[Buddha-l] (the recycling of) Western Buddhists

[Joy Vriens]

Joanna,
>We seem to be viewing the familial transmission of the Buddhist way merely 
>as a matter of self-definition, but it ain't always so. My parents were 
>staunch Protestant Episcopalians and we kids followed along in that path. It 
>was only years, and much thought and living life, later that one of my 
>sisters decided atheism was the way to go, the other sister new age 
>goddess-ism, and me Buddhism.

I find the idea of transmission problematic. And I mean intentional transmission and especially the notion of "successful transmission". Generation n tries intentionally to transmit something to generation n+1. Read "Generation n tries to put its stamp or mark on generation n+1". Generation n will already "survive" physically in generation n+1, but it would also like to survive in ideas or ideology. Generation n already intentionally or intentionally put its mark on generation n+1, including in ideas and ideology, but it seems to need an irrefutable tangible proof, something symbolic that only serves the purpose of expressing loyalty and honouring memory. Filiation and affiliation. 

We have been generated, we have been raised, we have been given the gift of life and more, but intentional transmission would make it a gift with strings attached. "If you love someone, set them free". It seems akward that if one wants to transmit something like trust in God, trust in life, trust in others, one is doing the contrary by intentional transmission of something specific, in addition to everything that is already transmitted anyway. It seems to me that whatever one wants to transmit can't be transmitted, because it is already there and that by wanting to transmit it one is doing the opposite. Omnis determinatio est negatio as another old hippy used to say. 

Forgive me for not knowing all the denominations of Protestantism and what they stand for, but initially it seems to have been more along the lines of non-transmission. Luther fascinates me (although I was raised a catholic myself), but I have not much time for Lutheranism and other protestant transmissions. Like many mystics, the only thing Luther in his better moments seemed to have wanted to "transmit" is to have a direct relation with God. He says himself he doesn't want to bind anybody to his words or thoughts, but simply wants to be an exemple for others to follow or not, to amend or not. That sort of freedom of thought and speech and non-intererence with another's relationship to God seems to have been transmitted at least in your family. 

For me the real pleasure is in the rapport we have ourselves with the raw material of religion in all its expressions, not in a clinical performance of it, not in a devotional attitude or loyalty towards it. It has to be a struggle of some sort, otherwise there is no real full contact and no real "transmission". At least that is my I admit romantic view of it.

Joy