[Buddha-l] Fsat Mnifdlunses?

[Richard Hayes]

On Aug 14, 2009, at 9:15 PM, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> As for the Canadian Health
> care system, some of what I am hearing from Canadian colleagues and  
> friends
> who are getting to that age when health care really matters do not  
> make me
> envious.

You'll be wanting to get a copy of the Canadian news weekly magazine  
MacLeans. A recent issue features an editorial by some troglodyte who  
claims that Canadian health care systems are responsible for a culture  
of mediocrity. He claims that only free enterprise gives men the  
testosterone they need to do anything worthwhile. Boy, is that ever  
true, eh? Ever seen any mediocrity in America? No, eh? So I guess the  
guy at MacLeans was right, eh? Lots of people from Alberta think the  
way he does. But then lots of people from Alberta think Sarah Palin is  
the smartest politician to come on the scene since Warren G. Harding  
(who, according to some historians, was America's first black  
president).

As for your Canadian colleagues and friends (of which I'm sure you  
have several thousand, enough to do a careful scientific random-sample  
polling of the sort that would provide you with what you would regard  
as a fact), ask them which province they live in. Each province has a  
different health-care plan. I think the best by far is the one in  
Québec, but even the worst of them (Alberta's, I think) puts the  
American system to shame. But don't worry. There is no danger that  
you'll ever live to see a reasonable health-care policy in the United  
States, so I hope there is a good moxibustion therapist in your  
neighborhood. As for me, I'll make due with good Mexican curanderismo  
fortified by some Navajo sings.

> Just to clarify a few points: Those who put emphasis on ni"scaya  
> were doing
> so within the pramana system, i.e., one's judgements/ 
> decisions/"certainties"
> are not arbitrary, but derived through rigorous epistemological  
> means. That
> begins with Asanga, gets further polished by Vasubandhu, Dignaga,
> Dharmakirti and beyond (i.e., those Yogacaras we needn't be  
> concerned about
> getting right).

If you were a reliable source, I would take your word for it. Given,  
however, that I know that Dignāga was not at all interested in  
niścaya, I can see you have made at least one enormous mistake in your  
characterization of the pramānavādins. Dharmakīrti all but destroyed  
the careful epistemological structure that Dignāga had built by  
injecting into it all kinds of ideas that did not belong there: the  
bankrupt doctrine of two truths, the laughable concept of niścaya  
(certainty), the ridiculous dogma of radical momentariness, etc. Alas,  
the work of the hack commentator Dharmakīrti all but overshadowed the  
philosophically astute text of the master Dignāga. (As for whether  
either Dignāga or Dharmakīrti was a Yogacārin, the evidence is  
anaikāntika; hence, we can have no niścaya on the matter.)

> Without Buddhavacana there is no Buddhism.

Is that something you know through direct sensory experience or  
through inference? The last time I checked, those were the only two  
sources of knowledge accepted by the pramāṇavādins. Given that your  
claim is not the sort of thing that can be experienced directly  
through the senses, I'm assuming you have arrived at your conclusion  
through inference. So exactly is the form of your inference. What is  
the pakṣa? What is the hetu? What is the sādhyadharma? On the basis  
of what considerations are you confident that there is a vyāpti  
relationship between the sādhyadharma and the sādhanadharma? Where  
are your dṛṣṭāntas? Or are you suggesting that pramāṇa theory  
has made great strides forward in the twenty-first century and that  
modern pramāṇavādins now accept a third pramāṇa, namely,  
sukhagṛhavacana (the word of Lusthaus)?

Richard