[Buddha-l] Back to the core values?

[Richard Hayes]

Vicente Gonzales claims:

> Today some people talks about a rational approach to Buddhism for
> Westerners by suppressing things like rebirth or kamma. 

This is not the first time you have made this calim, Vicente. I am not
sure whom you are thinking about when you say such things. I do a fair
amount of reading of modern materials on Buddhism, but I hav e never
read anyone who advocates suppressing any traditional Buddhist teaching.
What I have encountered is people who advocate not forcing the issue of
rebirth onto people who do not accept it. This amounts to saying that
one can teach what is important about Buddhist practice to people who
are either agnostic about rebirth or reject it outright. Saying that one
can teach Buddhist practices even to people who do not accept rebirth is
a very long way from  suppressing teachings of rebirth.

The only Western writer I have ever encountered who advocates a purely
rationalistic approach to Buddhism was Paul Carus, who died in 1919. His
rationalistic Buddhism is chronicled in Thomas Tweed's book, <cite>The
American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912: Victorian Culture and the
Limits of Dissent</cite>. Since Carus wrote, there have been people who
do indeed think that being rational is an important aspect of
approaching Buddhist practice, but no one that I know about has
suggested that logic, rationalism and positivism are the only valid or
effective approaches. If you can tell us a little more about the people
you have in mind when you make some of your claims, we can perhaps
discuss how accurately these people are being portrayed. Otherwise, I
suspect you are busily setting straw men aflame.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
Universiy of New Mexico