[Buddha-l] Question for acedemic teachers of Buddhism

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Jackhat1 at aol.com schreef:
> Please don't take this as an attack. It is something that greatly concerns  
> me not for myself but for those newcomers who could benefit from Buddhism but  
> are driven away.
>  
>  
> Jack
>  
>  
>   
 From a buddhist perspective I don't see why being a professor qualifies 
for teaching buddhism. It qualifies only to describe the buddhist point 
of view from a third person's prespective. In academic circles it was 
for a long time OK to be a Christian and a professor of Christendom, but 
it was ridiculous to be a buddhist and a professor of Buddhism, unless 
of course if you were Asian, in which case you had to play the Jewel in 
the Crown. John Reynolds and Edward Conze can testify to that. I have 
had the priviledge to be a student of Tillman Vetters, and he surely 
knows a lot about Buddhism, but he understand his cat better than a 
Buddhist.


-- 


Erik

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