[Buddha-l] Buddha's Meditation

[Richard Hayes]

On Jul 6, 2011, at 20:27 , Franz Metcalf wrote:

> I think that, as Bruce Burrill points out, The Lotus Sutra  
> is triumphalist. But is the early layer of the suttas? Perhaps not in  
> the sense that the Abrahamic scriptures demand followers to be. So  
> should employ a different word for Buddhist self-pride?

As far as I know, the term "triumphalism" gained currency during the time of the Second Vatican Council, where it was used as part of an apology that the Catholic church issued for its past behaviors. The term was defined rather carefully as the mistaken assumption that one's worldly triumphs were a reflection of spiritual superiority. In other words, Christians were indulging in triumphalism when they believed that their religion had prevailed in Europe and the Americas because of the spiritual superiority of Christians over pagans, while failing to realize that the victory of the conquistadores over the Apaches may have had something to do with gunpowder, horses, steel helmets and other technological advances that made it easier for them to satisfy their greedy desires than it was for the Apaches to satisfy theirs.

Sangharakshita borrowed the term directly from the Second Vatican Council (or so he says) and applied it to some of the attitudes one finds in Buddhist literature, and he warns Buddhists to be careful not to take worldly achievements as signs of spiritual prowess. With that warning, he notes that Buddhists have historically exhibited triumphalism in various ways. Terms like "mahāyāna" are expressions of it. Even such words as "viparyāsa" (inverted view) exhibit an assumption that one is in a privileged position of superior insight from which one can deem everyone who sees things differently as delusional. 

I began using the term "triumphalism" after reading Sansgharakshita's writings on the subject, and I have used it in ways that he would probably not approve. The difference between me and Sangharakshita (aside from the fact that he has more hair and less belly fat) is that he is convinced that Buddhism IS superior in most important ways to Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Christianity. So when he warns against triumphalism, he seems to be warning against making spurious and fatuous claims to superiority, as opposed to accurate and well-grounded claims. I disagree with him on that score, because I tend to see ANY claim to any kind of superiority as ipso facto spurious and fatuous. I think Buddhist teachings are pretty good much of the time, and I think that one can find ways of looking at almost any religion as being pretty good much of the time. This is a decidedly modern (or perhaps post-modern) way of being Buddhist, although I would claim that one can find adumbrations of this way of being Buddhist in the writings of some Mādhyamikas.

Needless to say, I don't much care whether anyone agrees with me. Eschewing the version of triumphalism that I  eschew has not hindered me in any ways that I can recognize. What I mean by that is that I am pretty much exactly the sort of person I hoped I would be when I began developing a taste for a particular approach to life. If I am not the sort of person that others wish I were, then I invite them to make modest adjustments in their expectations.

> Oh, and I don't know about others, but, Dan, I promise that though I  
> am aware that stars don't give a damn about me, and that the planet is  
> doomed, I shall still try to be the more loving one. And that is, I  
> hope, moral.

The device that my father taught me, which involved learning to see my own misfortunes as trivial in the greater scheme of things, has perhaps been a factor in my cheerful outlook on life (although credit may go to something else, such as my DNA). To teach one's child how not to feel sorry for himself is, I would say, profoundly moral, especially when it is accompanied by an insistence that one leave one's campsite cleaner than one found it and that one always listen to other people's stories with a sympathetic ear and refrain from being too quick to call them fools and scoundrels. I might add I also appreciate his advice to eat lots of raisins and other foods rich in irony.


Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM