From owner-BUDDHA-L@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Sun Oct 10 16:06:10 1993 Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 16:01:22 -0400 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 9 Oct 1993 to 10 Oct 1993 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests There is one message totalling 123 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Epistemology of Iconography ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1993 07:11:47 EST From: Richard P Hayes Subject: Epistemology of Iconography On 6 October, Galen Amstutz asked an interesting series of questions, to which no one has yet provided an answer. I certainly can't answer any of them, but perhaps I can say something erroneous enough to prompt one of our many learned readers into offering a more correct answer. Galen's first question is: What is the exact status of visual arts, etc. in Buddhist epistemology? Although I am not aware of any explicit discussions of this in classical Indian texts, I think it is safe to conclude that art forms such as visual representation in painting and statuary, and also dance and music, would have the same epistemological status as spoken language. Like language, the arts are capable of expressing concepts, because they make use of signs (or symbols, if you prefer that term) that are governed by conventions. One who views a sculpture, for example, gets the message of the artifact only if she knows the many conventions by which the sculptor communicates. One who knows nothing whatsoever about the particularities of Buddhist iconography would not be able to understand a Buddhist statue much better than he would be able to understand a dharma talk in a foreign language that he had never studied. In other words, statues (and dance and even music) do not communicate anything directly and immediately about reality; insofar as they communicate anything, it is through signs that must be interpreted by a set of established conventions, very much as spoken or written language is interpreted. An epistemologist such as Dharmakiirti would therefore say of art forms (as he says of spoken or written sentences) that they can serve as indications of the mentalities of the person who made them. That is, they can tell the viewer what the person who made them wished to communicate. Of course there is never any absolute certainty that one's interpretation of an artifact is completely accurate; the meaning the viewer gets out of a work may not be quite the meaning the artisan intended to put into it. Moreover, there is no certainty that the artisan's ideas conformed to reality. Therefore, works of art (like spoken and written sentences) can never put one in direct touch with the truth. At best, they can serve as signposts that help one discover the truth for oneself. And of course they can serve as singposts only to those who know how to read the signs. This is a pretty accurate statement of Dharmakiirti's position, and I think most Buddhist epistemologists would follow him in this. Galen asks a series of supplementary questions: > a) Are such forms of communication part of "language?" If so, > what are the best examples of texts that discuss arts, etc. clearly > as such, and subject them to the same kind of deconstructive > critique? My source of information is Dharmakiirti's Pramaa.navaarttika. It does not discuss art as a form of communication different from language, but it does discuss symbols in general. I'm afraid if it's deconstructive criticism you're after, the earliest text I can cite is Robert Magliola's _Derrida on the Mend_ (1984), in which one can find a clever but entirely wrong-headed interpretation of Naagaarjuna as a critic of logocentrism. (Sorry, Galen, but deconstruction and I just don't get along. I think deconstruction should be permanently marginalized, along with the phlogiston theory of combustion and Freudian psychology. I'm unabashedly logocentric. But it's okay; I have tenure.) > c) From a comparative viewpoint, can we speculate why the analytical > critique of the majority aspect of communications in Buddhist > tradition (i.e. arts etc.) might not come forwards more clearly as a > subject of philosophical study? Sure, let's speculate. My guess is that it was because Abhinavagupta was not a Buddhist (although he was intellectually indebted to Dharmakiirti). As far as I am aware, nobody's analytical tradition had a serious philosophical study of non-verbal forms of communication before Abhinavagupta came along, and he didn't come along until Buddhism was a dying whimper in India. > d) Can we speculate what great Buddhist masters would advise about > this? On the trisvabhava scheme, would arts etc. be parikalpita? > or paratantra? John Makransky, would you field this one? (Sorry, but I can just barely handle one svabhaava at a time, and when those dextrous Yogaacaarins do that wonderful act where they juggle three svabhaavas at once, I can only gasp with awestruck bewilderment. Among other things, I marvel at the fact that nondualists can find so many svabhaavas, while we pluralists can find only one.) But I interrupted. The rest of Galen's question was: > Another way to put it would be: what is the exact epistemological > status of upaya most broadly conceived in Buddhist theory? And are > sambhogakayas a form of upaya? As I understand it, religious statues are sambhogakaaya, but only when they have been consecrated. And the sambhogakaaya nature of even a consecrated statue is manifest only to people who have pure mentalities endowed with a sufficient amount of faith and who know the "language" of iconography. Termites and other sentient but uninitiated beings (such as the little boy who thought the emperor was wearing no cloths) think the statue is just a block of wood. (There is no record of what Pinocchio thought about the matter. We'll have to ask the ghost of Carlo Collodi.) Now, Galen, I have a question for you. If