Tathagatism Re: [Buddha-l] Re: Buddhist family life

[Joy Vriens]

Bonjour buddha-l,     
      
      
Cordialement,       

Joy Vriens       
joy at vrienstrad.com        
14/12/2006     
      
Votre message:    

-----   
De :  Richard Hayes   
À :  Buddhist discussion forum   
Date : 2006-12-13, 22:07:04  
Sujet : [Buddha-l] Re: Buddhist family life  



  
>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. 

Buddhism interests me, because of my past, because it was the angle from which I first started to really reflect on life and so it is always there as a sort of reference point, but I can't say I would call myself a Buddhist. To be a Buddhist one seems to have to carry along too much history and culture and I don't need any culture or history to drag along. It would be more accurate if I called myself a Tathagatist, because basically it is the "tathagata" that seems to interest me and that I imagine I recognise in the teachings of the various Buddhist and non-Buddhist traditions. 

When I was first introduced into Buddhism, I was explained that the Tathagata was just another name for the Buddha. So when I read texts wherein the Buddha himself talked about the Tathagata I thought he was a bit weird and that he was suffering from Julius Caesar's disease. Later I explained this weird feature as a consequence of the canon being compiled by others in times where the Buddha had become a god or a superman. Now I know that the Buddha was simply talking about the tathagata, an atemporal mode AKA nirvana, the deathless etc. 

I see all Buddhist traditions and even many non-Buddhist traditions as centered on or more or less directly gravitating around "tathagata", because I like to make everything over in my own deepest image, where the only thing "own" is that I reify and approriate it when I make it into an object. That those suffering from dhaatuphobia relax, the tathagata isn't ontic if they want it that way.

Joy