[Buddha-l] Fsat Mnifdlunses?

[Jayarava]

--- On Fri, 14/8/09, Richard Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu> wrote:

> If someone believes that dharmas have svabhāvas, on the other hand,
> no harm can possibly come from that. 

Quite. We are going to have one or another delusion anyway. The important thing is not what we believe about Ultimate Reality, but what we do about our existential situation. 

The most important thing seems to be that one's intellectual conclusions do not become substitutes for experience of Dharma practice. 

Dan said:

>> When a mistake has become embedded in the discourse so
>> deeply that it seems almost impossible to extirpate, all the more
>> reason to roll up one's sleeves and try to set the record straight. 
>> Otherwise we all become mere dawdlers.

Yes. I've seen some of your setting the record straight... you understand the words well enough... and you have a great belief in the rightness of your views...

Richard said:

> Perhaps the opponents realized the Yogācāra position failed to
> make much sense and were compassionately trying to help them avoid
> making fools of themselves.

Perhaps they were just pointing out that any position can be critiqued and that orthodoxy, or any kind of doxy, is far less important than praxis.

> I guess it's not so obvious to me that those folks
> (Pereira, Eliade,  C.A.F. Rhys Davids et al.) were wrong. I can see 
> merit in their view...

I would say that they are all wrong to the extent that the suttas don't really argue for a particular view on the self - which is evident in the way that so many different conclusions have been drawn from what they do say. The discourses seem to me to start from where ever the *audience* happen to be (and a majority seem to believe in an ātman or jiva) and direct their attention to their 'apparatus of experience' one way or another. If you believe in an ātman, fine, go looking for it in the six senses. If you belief in no-self then look for that in your experience. What you believe about a self or lack of it can only be metaphysical speculation, and it is not that relevant. What you know and see for yourself is another thing all together. Thus have I heard.

The problem with intellectual positions, as much as any strongly held belief, is that they come with an (often subconscious) emotional substrate - it is *important* to us to be right. It becomes really important to us when someone is 'wrong' that we *correct* them, and the emotion is not usually compassion but aversion. And it shows in the tone and form of the discourse, if not the content. (I do include myself in this btw)

So I have some sympathy with Richard's laissez-faire approach to doctrinal positions. Better to be a good natured ātmavāda-ist, sincerely engaged in the spiritual inquiry (like the Buddha himself was), than a bad tempered Buddhist intellectual intent on being right. (Though that wasn't necessarily Richard's point). 

I do see the worth in clarifying what someone actually said - but the very fact that some of these arguments have raged for well over 1000 years is not a promising sign that we can conclude them on their own terms. In fact maybe we should be asking if there is any mileage at all in such disputes?

Best wishes
Jayarava