a termite sees a Buddha image as a mere block of wood and does not superimpose socially mediated conceptualizations upon it, and if the termite becomes one with the statue by eating it, is the termite not considerably more enlightened than a) the pious devotee who grovels around in the dirt at the foot of the statue and b) the professor of comparative religions who shows coloured diapositives of iconography to classrooms filled with squirming adolescents whose minds are filled only with fantasies about pizza and sex? Just wondering. Richard Pinocchio Hayes Faculty of Religious Studies McGill University Montreal, Quebec ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 9 Oct 1993 to 10 Oct 1993 ************************************************** From taoism-l-owner@coombs.anu.edu.au Wed Oct 13 11:46:57 1993 Via: uk.ac.cardiff; Wed, 13 Oct 1993 16:33:39 +0100 To: taoism-l@coombs.anu.edu.au From: Bill Fear Date: 13 Oct 93 16:33:21 GMT Subject: ttc and enlightenment Priority: normal I have been involved in a discussion with as regards enlightenment and the tao teh ching. The discussion originated as a result of my posting on the translating of the tao teh ching. I do not intend to put forward the discussion so far, but we have agreed to continue the discussion on the list rather than in private. In brief I hold to the view that their is a single enlightenment. I am aware that other schools of thought exist and that some propose that their are different forms of enlightenment. To a certain extent I remain unconcerned with the view of a variety of enlightenments. This topic is indeed worthy of discussion but it requires more thought on my part before I say any more. A particularly pressing question for myself is who can achieve enlightenment. My own view is that anybody can become enlightened. The person in question need not be a good, moral, pure person etc. Indeed, Margaret Thatcher could have achieved enlightenment as could any number of notorious historical characters.(please make allowance for my emergent prejudice.). Just because a person achieves enlightenment does it make them a good person. I would argue not. That is part of the value of documents such as the ttc and the zen precepts - also of the discipline required for the martial arts. They prepare us for enlightenment/attainment/achievement/self mastery etc. and thus we are able to realise it and to use it fruitfully as appropriate. However, just because someone does not do the martial arts, does not follow taoism, etc. this does not preclude them from the experience of enlightenment. Having achieved enlightenment it is not then here to stay. It must be earned continuously and no matter what is done it is likely to come and go. In brief - enlightenment is not cloud cuckoo land. One further point. At times that are great people in this world who make contributions to which a value cannot be attatched - the contribution is simply to great and to profound. Take Van Gogh in the art world for example. These people inevitably come under attack as they are prepared to challenge existing preconceptions. Once the person is no longer physically with us their contribution becomes less recognised in its stand alone context. However, if we look closely we find that the fundemental tenets of their contribution permeate society to the core and exist no matter the abuse that the contribution may suffer - again take the example of Van Gogh and the selling of his paintings for stupid amounts of money. Alternativley let us consider the contribution of Freud, and the attacks made upon his work, or that of Bowlby and the misunderstandings that followed his theory of attatchment, etc. etc. This is not to say that the person or their contribution is beyond reproach or question, but the value of their contribution remains. (apologies for the inclusion of only a single sex in the examples above) Regards Bill Fear sed2wjf@uk.ac.cf From taoism-l-owner@coombs.anu.edu.au Wed Oct 13 15:27:46 1993 Date: Wed, 13 Oct 93 11:48:00 PDT From: aspin@lsil.com (David Aspinwall - 7842) To: taoism-l@coombs.anu.edu.au, SED2WJF@cardiff.ac.uk Subject: Re: ttc and enlightenment >In brief I hold to the view that their is a single enlightenment. I am >aware that other schools of thought exist and that some propose >that their are different forms of enlightenment. There is another possibility: that there is no such thing as "enlightenment" at all. Maybe those who claim to have experienced enlightenment have really experienced some altered form of consciousness which they mistakenly interpreted as enlightenment. Maybe some haven't actually experienced anything, but claim they have in order to make themselves look good, impress their superiors, etc. Why should we be any more ready to believe their claims than to believe Oral Roberts has long discussions with God? Is either claim verifiable? You mention martial arts. Do you really believe there is any equivalent to enlightenment in the martial arts? Isn't it possible that you just practice your taiji/gong fu/whatever every day, getting a little better each time, and gradually reach a high level, without suddenly going over some dividing line between unenlightened/enlightened? Saying there is a single form of enlightenment, or multiple forms, implies that there is some external, ultimate truth to be enlightened about. I'm not convinced this is true, and I don't think the TTC says this. The TTC may talk about people who have teh and follow tao, but this seems more like "getting in touch with the way things are" than "finally realizing the ultimate truth". -- David Aspinwall aspin@lsil.com 408-433-7842 From owner-BUDDHA-L@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Fri Oct 15 17:12:39 1993 Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 16:01:48 -0400 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 14 Oct 1993 to 15 Oct 1993 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests There