[Buddha-l] Batchelor

[Joy Vriens]

Allan wrote:

So much of human behavior can be seen as a kind of flight from

> contingency.
>

Something bothers me in the choice of the word flight. Perhaps that's what I
couldn't put my finger on. The word flight in connexion to Buddhism, then
again to moving away from Buddhism, moving away from a Unconditioned (where
who knows what people could hide there), ready even to amputate the notions
of Unconditioned and anything escaping our control.

Flight is a judgement on those who "flee reality", contingency, truth,
"things as they are" etc. by those who have access to those "things" or who
know how to get access to them and give conferences and teachings on that
topic. "Flight" suggests that the person using that word knows that
something is being fled, what that something is, that it would be better to
not flee that something, but that people for various reasons (ignorance,
stubbornness, rebellion...) do flee it to their own disadvantage. It
suggests that they know what is better for those people. The old
the-wise-and-the-foolish syndrom.

There are so many ways of fleeing and there can be so many examples of "not
fleeing" (and its soothing effects) itself being a form of fleeing reality,
that I can't see whether one can actually get anywhere with it. Not fleeing
is not necessarily the answer. And what was the question and who asked it?

There, I feel suspicious of the word flight and of those using it. I sense
an attempt to manipulate. For my own good no doubt.

Joy