[Buddha-l] Buddha's Meditation

[Franz Metcalf]

Gang,

I'm not answering Richard's question. But will that stop me from  
replying? Don't answer that question.

Richard opined,

> My guess is that if the saying does turn out to have a
> Buddhist provenience, it is not used to promote religious
> pluralism of the sort that Rāmakṛṣṇa and Vivekānanda
> advocated. Like the story of the blind men and the
> elephant, as used by Buddhists, I'd guess the well
> analogy would have a triumphalist purport.

I agree. And, to the list of Buddhist triumphalist texts hidden in  
plain sight, I would add the locus classicus for supposed Buddhist  
scientific openness: the "Kalama Sutta." (For the text see <http://tinyurl.com/qcele 
 >.) In it, as we all remember, the Buddha does indeed call on people  
not to believe or follow religions (or anything paths) for reasons of  
myth, logic, respect, tradition, and so on. But he does not do this  
because he is open in some modern, scientific way to all evidence.  
Quite the opposite (in my reading, at least). He does this because he  
is entirely convinced of his own unfalsifiable experience! That,  
fellow beings, makes for a lovely religion, but it does not make for  
science. So, like the elephant story and the well story, we again see  
Buddhist triumphalism reaching right back to its founder.

As if we should have expected something different?

Good wishes nevertheless,

Franz Metcalf