[Buddha-l] A Drowsy little spot this. eh?

[Richard Hayes]

Three days before cinco de mayo, James M. Peavler wrote:

> Buddhist academics apparently go dormant in the Spring. Well, who can  
> blame 'em.

I can't speak for others, but I am pretty well always dormant. 

This semester is the first in something like twenty-seven years in which
I have not taught anything connected with Buddhism. Well, I did meet
with some graduate students and read some Dharmakīrti with them in
Sanskrit, which I found mightily annoying. I found the graduate students
perfectly delightful, but my disdain for Dharmakīrti continues to grow
apace. Why someone would take a perfectly good religion and ruin it by
trying to make it reasonable beats me.

I'm in love again. It happens to me every time I read Charles S. Peirce
and William James. I can't figure out why anyone would ever read
anything not written by these two fine fellows (although I allow that
liberal helpings of Walt Whitman and Mark Twain never hurt anyone). It
certainly baffles me why anyone would try to interpret Buddhism as
anything but a feeble attempt to articulate Pragmatism avant le mot.

One of these days I may write a message to buddha-l and maybe try to
piss off a few monks by making the point that George Fox is the only
person since Ānanda who had a clue what Gautama was trying without much
success to say. But not now. I've nearly forgotten everything I once
knew about Buddhism and must start over again from scratch.

Sufficient unto the day is the bewilderment thereof.

Yours in desecration and dessication,
Coyote