[Buddha-l] Can Buddhism "evolve"?

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Joy Vriens schreef:
> The question is somehow contradictory, "Can *Buddhism* evolve"? Evolve into what? Into *Buddhism*? 
>
> Can whatever people's idea of "Buddhism" is somehow be preserved in the way these people evolve? Of course it can. It's only a label. If one sticks it onto whatever one considers to be Buddhism, then "Buddhism" will have evolved. It's as simple as that. Help yourself or continue doing so, if you get any benefit out of that  ;-) 
>
> I am reading Gordon White's The Alchemical Body and The Kiss of the Yogini. Things I had never understood in Tibetan Buddhism suddenly become a lot clearer when looked at from a Siddha/Kaula perspective. Buddhism is very flexible, it won't break. 
>
> And Batchelor is hardly bending it...
>
>
>   
I agree, I think that B is not worth the fuss.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Curt mainly criticises the use or 
excuse of the idea of evolution, which means that some disappointed 
suburbian middleclass teenager dreams about an ideal Buddhism and 
decides that it would be an evolution if the phantasy would come true. 
But the same teenager could also dream about a pure Buddhism as it was 
taught by the Buddha, Gampopa, Tsongkhapa, Sayadaw or whatever and see 
it as his duty to stop Buddhism from decadence. Both are very common and 
very dangerous mindtraps. The concept of evolution is like the paradigm 
hype of the seventies when everybody was inventing new scientific 
paradigms on a daily basis.


-- 

Erik


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