[Buddha-l] Buddhas Meditation

[Dan Lusthaus]

Richard notes, re: my "approach":

>An ethicist looking at your approach to ethical discussions would note that 
>you follow a textbook model of consequentialism.

And comments a bit later:

> Read up on virtue ethics. It is pretty clear you don't quite grasp what 
> that approach to ethics is about. I'll supply a reading list in the near 
> future.

There is a disease currently circulating among Analytic philosophers which 
has infected those purporting to do Buddhist philosophy with an Analytic 
manner, called "pin the label on the thinker or idea." It has replaced 
thinking, evaluating, working through, or what used to be called 
philosophizing. The joke of course is that the labels never fit (since like 
the kid's game it is fashioned after, participants are blindfolded 
concerning their target, so the label intended to portray someone as an ass 
misses the ass). The disease also resembles the "bop-the-gopher-popping-up" 
(or whatever that game is called), in which the labeler, with mallet 
(malice?) in hand awaits any actual idea to pop up in order to slam it down 
with a label.

I've been innoculated against this.

Since I was addressing the positions and arguments offered by Richard, and 
he himself characterized those as virtue-ethics, the disconnect occurred 
long before I popped out of the hole to get bopped.


> Will all due respects, I doubt very much that you have even the faintest 
> idea how the world looks from a redwood's perspective.

That's what Huishi (Hui-shih) said to Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) when Zhuangzi 
commented that the fish swimming below the bridge on which they were 
standing were happy. My response is the same as Zhuangzi's (it's the last 
story in ch. 17 of the Zhuangzi).

>> On the other hand, I am glad to hear that Richard is working out, staying
>> fit, and feeling good.
>
> Gee, I should have thought you would have thought it dangerous [...]

Guessed wrong again. Guess I know how redwoods think better than you know 
how I think.

cheers, and keep up the good work.

Dan