[Buddha-l] Question for academic teachers of Buddhism

[Richard Hayes]

On Fri, 2008-06-27 at 22:27 +0600, Christopher Fynn wrote:

> On the other hand, he thought 
> that if a person wanted to lead a lay life they should dedicate all 
> their energies to working hard and earning money for their family

This is what the Buddha himself taught, according to the Pali canon. He
advises that one pursue wholeheartedly whatever commitments one has
undertaken. If one is a householder and has undertaken the
responsibility of raising a family, then one should do everything
possible, constrained only by considerations of moral integrity, to
provide food, housing, clothing, ornaments, entertainment and pleasure
to one's family. It has been my experience that far too many Western
Buddhists end up neglecting their families in order to pursue what turns
out to be a pretty mediocre meditation practice.

> What puzzled him was th attitude of western dharma students whom he saw 
> as not being fully committed to one thing or the other. He thought this 
> attitude would inevitably result in a person succeeding neither 
> spiritually nor materially.

Everything I have seen suggests he's right. It will no doubt take four
or five hundred years before Western Buddhists get into the outskirts of
getting the hang of the Buddha-dharma.

> Of course later generations of Tibetan lamas soon discovered that 
> teaching meditation (or claiming to teach meditation) to westerners was 
> a far easier and quicker way to make money than hard work.

For some, it also proved to be a quick road to getting lots of sex.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico