[Buddha-l] karma and consequences

[jkirk]

"As a revisionist I would see this more positively as
allegorical, methodological, and pedagogical; not as
phantasmagorical. When you look more broadly you see the Buddha
taking whatever motivated people at the time (be it rituals,
austerities, superstitions, or whatever) and redefining the goal
of such things in ethical terms (I wax lyrical about this in my
JBE article)."

Asn an anthropologist, I have already made this same point time
and again on this list, that the phantasmagorical features
appearing here and there were rhetorically motivated, based on
local beliefs, including presenting as requital such destinations
as heavens and hells in order to move people in the same way that
such visions historically were used to move people in, say, the
Catholic Church.  However, you probably weren't on the list at
such times so you did not know that I wasn't born (on the list)
yesterday, as this reply seems to assume.

This particular thread has  devolved into some kind of an
Byzantine argument between you and Robert, so at this point I'm
outta here.

Cheers,
Joanna



-----Original Message-----
From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com
[mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Jayarava
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 3:50 AM



--- On Mon, 16/3/09, jkirk <jkirk at spro.net> wrote:

> I am citing this bit only as an example of the requital that
many 
> revisionist Buddhists today may view as a phantasmagoria. And,
in this 
> respect, I doubt that such requital effects are what keeps
today's 
> non-Asian Buddhists on the path of sila.

As a revisionist I would see this more positively as allegorical,
methodological, and pedagogical; not as phantasmagorical. When
you look more broadly you see the Buddha taking whatever
motivated people at the time (be it rituals, austerities,
superstitions, or whatever) and redefining the goal of such
things in ethical terms (I wax lyrical about this in my JBE
article). A classic example is "ethical purity" which comes
directly from "ritual purity" something which obsessed not only
Brahmins, but also Jains. By redefining the goal, but retaining
their original emotional engagement, he harnesses the enormous
momentum of their traditional beliefs to the new, or redefined
goals. He often does not seek to change their minds - we started
this discussion with the Kālāma Sutta after all. I think the
Buddha was confident that any residual legacy views would fade
away under the glare of practice. 

Karma was quite simply the most prevalent religious idea in
Magadha at the time, and rather than oppose it, the Buddha
redefined it. This made the Dharma far more ehipassiko than it
might have been had he merely rubbished the opposition. Which is
not to say that there are no polemics, but the audience for these
seems most often to be other "professional" ascetics who were
picking fights over theories anyway. 

The point of the Buddha's program was not to instil new views,
but to get people to practice. As I've said: reading the Pāli and
looking around at my peers it seems clear to me that what you
believe (either implicitly or explicitly) is less important than
that you practice, since the latter will always shed light on the
former.

Regards
Jayarava




      

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