are 8 messages totalling 337 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Bodhicitta (byang chub kyi sems) 2. Sanskrit fonts, Heart Sutra and Pali Dhammapada e-text on Coombspapers 3. Chinese Buddhism under Helmsman Mao 4. Sanskrit fonts for windows 5. Alexander Mayer's Publications 6. Numata-sponsored temple in D.C. area? (2) 7. Citta and related words ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 07:39:06 EST From: Richard P Hayes Subject: Bodhicitta (byang chub kyi sems) This is just a footnote to Robin Kornman's message yesterday on the translation of the Sanskrit terms "manas" and "citta". He suggests that the term "bodhicitta" is often translated as either "mind of enlightenment" or "thought of enlightenment". What he says is true, but I would add that a more suitable translation would be something like "desire for awakening". I would suggest "desire" for "citta" on two grounds. First, it is a verbal noun derived from the verb "cetati", which means one perceives, sees, notices, understands, aims at, desires, hopes for, longs for, cares about (according to Apte's Practical Sanskrit English Dictionary); consequently, "citta" means the act of perceiving, thinking, desiring, intending, etc. Given that bodhi isn't the sort of thing that one can perceive or see, it must be the sort of thing that one desires or longs for. Secondly, in texts where the compound "bodhicitta" is unpacked, it is usually explained in terms like this: "anuttaraayaam saymyaksa.mbodhau cittam chandam praarthanam" in which "citta" is glossed by the words "chanda" (desire) and (praarthana) intense longing for something. (These glosses appear in Kamala"siila's Bhaavanaakrama, in which he quotes the Raajaavavaadaka Suutra.) Robin also suggests that since Tibetans translated "manas" as "yid" and "citta" as "sems", there might appear to be some justification for using different words to translate "manas" and "citta" in English. Fortunately, Robin ends up advising against this option for calque translations and advises for much more nuanced treatment. One could add that even the Tibetan translators were by no means rigid. If you look up "yid" in Lokesh Chandra's Tibetan-Sanskrit Dictionary, you'll find that it was used as a translation for citta, buddhi, manas and maanasa; "sems" was used as a translation for aatman, citta, citti, cetanaa, cetas, mati, manas, sattva and h.rdaya. In other words, there is no consistency at all, when one looks at a large enough corpus, in the equation of either Tibetan term (yid, sems) with either Sanskrit term (citta, manas). One might add to all that the fact that "thugs" is used as an honourific term for both "yid" and "sems". If there were a really important difference between the terms, there would probably have been a different honourific form for each. As Robin says, the only way to treat these terms in English translation is to be aware of the multiplicity of meanings each has and to be very alert to the specific contexts in which they are used; any other treatment would be wooden and dead (and would therefore read like the hideous prose that one finds in 95% of the Buddhist texts that have been translated into English up to now.) My guess is that by the time we have learned how to express Buddhist terms in reasonable English, English will be a dead language (or only the language of some backwater continent located approximately between the Atlantic and the Pacific). Rather than translating things into English, shouldn't we be teaching people to read Asian languages? Richard Hayes cxev@musica.mcgill.ca Religious Studies McGill University Montreal, Quebec ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 09:59:25 EDT From: tmciolek@coombs.anu.edu.au Subject: Sanskrit fonts, Heart Sutra and Pali Dhammapada e-text on Coombspapers ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Colleagues, In the last few days the Coombspapers Research Data Bank at ANU (accessible via ftp and gopher to the coombs.anu.edu.au node) received from John Richards of Pembrokeshire (UK) Internet - jhr@elidor.demon.co.uk, CompuServe ID - 100113,1250 a number of files with Sanskrit fonts for a PC, his translation of of the Heart Sutra as well as his input of Dhammapada (in Pali) into the electronic format. These materials (marked with "+++") are now siting in the (substantially modified and reorganised) subdirectories of the Electronic Buddhist Archives. These are as follows: # # # DIRECTORY: /coombspapers/otherarchives/electronic-buddhist-archives Subdir: /buddhism-general/e-texts/information buddhist-etexts-info1.txt - 1990 list of machine-readable Buddhist texts projects buddhist-etexts-info2.txt - 1993 update on the machine-readable Pali Text project dharmanet-archives-93index.txt - Sep93 list of the DharmaNet Buddhist e-texts archive indic-fonts-for-wordperfect.txt - Aug93 data on sanskrit diacritic fonts for hp laserjets sanskrit-fonts-pc-romanised.txt - Oct93 data on Romanised Sanskrit True Type font for PC Windows 3.x +++ Subdir: /buddhism-general/e-texts/sutras-originals dhammapada-pali-diacrtcls.txt - Dhammapada sutra in Pali (with diacriticals) +++ dhammapada-pali-low-ascii.txt - Dhammapada sutra in Pali (without diacriticals) +++ Subdir: /buddhism-general/e-texts/sutras-translations mahamangala-sutta.txt - 'Discourse of the Supreme Blessings' sutra in Pali & English hridaya-sutra-snskrt-eng.txt - Prajnaparamita Heart sutra in Sanskrit & English - 1993 transl by M.E.Moriarty heart-sutra-snskrt-eng-dta.zip - Heart (Hrdaya) sutra in in Sanskrit & English (shorter text) - 1993 transl by John Richards +++ heart-sutra-snskrt-eng-inf.txt - info about the zip file above ++++ # # # DIRECTORY: /coombspapers/otherarchives/soc-science-software Subdir: /fonts romanised-sanskrit-ttf-inf.txt - about the Romanised Sanskrit True Type font for PC Windows 3.x stored in the zip file below +++ romanised-sanskrit-ttf.zip +++ sanskrit-ttf.zip +++ # # # with many regards - -================================================== Dr T. Matthew CIOLEK tmciolek@coombs.anu.edu.au Coombs Computing Unit, Research Schools of Social Sciences and Pacific Studies, Institute for Advanced Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia =================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 09:59:46 EDT From: David Gould Subject: Re: Chinese Buddhism under Helmsman Mao ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear no personal name. The autobiography of the great Chan Master Xu Yun (Empty Cloud), from Element Books contains descriptions of several run-ins Xu Yun had with the authorities. Xu Yun eventually became convinced that it would be best to acquiesce to the government's request to come to Beijing, because he hoped to be in a better possition to defend the sangha from there. This autobiography was dictated by Xu Yun at the age of 112? to his disciples, while he was recovering from a beating he received from soldiers who had left him for dead. He lived another 8 years. He starts "In my first year.... ...in my 52th year....in my 95th....", year by year in sequence. Dave Gould -Ottawa ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 10:00:19 EDT From: SAMUELS JEFFREY Subject: Re: Sanskrit fonts for windows ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- It might be a good idea to mention that the fonts made available by John Richards for transliterating Sanskrit is formatted to print in only italics and bold. However, if anyone has a use for printing Sanskrit words in Bold and Italics, the fonts is quite helpful and looks very good. Once again, thanks to John Richards for making his typeface available. Jeff Samuels (samuels@ucsu.colorado.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 11:03:25 EDT From: Rob Gimello Subject: Alexander Mayer's Publications ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Yesterday I posted a request from Dr. Alexander Mayer of Heidelberg for information about work on Chinese Buddhist scripture commentaries, I received queries about his own work. Here is a list all the publications of Dr. Mayer with which I am familiar: "Der Wert der modernen Ubersetzungen der chinesischen Hsuan-tsang- Biographie und die altturkische Version dieses Textes," _Ural Altaisch Jahrbucher_, Vol. 6 (1966), pp. 100-121. "Dharmagupta (ca. 545-619) und das _Vajracchedikaasuutra_-unreifes Fruhwerk oder perfektionistische Wiedergabe der Vorlage," in Wagner and Rohrborn, eds., _Ka'skul_ (Wiesbaden, 1990). "Die Grundungslegende Khotans," in Laut and Rohrborn, eds. _Buddhistische Erzahlliteratur und Hagiographie in turkischer Uberlieferung_ (Wiesbaden, 1990). _Cien-Biographie VII, Xuanzang: Uberssetzer und Heiliger_ (Teil 2), _Veroffentlichungen der Societas Uralo-Altaica_, Vol. 34, no.2 (1991). _Xuanzang Leben und Werk, Xuanzang: Ubersetzer und Heiliger_ )Teil 1), _Veroffentlichungen der Societas Uralo-Altaica_, Vol. 34, no. 1 (1992). ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 11:37:33 EDT From: John McRae Subject: Numata-sponsored temple in D.C. area? ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- One of the things we would like to have happen at the upcoming American Academy of Religion meeting (November 19-23, Washington, D.C.) is a reception for all those participating in Buddhism Section panels. But we haven't been able to come up with anything so far, hence this request. We've heard rumors of a Japanese Buddhist temple in the D.C. area built with support from the Numata Foundation. Since we like to hit up our Japanese Buddhist friends for such events (they're such great party animals!), I wonder if anyone can provide relevant information? Even better, does anyone have any suggestions regarding such a reception? Maybe including an offer of a donation to fund it? (Fat chance, I know!) Replies, scornful criticism, and mocking retorts welcome! -- John McRae, Asian Studies Cornell University jrm5@cornell.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 15:51:04 EDT From: John Richards Subject: Citta and related words ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- If I may come in on this discussion on "citta" and related words? I am a new subscriber to the BUDDHA-L group, and I am not sure that I know yet how to put my oar in. So if you do not get this, perhaps you could let me know! I am no Tibetan scholar, but it is probably wise to at least _start_ from the Pali usage of words, particularly in the suttas, and then move on to developments in Abhidharma and Mahayana usage in Sanskrit, and thereafter in Chinese and Tibetan. I am not making a claim for the primacy of Pali. The Sarvastivada scriptures in Sanskrit would be equally interesting - if we had more of them, or if we could be sure we can trust the consistency of the Chinese translations. In Pali there are three main words with so closely related meaning in any attempt to translate into English that they have to be looked at together. These are citta, mano and vinnana. Vinnana is clearly defined in the suttas. It is effectively "sense-consciousness". I do not suggest one should use that term in general translation. It is too clumsy, but one should have that idea in mind. It is consciousness WITH AN OBJECT, and already discriminating experience into separate "objects". Hence the classic paticca samuppada description of mental ACTIVITY (sankhara) leading to vinnana, and that in turn to nama-rupa. This usage of vinnana seems very consistent in the Pali suttas. Hindu usage seems to be less carefully restricted, and can often include all forms of consciousness, not just consciousness with an object. Mano, I would agree, is the THINKING mind, the organ of opinions. Thus the Buddha's exhortation "Ma manni", is essentially, Don't indulge in opinions. "Mind" is probably usually the best English translation for this, but is very much more vague. The Pali usage always contains this connotation of verbal thought and