[Buddha-l] Conditioned Mind?

[Barnaby Thieme]

I'm inclined to think that the distribution of patterns of belief and action are like any other natural human characteristic and fall into a normal distribution. If you were going to make a foolhardy attempt to quantify such a thing you could start by asking 1,000 self-described Buddhists "Do you believe that it is possible to achieve the complete cessation of suffering through properly following the path to enlightenment?" and you might get, I don't know, 950 people saying yes. You could then ask "Do you believe that the present Dalai Lama is truly an emanation of Avalokiteshvara and the thirteenth reincarnation of Gendun Drup?" and you might get, what, 300 or something. You might then ask "Do you believe that it is appropriate in some circumstances to use suicide bombs to achieve political ends?" and you'd probably find yourself on the tail of the curve. 

Again, if you were foolish enough to try to quantify such things, you'd probably find statistical groupings of people who aggregated around particular sets of claims, like the Soto Zen people would tend to share view on lineage, the path of practice, etc., and the Sakyapas would aggregate around a different set of beliefs. 

In that sense I think that there is a Buddhist mainstream, or rather many mainstreams, and it probably can be juxtaposed against a set of beliefs that I would describe as fundamentalist, and in this hypothetical statistical analysis they probably would share more beliefs with one another than the cluster in which they were nominally affiliated. They would probably be more likely to agree with statements like "I believe that the Dharma as revealed in certain sutras and espoused by certain commentators constitute a literal and exact description of the path to enlightenment, and deviation from that specific set of practices and beliefs constitutes an error, and a deviation from Buddha's real teaching." They might disagree about what those sutras were. 

All this is just intended to illustrate in what sense I believe that mainstream(s) exist -- obviously I've concocted this description in a way that accords with my beliefs, especially my belief that what is often called fundamentalism is a matter of psychological posture and a rigid relationship to a set of ideas, and is not defined by the set of ideas per se. 

B~

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More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path
leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction.
Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. -- Woody Allen



> From: rhayes at unm.edu
> Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 12:09:26 -0600
> To: buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Conditioned Mind?
> 
> 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
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