates is as American presidential
campaigning (already!) gets underway. Romney's Mormonism seems to
distress some conservative Christians, even though his stance on most
social issues is every bit as conservative as theirs. So Mormons are
still much more marginal than Quakers and Unitarians; there have been as
many Quakers elected president as there have been Dutch Reform or
Congregationalist, and there have been as many Unitarians elected
president as Baptists. On another front, I notice that Fox News is
already stressing Obama's Muslim roots. America may be ready to elect a
black president, but I'm willing to bet Obama's Islamic heritage,
tenuous though it is, may do more to undermine his candidacy than his
race.    

> (Of course I wonder how much Stan Ziobro and Dan Lusthaus and others 
> will agree with my sweeping generalizations here.)

My guess is you may not have to wait long for an answer, especially if
your generalizations have swept anything they hold dear under the rug.

> > I cannot think of any narrative in Buddhism
> > that would be indispensable in quite the same way.
> 
> Agreed, so long as by "any narrative" you mean something like 
> "historical narrative in the canon." I say this because there is at 
> least one core narrative that remains indispensable in Buddhism. You 
> mention it yourself, it is the narrative contained within the Four 
> Noble Truths.

I don't think of that as narrative in quite the same way. People who
hang around philosophy departments are very fond of talking about
"telling stories," a locution that I find very quaint. To me Bambi and
Pinocchio are stories in ways that an account of deontological ethics or
meriological supervenience is not. And the myth of the crucified and
risen Christ is a narrative in a way that the observation that suffering
has causes is not. But let's not quibble about the meaning of the word
"narrative" lest people start telling stories about us.

> I would add that *some* forms of Buddhism--notably the Zen tradition 
> and the lineage-focused forms of Vajrayana--do in fact cleave to 
> historical narratives of awakening and, should these narratives be 
> shown to be false, lose their institutional authority.

Right you are. About twenty years ago at a conference of Zen
practitioners and academics I recall a Zen teacher named Albert Low
asking whether the stories of Bodhidharma and Huineng were literally
true. Some academic bozo (probably me) said something really tactful
like "What the hell difference does it make? It's a good story whether
it's true or not, and Zen practice is perfectly effective whether
Huineng existed or not." (Actually, it was Luis Gómez, as I recall. I
retract the word "bozo".) Albert Low said it makes a HUGE difference. He
said he knew that about half his community would walk out and never come
back if they thought Bodhidharma didn't really exist pretty much exactly
as he is described in the fairy tales. Several other Zen teachers piped
up and agreed with Low. We academics all wrung our hands and said "Holy
shit! If what these guys say is true, Zen is in real trouble!" 

>  One thing 
> fascinating about contemporary Western Zen practice is that this has 
> happened and yet many folks go on practicing without the belief in the 
> unbroken transmission narrative.

See? All the worry of those stupid academics was completely unfounded
twenty years ago. (I guess this proves that global warming, which is
what academics are now wringing their hands about, is really nothing to
worry about.)

> To show my age, I comment, "Right on!

To show my stuffy pedantry, I hereby proudly proclaim that I have never
said "Right on!" about anything. Although I might use a different, less
informal and pedestrian, locution, I agree with you that it's a very
healthy sign that contemporary Western Zen practice has managed to free
itself of clinging to a literalistic reading of the Bodhisattva and
Huineng myths. See, we Western Buddhist gangsters can demythologize damn
near anything and keep on sucking wind and observing precepts with the
best of them. 

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
Universiy of New Mexico