[Buddha-l] Batchelor

[Joy Vriens]

Herman wrote:

>
> Alas, you seem to have all sorts of gloomy associations when you hear
> 'existentialism' mentioned.  Well, we could also, without changing
> the content, call Batchelor's 'buddhist existentialism' an
> 'eudaimonistic' theory, and make everybody happy.
>
>
It's actually a combination of factors, drawing a general line, and within a
given context, that evokes the gloomy associations. To keep it short,
Buddhism without Beliefs, the exclusion of anything transcendental and
existentialism. Following the general trend, Buddhism is being rationalised
and the rationalisation is made possible thanks to a long Western tradition
still marked by viewing Buddhism as a sort of cult of nothingness (Roger-Pol
Droit). It seems that anything that plunges its roots in imagination, in
ideals and myths needs to be weeded out. The problem IMO is that by doing
this we are sawing the branch of motivating power that we are sitting on.
Happiness and motivation are linked. Imagination, ideals and myths are not
the worse thing that can happen to us.

The irony is that "not running away from suffering" is just another
imagination. It's a self-fulfilling injunction that appeals to the
imagination just like any other injunction. One will always see what one is
looking for. It's a myth to believe that merely by removing every illusion,
"not running away from suffering" (perhaps in the heroic interventionist
tradition of the West even searching for suffering) and by sticking to what
is, one will find happiness. I am caricaturing on purpose here.


> Speaking for myself, I've always thought that the impossible task of
> the bodhisattva to save alle sentient beings is perfectly portrayed
> in Camus' 'Myth of Sisyphus'.


The impossible task of the bodhisattva is perfectly portrayed in itself.
Disinterested action is perfectly portrayed in itself. I don't think it is
perfectly portrayed in 'Myth of Sisyphus'. Judging the West by the East and
the East by the West doesn't always guarantee for the best portraits. One
doesn't get the same results when the goal itself is considered more
important than the path and the path is judged by the realisation of the
goal as it was stated. Utilitarianism, pragmatism and rationalisation are
destructive robots. Once set in motion, they are hard to stop and where will
they stop?


> The famous last sentence of that book
> reads : "The struggle itself is enough to fill a man's heart. One
> must imagine Sisyphus happy" , (let's all thank Wikipedia for the
> english translation).
>
>
The word struggle combined with happiness shows the bias of a heroic ideal.
Some translations of Bodhisattva show the same bias. It's a Western point of
view IMO.


> As for Batchelor, his idea is that one should not run away from
> suffering, but one should welcome it, investigate it and discover it
> as the First Noble Truth. Realizing the other three Noble Truths will
> necessarily follow, the four Truths form a causal chain, remember
>

Necessarily and causal chain? Another robot? The image of Chaplin's Modern
Times pops up.


> ?  "Amor fati" is therefore what is needed, (oops, more Nietzsche).
>

Ah, now you are talking. Amor... Where does Amor come from?

Joy