[Buddha-l] Can Buddhism "evolve"?

[Piya Tan]

Dear Bob,

Susan Blackmore's website is

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/

I have her book, "Consciousness: An Introduction" a good layman's
introduction. Her last section:
"First Person Approaches" (chs 25-27) echoes recent developments in Buddhist
Psychology (like those with the Dalai Lama at MIT, etc).

She has also written a short delightful article on "Waking from the Meme
Dream" (in Gay Watson, S Batchelor & Guy Claxton (eds), "The Psychology of
Awakening," Samuel Weiser, 2000:112-122).
This is esp suitable for students.

I've also seen your website on Edgar Rice Burrough, Boris Vallejo art, etc,
which evokes memory of a forgotten brief younger time when I opened a small
US comic specialty store in Malaysia! My ex-students complained that I am a
bad businessman but work better as a Dharma teacher. So
here I am in Singapore. Apparently you cannot run away from the Dharma,

Piya Tan



On 5/26/07, Bob Zeuschner <rbzeuschner at adelphia.net> wrote:
>
>
> When I studied evolution at U.C.L.A. many years ago, the professor
> stressed that "evolve" does NOT imply going from simpler to more
> complex, and most decidedly did NOT imply going from good to better.
>
> There was no value judgment in my use of the term "evolve." I was not
> suggesting that Chinese, Japanese or Tibetan Buddhism was better than
> its Indian sources. Just adapted.
> As the environment changes, things adapt to their environment or cease
> to exist.
>
> Buddhism in China adapted to the Chinese environment, assumptions, and
> expectations. It it hadn't, it wouldn't have survived.
> Buddhism has been and will continue to adapt to American environments,
> assumptions, and expectations, and if it doesn't, it will remain a tiny
> relatively unimportant world-view of a handful of Americans.
> I vaguely recall that in the last chapter of "Zen Mind Beginner's Mind"
> Suzuki roshi points out that American Zen is already different from its
> Japanese antecedents, and this was good.
>
> I will have to find the Blackmore book you mentioned. I have her book on
> the evolution of consciousness, but didn't realize she also wrote on
> Buddhism.
> Thanks.
> Bob
> Dept. of Philosophy
>
> Piya Tan wrote:
> > It's interesting how words work. The word "evolve" for example, usually
> > connotes some level
> > of "natural selection" which apparently applies to Buddhism it seeps
> > into the fabric of extra-
> > Indian societies, and is in turn transformed by the fabric itself into
> > new religions, albeit rooted
> > (even tenuously) in Indian Buddhism.
> >
>
> >
> > Piya Tan
> >
> >
> >
> > On 5/26/07, *Bob Zeuschner* <rbzeuschner at adelphia.net
> > <mailto:rbzeuschner at adelphia.net>> wrote:
> >
> >     Indian Buddhism did *evolve* in China, and Japan, and Tibet.
> >     Chinese Buddhism tried to be Indian, but ultimately it was not
> Indian
> >     Buddhism.
> >     American Buddhists may try to identify with the traditions of their
> >     Ch'an, Zen, or Tantric founders, but I suspect American Buddhism
> will
> >     not be Japanese, Chinese, or Tibetan.
> >     But it may take a a few hundred years to evolve (I hope we have a
> few
> >     hundred years).
> >
>
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