opinion. Citta is much more difficult. Apart from anything else there are the cognate words Ceto and cetana, as well as the verbal ceteti. Grammatically, of course citta is originally a past participle from ceteti, and therefore, primarily, is close to the English "thought", but the Pali word is nowhere actually defined or analysed in the suttas, and is used above all in contexts dealing with purifying the mind, and such subjects as citta-vimutti (liberation) and citta-visuddhi (purification). It seems to be above all the STATE of the mind which is being considered - the emotional colouring of the mind, or its relative objectivity. The famous passage in the Anguttara Nikaya where citta is compared to a lake into which various defiling elements may flow, seems to be thinking along these lines. "Pabhassaram idam cittam .. agantukehi upakkilesehi upakkilittham." (This consciousness is radiant .. It is defiled by inflowing defilements.) This makes it very difficult to translate by any single English word. English is so weak in these words for mental states and functions. "Consciousness" (except that it is needed for vinnana) is often the best word, "thought" at others, depending on whether the emphasis is on the CONTENT of consciousness, or the screen of consciousness itself. It seems to be almost deliberately a general and slightly ambiguous word in Pali usage, and the fact it is nowhere defined is perhaps an indication of that. I take "ceto" to be merely a slightly more archaic, and usually poetic, variant of the same word. Cetana on the other hand has clear overtones of "willing" in many contexts, eg. "Cetana'ham kammam vadami." (I call cetana karma.) So the overtones of colouring of the emotional content is clearly there. There are a number of words in Indian thought where the word has had to become anglicised. Karma, Dharma, nirvana, Buddha and samsara are good examples. Perhaps we need to add "citta" to this short list. We have, after all accepted (and usually debased) quite enough Latin/Greek theological words. Hindu and Buddhist Mahayana usage seem to stress more the element of consciousness as the screen. Both traditions talk in terms of reality being "citta-matra". One can hardly call this "pure thought". It is much more "pure consciousness", though there is at the same time very much the overtones of the idea of illusion, and the idea that what we THINK we see is just a mental construction, and therefore, in a sense at least, "mere thought". The thought seems to deliberately slide between these two, closely related, ideas. This idea of citta containing the whole "thought", "state of mind", "volition" complex would very much agree with Robin Kornman's idea of it as often coming close to "attitude". I would agree. It also throws interesting light, I would say, on the idea of "bodhicitta". This is not just the (idle or theoretical) "thought" ABOUT Realisation. It is the clear Intent and Volition TOWARDS Realisation. How would Tibetan and Chinese usage compare with all this? (I wonder if anyone will ever read this? Or is it all just in my own mind?!) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Richards Pembrokeshire (UK) Internet - jhr@elidor.demon.co.uk CompuServe ID - 100113,1250 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 15:51:19 EDT From: cesloane@maroon.tc.umn.edu Subject: Re: Numata-sponsored temple in D.C. area? ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Can someone tell me when and where the Buddhists will meet in DC? I plan to attend the American Anthro Assn meeting the same weekend, and would love to meet some of you cyber-writers in person. Cliff Sloane ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 14 Oct 1993 to 15 Oct 1993 *************************************************** From owner-BUDDHA-L@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Mon Oct 25 16:10:04 1993 Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 16:01:42 -0400 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 23 Oct 1993 to 25 Oct 1993 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests There are 12 messages totalling 511 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Tibetan translations 2. Pali Tipitaka on CD-ROM 3. OCR for Lotus Sutra manuscripts project? 4. Chen/Zhen/Chan/Ch'an Buddhism (2) 5. Monasteries in New York (4) 6. Rebirth 7. Translations and Originals 8. buddhist thanksgiving??? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 08:27:28 EST From: Richard P Hayes Subject: Tibetan translations Dan Lusthaus and Ian Astley have addressed the question of the accuracy of Chinese translations of Indian texts, and Dan has further referred to Richard Robinson's dismissal of the claim that Tibetan translations of Indian texts were particularly accurate. Not having read Robinson's yet unpublished article on the subject, I would offer a few observations of my own. When I first began studying Tibetan, I both heard and read that Tibetan translations were particularly valuable because of their accuracy. After twenty years of comparing Tibetan texts with their Sanskrit originals, I am inclined to think that this claim of accuracy was one of those chunks of raw Tibetan propaganda that several European and American scholars in earlier generations swallowed without chewing properly. Perhaps what I have to say is true only of the particular texts that I have studied, which form a very small sample when compared to the vastness of the bstan 'gyur; I cannot claim to have studied anything from the bka' 'gyur in a systematic way. But on the basis of what I have studied methodically, I have yet to find many Tibetan texts that support the enthusiastic endorsements of accuracy that one still hears even today from some quarters. It is important to be clear about what one means by accuracy in translation. Meaning is encoded at many levels in a text, and few translations can be true to all of those levels, especially when one is considering