[Buddha-l] The Toulmiin link [Prebyters}

[Richard Hayes]

On Aug 10, 2009, at 1:20 PM, Jim Peavler wrote:

> I meant to mention that perhaps Buddha wouldn't approve of shooting
> scotsmen on sight.

The Buddha was not generally in favor of taking the life of sentient  
beings. Whether that covers Scots or not has never been decided.

You may be one of the few people alive who would be interested to know  
that one of the questions that caused enormous conflict in the Indian  
abhidharma tradition was whether a kilt has one color or many. Some  
argued that a kilt has many colors. And since a single color is a  
single dharma, it follows that a piece of plaid cloth has many  
dharmas. What a stir THAT caused, since it would mean that a Scot's  
kilt has more dharmas than a monk's robe. That would obviously never  
do. So other adhidharma experts came to the rescue and argued that a  
kilt is made up of a single color, called "variegated (citra)". That  
great punster Dharmakīrti said that this doctrine was indeed very  
"citra" (a word that means not only variegated but astonishing).  
Imagine what a headache it is to translate a Sanskrit punster into  
English. Makes me think maybe punsters should be kilt. But I digress.  
The main point is that the Scots with their kilts almost caused a  
schism in Buddhism. You can be sure that if Schopen knew anything  
about abhidharma, he would write a book about the Scottish Buddhist  
schism. It would have a title like the Ochre Orthodox Meets the Gaelic  
Gotamids.

Richard