[Buddha-l] Selectivity

[curt]

Christopher Fynn wrote:
> Richard Hayes wrote:
>
> .... A theme that quickly emerges is that
>> just about everyone who follows any tradition of any kind ends up 
>> doing quite a bit of selection of which sources to follow, which 
>> teachings from those sources to emphasize, which ones to take 
>> literally, and which to explain away by amateurish psycho-sociology.
>
> Its been said that one can 'prove' almost anything by selectively quoting
> the Bible. Since the Pali Canon is many times larger than the Bible - 
> and the
> Chinese and Tibetan collections several times larger than that - 
> Buddhists
> certainly have plenty to select from. Some traditions say Buddha 
> taught 64,000 different ways...
>
> [& Buddhists probably need to reincarnate just to have enough time to 
> get through all these Dharma teachings.]
>
> I suspect some of the 'selectivity' is simply due to fact that most of 
> us are
> only familiar with a few parts of this mass of literature.
>
>
Also, there is selectivity and then there is selectivity. In particular 
there is a big difference between being selective and knowing that's 
what you are doing and being open and honest about it, on the one hand - 
and on the other hand, selecting one's favorite passages in one's 
favorite language and imposing one's own interpretation on them, and 
then declaring this to be the "original" teachings of the Buddha.

- Curt