[Buddha-l] Conditioned Mind?

[Richard Hayes]

On Jul 7, 2010, at 11:33 AM, Barnaby Thieme wrote:

> It's interesting to note that fundamentalisms resemble one another more than they resemble the mainstreams of their own traditions.

Fundamentally, I'm in agreement with you, Barnaby. Increasingly, however, I find it difficult to know what deserves to be called "mainstream" in many traditions. The original Unitarians, for example, were biblical literalists who rejected the doctrine of the trinity, because that doctrine is not fully supported by a literal reading of biblical texts. The first Unitarians, like the first Jehovah's Witnesses, were convinced that trinitarian Christianity was the work of Satan. Now, of course, the Unitarians are so liberal that many Christians (and indeed many Unitarians) do not regard them to be Christian at all, while the Jehovah's Witnesses are rarely thought of as liberal. The first generations of Quakers were so particularist that they would not allow members of their meetings to marry outside the Quaker tradition, and any Quaker who ventured inside a Catholic or Anglican church for any reason other than smashing a stained glass window or disrupting the sermon with rude outbursts was considered with utmost suspicion. A very small contingency of Quakers are still that way, and they naturally consider themselves mainstream, while the liberal Quakers (many of whom are Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim) are seen as apostates by the particularists, while the liberal Quakers see themselves as mainstream and the particularists as fundamentalists who have falsified the spirit of the Quaker tradition. One could be forgiven for thinking that most people see themselves as mainstream (except for those who take some perverse pride in being despised outsiders) and regard others as in some sense or another heading for apostasy. The physical and metaphorical walls that religious communities build around themselves is as endlessly fascinating as the cry of loons on a Canadian lake.

In thinking about Buddhism, it is really difficult—I'm tempted to say impossible—for me to apply the term "mainstream" to anyone (except, of course, myself and Stephen Batchelor). It is not a descriptive term, but a value judgment. And as every Buddhist knows, all value judgments are completely wrong-headed and evil.

Those little caveats aside, I agree with you, Barnaby. Welcome to my mainstream.

Richard