[Buddha-l] Question for acedemic teachers of Buddhism

[Curt Steinmetz]

Richard Hayes wrote:
> To be quite honest, I think it is a HUGE mistake for someone from the
> West to become a Buddhist if she was not exposed to Buddhist symbols,
> myths, images and practices from early childhood. Adulthood is much too
> late to try to learn and then make sense of a complex set of myths and
> symbols. Adulthood is a time to work on all the stories one was told as
> a child. I deeply regret that I never took time to do that. The result,
> I think, is that I have never become an adult in the tradition in which
> I was raised (atheistic secular humanism), and I have never developed
> more than a childish grasp of the religion I adopted as a young adult.
> Looking back on my own experience, I conclude: What a waste of life it
> is to convert to a tradition from foreign lands. In this I agree
> strongly with both Carl Jung and the Dalai Lama.
>
>   

Personally I think HUGE mistakes have a certain appeal - compared to 
puny little half-assed mistakes. HUGE mistakes at least tend to be 
things one has done purposefully and with some degree awareness of what 
one is doing. Why die the death of a thousand cuts when you take the 
path of Cinnamasta and just whack your own head off and be done with it?

Also, if one manages to survive, HUGE mistakes make the best stories.

The real problem, though, is probably a biological one. By the time we 
are adults we are biologically superfluous, except, possibly, as 
caretakers for the the next generation. What we do with our spare time 
past the age of 23 or so probably doesn't make one bit of difference one 
way or the other. So one might as well make it interesting.

But actually as I think about it it occurs to me that during a certain 
window of oportunity - say from 15 to 25 - we DO have a chance to seek 
out and gain exposure to "myths, images and practices" that our parents 
never dreamed of exposing us to.

Curt Steinmetz