languages as radically different in structure as Tibetan and Sanskrit (which are about as different as English and Mohawk, which is to say, totally unrelated). Even before one has examined particular texts, the linguistic distance between Sanskrit and Tibetan is a good reason to question how accurate even the best Tibetan translation can be. Here are two of the most important factors: Sanskrit has a very complex system of deriving nouns and adjectives from verbal roots. There are often subtle differences in meaning among all the nouns derived from the same verbal root. Tibetan has a relatively crude system of derivation. As a result, two or more words that have distinct meanings in Sanskrit will all be rendered by the same word or phrase in Tibetan. Information encoded in the Sanskrit words is therefore lost. Classical Sanskrit typically includes large numbers of long nominal compounds. Tibetan sentence structure does not allow for long compounds. So when a compound is translated into Tibetan, the syntactic relations among the elements in the compound must be made explicit. This means that the Tibetan translation necessarily carries more information than the Sanskrit original; there is, in other words, a loss of some of the ambiguity contained in the original. It might seem on first consideration that this increase in information would make the translation even better than the originals. This might be the case if one could always rely on the added information. But often one cannot. Look at two different Tibetan translations of exactly the same text and you'll often find that the two Tibetan translations offer quite different analyses of the Sanskrit compounds. There is no automatic way of knowing which one is correct. So far I have suggested that Tibetan translations are not (and cannot be) very accurate at the lexical level and at the level of compounds. There is yet another level at which the accuracy of a translation can be judged: whether the meaning of an entire passage is conveyed from the original language into the target language. It is here that I have found the greatest levels of inaccuracy. The fault here lies not with the translators but with the style in which most Indians wrote. Most Indian texts are written as dialogues in which the views of several speakers are represented as if they were having a conversation. But only rarely are the participants in the conversation precisely identified, and often the reader is given no clues as to when there has been a shift from one speaker's perspective to another's. Consequently, it is often difficult to be certain whether a given sentence represents the view of the author of a text or the view of one of his adversaries. Almost everyone who translates a Sanskrit text into any language tries to supply information (or at least hypotheses) about who is saying what. Tibetan translators had conventions for showing when a change of speaker occurs. Look at two different Tibetan translations of the same text, and you'll often find that the two translations have very different ideas about which views belong to the author and which to his adversaries. At least one of the translations must therefore be inaccurate. But how does one decide which one? People who have swallowed the propaganda that Tibetan translations are accurate often claim that Tibetans were at least consistent at the lexical level. That is, there is often supposed to be a one-to-one mapping of Sanskrit terms into Tibetan phrases, so that if one sees a particular Tibetan phrase, one can be almost certain of what the original Sanskrit word was. This claim is, however, false. What one in fact finds is that several Sanskrit words are all translated by exactly the same Tibetan expression; on seeing the Tibetan, one therefore has no idea what the original Sanskrit term was. On the other hand, there are cases in which the same Sanskrit word is translated in several different ways, not only by different translators but even by the same translator. There is no one-to-one mapping between Sanskrit and Tibetan lexical items, but rather a many-to-many relationship. This of course makes it impossible to know from a Tibetan translation what the Sanskrit original said. There is only one way to know what the Sanskrit original said: find the Sanskrit original. The very best that can be said of a Tibetan translation is that it may be somewhat better than nothing. When the Sanskrit original of a text has been lost, it may be marginally better to have a Tibetan translation than to have nothing at all. But even this is not always the case. Sometimes it may be even worse to have a poor translation of a lost original text than it would be to have no translation at all. At least when a text is irretrievably lost, there is no tempation to think one knows what it said. Having zero information is arguably a better state to be in than having a lot of serious misinformation. Richard P. Hayes Faculty of Religious Studies McGill University Montreal, Quebec ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 08:46:08 EDT From: INDINST@vax.oxford.ac.uk Subject: Pali Tipitaka on CD-ROM ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- From: K.R. Norman, President of the Pali Text Society BUDDHISM AND INDIAN STUDIES IMPORTANT - PLEASE NOTE VERY CAREFULLY You may have received a communication from Professor Witzel of Harvard informing you that the Dhammakaya Foundation has completed the input of the whole of the Pali Tipitaka on CD-ROM, and will be distributing it free. Please take note that the material which the Foundation proposes to distribute in this way is the property of the Pali Text Society, of which I am President. The Foundation has no right to copy the material on CD-Rom and distribute it in that or any other way. We have been negotiating with the Foundation for some time with a view to possible copying and distribution, but the negotiations have not been completed, and any copying, distribution and use are therefore in breach of our rights. Please also take note that we reserve the right to take legal action to enforce our rights in this important material against those who disregard them. The Pali text Society is a non-profitmaking organisation established for many years and dedicated to the advancement of the study of Pali texts and the Pali language. The material which the Dhammakaya Foundation has put on CD-ROM represents many years of work and original research by this Society's scholars. Any legal proceedings which we institute will be necessary to enable us to carry out the purposes for which this organisation was founded. The pursuance of academic studies everywhere becomes impossible if the rights of others are abused as is happening in this case. