[Buddha-l] Re: Aama do.sa I

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Dan,

>Dan: 
>The Latter Han dynasty disintegrated by repeated millenarian revolts, most 
>associated with early forms of religious Daoism, that, on many levels, echo 
>eschatological and cosmological schemas current in the eastern Mediterranean 
>at that time, though with distinctively Chinese flavors and frames. There 
>were a range of Buddhist apocryphal apocalyptic sutras that began to receive 
>more attention and popularity in that period as well (Jan Nattier's Once 
>Upon a Future Time details the development of that, leading to Mappo theory, 
>Nichiren, etc.). One lesson: when life becomes unstable, violent, disturbing 
>and uncertain, utopianism and messianism of various sorts emerge with great 
>popularity and society-altering power. 

Thanks for putting the aama do.sa back to the front of the subject line. I am afraid I have digressed quite a lot and I don't see how I can move back to the topic from here.

Yes, the only point I wanted to make was that nothing human is foreign to Buddhism. One sometimes forgets one has the tendancy to idealise one's favourite system. 

>Joy: 
>> Out of curiosity, what would the Buddhist anti-tarka rhetoric have said 
>about a person claiming: 
 
>> "And what is the miracle of psychic power? There is the case where a 
>certain person wields manifold psychic powers. Having been one he becomes 
>many; having been many he beomes one. He appears. He vanishes. He goes 
>unimpeded through walls, ramparts, & mountains as if through space. He dives 
>in and out of the earth as if it were water. He walks on water without 
>sinking as if it were dry land. Sitting cross-legged he flies through the 
>air like a winged bird. With his hand he touches and strokes even the sun & 
>moon, so mighty & powerful. He exercises influence with his body even as far 
>as the Brahma worlds. This is called the miracle of psychic power." 
 
>Dan: 
>Apples and oranges. There is nothing intrinsically tarka-related in 
>extravagant claims.

Apples and oranges, yes that is how you and me see it. But we find those apples and oranges in the same basket (pitaka). 

>Joy: 
>That's not what I said. I said that the only liberation that can be achieved 
>through clarity and  precision I can imagine is liberation *from* lack of 
>clarity and *from* lack of  precision. 
 
>Dan: 
>Sorry for misunderstanding your meaning. The cardinal problem, according to 
>Buddhism, is avidya -- ignorance. So clear, precise thinking is an important 
>remedy -- a sufficient cause of Awakening according to Buddha. 

According to the Buddha the cardinal problem is avidya, but also craving. I doubt precise thinking is a sufficient cause of Awakening. Of course one can always say that as long as one is craving, one's thinking isn't precise enough, but to me it seems that self surrender, acceptance, detachment, equanimity etc. are not automatically linked to clear thinking. One can know a dream is only a dream, or a magic trick a magic trick and still crave it. As a man, one can know that a woman is everything Santideva says she is, one can know that a symphony is only a collection of notes played in different frequencies etc and still like or crave what one hears. At least so it seems to me. And disgust is only the negative of a positive; the "precision" of the thinking itself doesn't change, only the value attributed to it does.
 
>Joy: 
>> I have no experience with that [nihilism]. I do not know if views and 
>philophies can be that efficient as to cause exactly that. Perhaps deep 
>depression or mental illness can do that, but those are not produced by a 
>philosophical view as far as I know. 
 
>Dan: 
>That is Arjuna's crisis in ch. 1 of the Bhagavad Gita; the reason Buddha 
>leaves home and runs to the forest according to Asvaghosa's Buddhacarita; 
>etc. It is the starting point which motivates the search and needs to be 
>overcome; but also the byproduct of lost aspirations or assumptions. 
>Similarly, one way to interest students in philosophy (especially 
>epistemology) is to undermine the naive realist convictions they arrive with 
>in class. Mother Theresa's recently published diaries show that she was 
>intimately familiar with this sort of nihilism as well -- which has 
>surprised many admirers, but shouldn't have. It is not necessarily simply 
>the views themselves that cause the nihilism (they are usually exactly the 
>sorts of views one clings to in order to avoid nihilism), rather it is the 
>clinging to them as what undergirds one's sense of reality and meaning that 
>leads to problems when the undergirding becomes undermined or revealed as 
>inadequate or erroneous. Losing one's raison d'être... 

I would make a distinction between the initial disappointment leading to the entrance in religious life and the dark night of the soul stuff, also called "secheresse" (dryness) or "désert" by the French mystics, in particul the Quiestists. When one reads their correspondance they go on and on about their periods of "sécheresse", which they consider also as a gift of God, i.e. they integrate it (in the same way as is done in Tibetan Mahamudra practice). One loves God for God, not for his gifts. Ordinary mind is the Buddha. I agree with you that there is no reason to be surprised at Mother Theresa's sécheresse.

To bring this back to Buddhism, there are many stories about Buddhist tantrics (but I have seen similar stories in Chan or Zen litterature), seasoned practitioners, going through similar periods of despair, utter despair, very near suicide, but they always tend to have a happy end.  And it basically boils down to surrender... They have all the knowledge they need and still run after a result, although they have everything they need.

Joy