[Buddha-l] Re: Buddhist family life

[Richard Hayes]

On Wednesday 13 December 2006 07:24, curt wrote:
 
> And yet these supposedly antifoundationalist Buddhists persist in
> believing in ghosts, demons, nagas, hell realms, heaven realms, out of
> the body experiences, telepathy, astrology, oracular divination, Gods,
> Goddesses, past life memories, etc.

Such beliefs have no bearing on epistemological foundationalism. 
Foundationalism has to do with how one claims that one's beliefs are 
justified, not with what one believes.

> Just 
> last week I attended the opening ceremony of a new Tendai Buddhist
> Temple in the Washington DC area. It was about as postmodernist as a
> Baptist prayer meeting.

Ceremonies are ceremonies. There is nothing especially pre-modern, modern or 
post-modern about the ceremonies themselves. There could, of couse, be 
varieties of interpretations of what the ceremnies signify.

> I think the resemblance between postmodernism and "actual" Buddhism is
> more apparent than real.

As I said, there are many forms of Buddhism. Many of the intellectual 
traditions of Indian Buddhism share features with what some people nowadays 
call postmodernism. As I have said, I don't have much enthusiasm for the term 
myself, but I have some understanding of what some people mean when they use 
it,and what they are describing does fit much of Indian Buddhism rather well.

Benito's remarks suggest to me that everything he dislikes about what he calls 
postmodernism is found in abundance in early Buddhism. What he really seems 
to despise is Indian Buddhism. He seems to prefer some version of 
neo-Confucianism with a dab of Sino-Buddhist parfum behind the ears. I can't 
say as I blame him. I don't much like Indian Buddhism myself anymore. The 
older I get, the less what Buddhists called the highest good (parama-artha) 
appeals to me and the more I strongly value the things that Buddhists tended 
to dismiss as lesser goods (samv.rti-satya). The most honest way to deal with 
my tastes, I think, is to acknowledge that Buddhism does not much interest me 
these days; that is preferable to trying to make Buddhism over in my own 
image, as Benito is wont to try to do.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes