[Buddha-l] Batchelor

[Joy Vriens]

Herman,

I am very much in favour of SB's critical and creative thinking,
without agreeing with everything he writes. It's stimulating, it
creates debates and therefore invites to more reflection. I am
naturally inclined to follow his line of thinking about
karma-and-reincarnation and wouldn't even call my natural inclination
as agnostic, but I use them as useful perspectives. Like I can use the
idea of Nature. If Nature is everything present to us, are we equally
present to her? We only have five tiny deficient sensory holes and a
coordinating feature to grasp Nature. There is what is present to us
and what we are able to grasp or choose to grasp. What about that
which falls out of our scope? What about grasping everything in its
totality? Impossible, I agree, but we can still talk about it and
think about it. It can even be very useful as a perspective. Thinking
about Totality (the elephant) is metaphysics. One can get rid of it,
but one will lose what I consider to be a very useful perspective.
Look at how drawings in perspective were made in the past (before
CAD). Everything in the drawing is existence, but the drawing is in
perspective thanks to vanishing points outside the drawing. Does a
horizon exist? Has anyone ever reached the horizon? Has anyone ever
gone all the way to the polar star? Would navigation have been
possible in the past without it? Etc. etc. (this means I don't have
time and should go to work).

Even a "scientific" causality (if it existed) would have a hopelessly
limited scope, and because of the limited scope would be partially
blind. It could tell you everything about the elephant's trunk.
"Everything" being whatever is of interest to them in the elephant's
trunk and that would be considered "on topic" and within the scope.

Same goes for karma-and-reincarnation with its extremely limited
scope. As a pedagogical perspective it can have some use. IMO it's for
that reason that Buddhism decided that it is the intention behind the
act and not the act itself that creates the effect, which otherwise
would have been a serious mistake. An "act" has millions of effects in
all directions. I don't know about the effect nor the direction of the
effect of the intention-behind-the act. Karma-and-reincarnation only
considers the intention behind the act of an individual and a very
limited scope of specific effects of that intention on the very same
(?) individual. It's more about psychology than about causality or
reality. Everything is coloured through one's psychology of course. So
there can be some truth and value in this perspective if handled with
care. Same goes for the Unconditioned.

I can't see how SB can get by without mythical, metaphysical...
teleological notions? What is motivating him, what does he want to
achieve? What is his perspective?

Joy