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 08:46:26 EDT From: John McRae Subject: OCR for Lotus Sutra manuscripts project? ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Several years ago I attended a Buddhist studies conference at Berkeley that included a report by a group of scholars in Japan -- I think it was at Toohoku University in Sendai -- who were working on an OCR system to handle handwritten Sanskrit manuscripts, principally those of the Lotus Sutra. (I may not be remembering all this correctly, of course.) Can anyone give me the details of the project, especially a contact person? Please respond directly to the address below, and I will summarize to the lists. Thanks for your help. -- John McRae, Asian Studies Cornell University jrm5@cornell.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 08:49:25 EDT From: "Dr. I. Astley" Subject: Chen/Zhen/Chan/Ch'an Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Just to clear up a point or two which appear to have been misunderstood by Hun Lye in his recent communications, I should point out that the Zhenyan (older spelling: Chen-yen) tradition in China was quite definitely a Vajrayana teaching, and not ``pseudo-Vajrayana'' as he writes. I do not in any way wish to detract from the virtues and richness of the Tibetan tradition, but there is a tendency for people working in that area, who are a motley crew in many ways of serious scholars, interested non-specialists, sincere practitioners of the various Tibetan Buddhist traditions, and bird-brained amateurs. Neglect of the Chinese and Japanese materials and the traditions which produced them has led to to a rather distorted view, not only of the Vajrayana traditions themselves, but also of the social and religious contexts out of which they grew. What we have in Chinese is not as well organized as the Tibetan materials (as though they were as tidily put together as we are often led to believe), but this is in many ways precisely why they deserve attention. They give us an admittedly rather confusing, but nevertheless valuable insight into the historical develop- ment of the Vajrayana in a broader context than we are presented with in the case of Tibetan Buddhism. Whilst the tendency to elevate the Tantric teachings above all others is obviously there---the division of the teachings made by Kukai and presented to the Japanese court in the early ninth century is perhaps the most notorious example---this is, at least in the earlier sources, not as clearly cut as in the transmissions to Tibet. There was also, in a sense, a lot more competition! Hun Lye is also incorrect in implying that the ``zhen'' in the ``true lotus'' whatever-it-was is used in the same sense as in the name of esoteric Buddhism in China, Zhenyan. In both cases, the word is the same (same character, same pronunciation), but in the former case it simply means ``true'', whereas in the name of the sect, it is part of a compound, i.e. zhenyan, meaning ``mantra'' and which is thus a conventional signifier of the esoteric tradition. And of course pasting a photograph of yourself onto depictions of divinities is not true anything, apart perhaps from true self-aggrandizement. And that is why, to give my response to his last request (as to whether anyone out here is interested in these movements), I spend my time on other things! Ian Astley e-mail: astley@mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE Philipps-Universitaet, FB 11 Tel.: [+49] 6421 28-3662, FG Religionswissenschaft -3661, Liebigstr. 37 or -7035 D--35037 Marburg Fax: [+49] 6421 28-3944 Germany ---PLEASE NOTE the new postal code!--- ---AND the new e-mail node address!--- ******************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 08:50:20 EDT From: "J. Weltman" Subject: Re: Monasteries in New York ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- There is also the Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper NY - that's upstate NY. The abbot is John Daido Loori, Sensei, a Dharma heir of Maezumi roshi of the Zen Center LA. They have training programs for priests as well as laypeople and offer many workshops in arts as well. Daido Sensei trains his students with koan as well as in shikan taza, so they are not really Soto or Rinzai, though they seem closer to Rinzai to me. Zen Mountain Monastery P.O. Box 156 South Plank Road Mt. Tremper, N.Y., 12457 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 08:50:51 EDT From: "Randall R. Scott" Subject: Re: Rebirth ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- =Dear Dave, The Pure Land of Jodo-shinshu -- the "Easy Path" -- at least, is in many respects not aligned with the "Sacred Way" of the Theravadins, et alia, or even of most Madhyamika inflections, and so in my opinion does not take the anatman/muga doctrine very seriously. John Blofeld, reflecting on his Chinese travels, speaks of a "parcel of propensities," effectually splitting the difference (i.e. Middle Way) between an annihilationism and an eternalism. Even Buddhists, no-self/no-substance doctrine notwithstanding, had to equip themselves with a mechanism for dealing with human responsibility. Cf. also