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

[Franz Metcalf]

JWB et al.,

I don't mean to sell (all) American dharma teachers short. Sorry if I 
gave that impression. In fact, I think the anecdotes you, JWB, tell 
about Shrobe Roshi and Aitken Roshi jibe well with my observation that 
American Zen students are letting go of their traditional view of their 
tradition. After all, who is encouraging them to do that? Their 
teachers (and the cultures of their practice communities). I don't know 
Shrobe, but there's no way in saha that Aitken Roshi believes in an 
unbroken lineage of Buddha mind, and no way he'd lean on it for an 
unearned authority. I've never met a Zen teacher who commanded more 
authority in person than Aitken Roshi, without effort and without 
recourse to tradition. If I ever sell Aitken Roshi short, please sic 
your spam filter on me.

Analogizing to the way Zen teachers can encourage students to believe 
and yet not believe the ancient narratives, JWB wrote,

> How many Zen students does it take to change a lightbulb?
> Two: one to change the lightbulb and one to not change the lightbulb….

Very good. There is room for all of us in the dharma hall. But to 
capture the paradoxical nature of this sort of belief, how about... 
Four: one to change the lightbulb, one to not change the lightbulb, one 
to both change and not change the lightbulb, and one to neither change 
nor not change the lightbulb.

I believe I fit into that last category, but I have ambitions to move 
up to the third.

Franz