[Buddha-l] Looking for an article/paper

[JKirkpatrick]

A Buddhist response:
http://www.dharmalife.com/issue19/comment.html

The book itself:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Yi0oi8C1nQgC

It would be interesting to analyze, side-by-side, Paul Williams'
and Stephen Batchelor's retrospective accounts of their
adventures in Buddhism prior to turning to Catholicism and
Atheism, respectively. 
There's got to be at least a good Master's thesis in that.

Curt
______________________________

Reading Vishvapani's dharmalife article:
"Jung believed that while westerners could gain inspiration from
eastern traditions, they should not adopt them because those
traditions were alien to the archetypes that are the fundamental
constructs of the western psyche. He suggested that true
fulfillment can only be apprehended through the myths and symbols
of one's own culture." 

JK:
Jung did not know much about the myths and the folklore motifs of
India/South Asia, not to leave out the rest of Asia. If he had,
he would not have found them to be alien. Maybe when he visited
India he was distracted by contacts mainly with swamis and
Vedantins.

If he had been a scholar of the cultural traditions of South or
East Asia, say, he might have realised that they share many of
the archetypes he thought were limited to the European (or
"western") traditions.
The great mother is one such archetype, shared universally across
the various complex civilisations: eastern and western Europe
(and the Euro Americas); India and Indonesia, Southeast Asia and
East Asia, Aztecs, some native American cultures, also. The hero
father, the virgin. Etc. Impossible to enumerate the long list
here.

Jung felt a personal diffidence about Indian culture and
"mysticism," probably because of multiple exposures to the sappy
popular Orientalism prevalent in the "west" before and during his
lifetime.
(I state this as a recollection from his memoir, Memories,
Dreams, Reflections, but admit that I don't have it to check up
on at this point.)   

Vishvapani goes on to say: "Buddhism may never feel completely
natural to westerners until it has been re-expressed in the
language, symbols and archetypes of their own culture. This can
only be achieved over many generations. "

JK:
Really? So, pray tell, what are the archetypes that V. considers
to belong to their (our) own culture?  He does not say. 
If Buddhists stopped being hung up on Buddha images and Asian
rituals, and instead learned about the folk literatures of
Buddhist countries, the archetypes would begin to surface as
similar to their own. Aliens no more.



Joanna