[Buddha-l] Re: Natural lucidity for Socrates

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Dan, 

<world, especially its eastern portions. But often when one advocates a 
theory of influence (e.g., the Greeks got it from the Indians; or the 
Indians got it from the Greeks) for which the evidence is meager, it is more 
expression of one's own values and identifications than a fair or accurate 
description of history. Oh, these Greeks seem to have been working on this 
"good" idea at that time -- but Greeks are bozos compared to wise 
chakra-enhanced Indians, so these good ideas must have been imported to them 
from India rather than native born.>> 

Yes, but what to think of references in Greek litterature to Indian influences. What if e.g. Pyrrhon's contemporary Antigone de Caryste (sorry I will have to give you the French rendering) writes about how Pyrrhon lived a retreated solitary life due to an Indian sage telling off his master Anaxarque for his links with the powerful. And in that context what to think about the anecdote of Anaxarque's praising Pyrrhon for his indifference, his detachment, when he fell in a swamp and Pyrrhon simply walked by? Were retreat and disengagement from the life of the City typical Greek features? What about the admiration of Alexander the Great and his compagnons for the exploits of the naked sages? Victor Brochard, not really a cakra junkie, even presumed Pyrrhon's school was infuenced by the precepts of the Buddha, whom he must have thought to be one of those Brachmans... 
BTW did the cakra ideology already exist in those days? 

<the famous four-cornered negation (x is, x is not, both, neither) come to 
India from Greece (Gorgias, Plato's contemporary, is recorded to have used 
it), perhaps brought by Phyrro? Since there is no *written* proof, one can 
argue, all the attempts to put such ideas back to the time of the Buddha are 
later fabrications retroactively interpolated. While that's probably not the 
case, disproving such a claim would be no easy task.>> 

It can also be found in Plato's Theætetus. 
You wrote elsewhere http://www.hm.tyg.jp/~acmuller/yogacara/thinkers/nagarjuna-bio-asc.htm that it was possible that Sariputta and Moggallana introduced the tetralemmic method to Buddhism. Have you since then reached any other conclusion or idea about that? 

>I am not sure I would be able to tell the difference between a non-mental 
experience of pantheism, neoplatonic monism or the equality of all dharmas 
in their essence or a simple transe. 

<<Read some of the early Church Fathers. The hairs they split to differentiate 
one sect from another, one heresy from another, etc., can quickly highlight 
contrasts.>> 

But it is as you say hair splitting. It's a human tendancy to want to distinguish ourselves even more strongly from those who ressemble us most. And it is a lot about defining oneself, power, politics and marketing etc. and probably only that. Look at the treatment e.g. the quietists got for their oraison mentale. If the distinctive signs of God or Jesus are missing in the experience, it can't be genuin. Or the polemics about whatever non-dualistic experience mahamudra stands for: if it isn't achieved through hathayogicish means, it can't be the genuin one. The path one follows needs to have all the path-specific characteristics, but the (ultimate) result(s), even more so, or otherwise it could support the idea that the result could have been attained by other paths. The horror! 

<<On the other hand, they could distort and conflate the Others 
into an Other just as easily (that was sort of the purpose). Even better, 
get two Monists or non-dualists in a room together and watch the differences 
and name-calling fly. Very instructive. ("You're non-dualism is not as good 
as my non-dualism because...")>>

:-) Seen it, been there, even done it, probably still doing it

Joy 
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