[Buddha-l] Batchelor

[Zelders.YH]

Joanna wrote :

>So has anyone here read Batchelor's latest book yet--I read it and 
>hope for a discussion.
>Anyone? Herman?
>Joanna

OK.  First, I like Batchelor, and I find his 'Confession of a 
Buddhist Atheist' quite interesting. I read it a couple of weeks ago 
and this is the gist of what I got from it.
The book contains an autobiographical sketch with some new facts, a 
virtual biography (nice !) of the Buddha in which B. presents some 
little known data from the commentarial literature, and an attempt at 
a construction of what might be called a critical buddhist 
existentialism, in which the notion of causality is crucial.
There is of course causally conditioned existence, analyzed by the 
Buddha as the pratityasamutpada, then there are the Four Noble Truths 
that together form a causal chain in themselves, and there is the 
Noble Eightfold Path, again a causal chain acc. to B. . There seems 
to be nothing outside of conditioned existence in B.'s thinking. The 
notion of the 'Unconditioned'  as a possible escape from conditioned 
existence is done away with.
Awakening, liberation, or what shall we call it, is a kind of 
paradoxical freedom found within conditioned existence by using 
causality - (against itself I nearly wrote) - in a more intelligent 
way, following the Buddha's core teaching.  B. suggests that this 
reading comes close to the Buddha's original intentions. All this 
without ideas like karma and reincarnation. Certain spontaneous 
enlightening experiences (let's not call them mystical) may 
strenghten one's sense of direction. "Transcendence" - for lack of a 
better word -  is found in raw amazement ; why is there something and 
not nothing. 'Emptiness' is nothing but an empty abstraction and a 
notion like 'Original Mind' is a confusing phantasy.

One might find it refreshing, one might be apalled. I think it is a 
brave intellectual exercise by a very serious very committed 
skeptical buddhist stoic.
But it's late now in my timezone and I'm going to bed. Don't shoot 
the pianoplayer as he sleeps.

Herman

PS: Joy wrote :

>My remark about karma and reincarnation is a boutade. It's not so much
>I want to get rid of them entirely. They have been a wonderful
>intellectual punching ball for me and still are. I do regret regret
>the excessive attention attributed to them and what many people do
>with them.

Happy punching !