[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[andy]

On Sunday 18 July 2010 07:44:53 pm Dan Lusthaus wrote:
> Lance,
> 
> > No-one who has studied as much Yogācāra as you can be unaware of the
> > sophistication of traditional Buddhist understandings of these things.
> > So why this black-and-white dichotomy ?
> 
> No black-and-white dichotomy except in the eyes of some beholders. That the
> psychological, demythologized readings spring out first to us moderns, as
> unavoidable and decisive, is the reason that this modern impulse sometimes
> needs to be counterbalanced with reminders that other levels of meaning
>  were accepted as much on face value as we today embrace the psychologized
>  mode.

OK, so we moderns are wrong? Certianly some believed in the mythical beings, 
but the point is what the mythical beings represent. And I don't think this is 
counterbalanced by anything. 
> 
> Otherwise your summary of the sutta is fine. The one thing I would add is
> that the 500 "nobles" are Licchavis -- a Warrior caste depicted in other
> Buddhist texts as spartan, rough warrior types, skilled in archery and
> martial arts, and that this violent, gruff atmosphere permeates the whole
> sutta. When Buddha is defeating Saccaka, one of the Licchavis compares it
> someone plucking off the legs of a crab when they pop out, which he
> describes in vivid, cruel detail. Since the subject of "violence" itself is
> never taken up, this remains a subtopic, though infusing the entire sutta
>  -- leaving it to readers and commentators to sort out.
> 
> Dan

So we put out message in terms the warrior caste can understand? That doesn't 
mean we are really pulling the legs off of crabs, only that those who won't 
engage in rational debate are pulling into their irrational shell. 

I am sure Lance will respond to this in much more adequate language. 

-- 
James Andy Stroble, PhD
Lecturer in Philosophy
Department of Arts & Humanities
Leeward Community College
University of Hawaii

Adjunct Faculty 
Diplomatic and Military Studies
Hawaii Pacific University 

_________________

"The amount of violence at the disposal of any given country may soon not be a 
reliable indication of the country's strength or a reliable guarantee against 
destruction by a substantially smaller and weaker power."  --Hannah Arendt