[Buddha-l] Time to call it a day?

[Richard Hayes]

Dear denizens,

David Loy was in New Mexico this week and made several appearances in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. At a talk he gave at University of New Mexico, he said (somewhat casually) that perhaps the time has come to stop using labels such as Buddhism and to talk instead of human transformation or something like that. Perhaps focusing too much on Buddhism just gets in the way of the important task before us. 

I think Loy's comment may have been the fourth or fifth time in the past month or so I have heard someone say something very much along those lines. I've heard Buddhists say it may be time to drop the label "Buddhism," and I've heard Vedantins say much the same about "Vedanta", and Christians say much the same thing about "Christianity" and Quakers say the same thing about "Quakerism". Dropping labels that keep sticking to our fingers and gumming up the workings of our minds seems to be in the air these days. As a fan of Candrakīrti, of course, I am perfectly delighted by all these label-shedding intentions. The only thing about this trend I find a little disturbing is that people keep wanting to call it something. But why?

Richard