[Buddha-l] Bourgeois Buddhism

[Jo]

Yes, the main developments of metaphysics came later than the life of the
Buddha.
In my opinion Buddhist 'metaphysics', so-called (it was not called that in
the Buddha's time) is a specialist subject. Few self-claimed Buddhists, of
any type, bother with it.

The other considerations brought up here belong to the anthropology, or if
you like the sociology, of Buddhism-- as a culture of beliefs and
practices-- in different times and places, among social groups as well as
among individual persons.

Thus, broad generalisations about who is or is not a Buddhist, about any of
it, are not possible, except as a parlor game.  I agree with whomever it was
who brought up characterising Buddhism in terms of conventional reality.
Conventional reality is not truth with a capital T, nor is Truth even
possible in physics or astronomy. Sciences are being revised continually, it
is the role of science to test and revise hypotheses (as someone else
pointed out). Truth historically has been mooted by philosophers, including
Ultimate or Absolute Truth as one of their categories, but they are not
scientists. Those promoting metaphysics will argue conventional truth, but
they end up subscribing to absolute truth.  

Joanna
__________________

I agree with this, but here on it´s difficult: metaphysics is something
that, it seems, the historical Buddha didn´t put much stock into.

F
-------------------------------
On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 1:53 PM, Stefan Detrez <stefan.detrez at gmail.com>
wrote:
............ Maybe metaphysics is a good starting point as is suggested by
most of you active in this thread.
>
> Stefan