the taxonomy inherent in the rokudo system which fairly permeated Kamakura Japanese Buddhism generally, as well as that of India and China beforehand. (Wm. R. LaFleur's *The Karma of Words* deals with this at length -- Chapter 2). Randy Scott ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 08:51:05 EDT From: SPERLIN@ucs.indiana.edu Subject: Re: Monasteries in New York ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- With some bemusement I've been reading the postings on "Chenian" Buddhism and waiting for someone to identify it. Since no one has yet done so, allow me to throw in my two cents. The reference is to the teachings of a Chinese gentleman known as Yogi Chen who lived in the Darjeeling-Kalimpong area in the 1960s and 1970s and described himself as "the Buddhist Yogi." He published large numbers of small booklets containing his sermons and teachings, all described as "Chenian" Buddhism, and managed to attract a number of Western disciples. I believe he did come to North America, but I don't know any more about how he or his teachings fared. Elliot Sperling Indiana University SPERLIN@UCS.INDIANA.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 10:37:08 EDT From: Beata Grant Subject: Re: Monasteries in New York ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On Mon, 25 Oct 1993 SPERLIN@ucs.indiana.edu wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > With some bemusement I've been reading the postings on "Chenian" > Buddhism and waiting for someone to identify it. Since no one has > yet done so, allow me to throw in my two cents. The reference is to > the teachings of a Chinese gentleman known as Yogi Chen who lived > in the Darjeeling-Kalimpong area in the 1960s and 1970s and described > himself as "the Buddhist Yogi." He published large numbers of small > booklets containing his sermons and teachings, all described as > "Chenian" Buddhism, and managed to attract a number of Western > disciples. I believe he did come to North America, but I don't > know any more about how he or his teachings fared. > > Elliot Sperling > Indiana University > SPERLIN@UCS.INDIANA.EDU Yogi Chen did indeed come to North America -- in fact he lived for many years in a little apartment on Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley, Calif. where I briefly met him shortly before his death some six or seven years ago. (He left a number of rather impressive sariras (relics) by the way!) His student, Mr. Lin Yutang, very faithfully carries on his work and teachings from his home near Berkeley, and he would be the one to get in touch with for further information. His address: 705 Midcrest Way, El Cerrito, CA 94530 Beata Grant Washington University in St Louis ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 10:58:13 EDT From: C John Powers Subject: Translations and Originals ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Richard Hayes is correct in his statement that all translations are interpretations, reflecting the readings of the translators. I personally have found the Tibetan translations very helpful in unpacking Sanskrit compounds (where a Sanskrit manuscript is available). One problem with Richard's note, however, is his frequent statements about "Sanskrit originals": what exactly are they? I doubt that there's any such thing. The existence of a Sanskrit manuscript of a text does not require the conclusion that it is original. In fact, Sanskrit manuscripts were redacted, edited, supplemented, etc. If an extant Sanskrit manuscript differs from a Tibetan translation, this really doesn't mean that much; the Tibetan could be inaccurate, but given the generally poor quality of the Sanskrit manuscripts I've seen, they are suspect also. In addition, since Buddhists were changing over time, and we probably have no Sanskrit copies that represent "Ur-texts," who's to say what the original text looked like? And if a Sanskrit manuscript doesn't exactly mirror a Tibetan translation, this could well be a reflection of changes in the Sanskrit versions (or, of course, a reflection of mistranslation on the part of the Tibetan translators). The bottom line is that we just don't know, and so the best response (in my opinion) is to get as many versions of a text as possible, along with commentaries, and make your best guess (since that's what we do anyway). And I disagree with Richard's assessment that it might be better to have no text at all than a Tibetan translation. My experience with Tibetan translations in comparison with Sanskrit manuscripts has been different from Richard's; I find that they're generally pretty close to the Sanskrit manuscripts (which again don't have any claim to being definitive, given the history of the transmission of such texts), and they're very helpful in figuring out how to construe difficult passages. But that may be just me. John Powers Grinnell College powers@grin1.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 13:04:49 EDT From: MULROY@EPISAS.DecNet Subject: Re: buddhist thanksgiving??? ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- In all of the discussion that this topic recieved, I didn't see any that answered Lefty's question. Well, How 'bout it? Buddhists have been gathering in the harvest for some time now, I should think there are some rather old rites for this activity. Bob ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 14:00:58 EDT From: Hun Lye Subject: Re: Chen/Zhen/Chan/Ch'an Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I am afraid my rather poor choice of phrasing things caused some confusion. The term I used is not "psuedo-Vajrayana" but "psuedo-Vajrayana/Chen-yen" as in "psuedo-Vajrayana or psuedo-Chen-yen." Granted I am one of the "bird-brained amateurs" and admitedly a practitioner as well, but I DO know the importance of Chen-yen and Shingon when it comes to getting a scholarly understanding of the complexities of the Tantric Buddhist traditions. When I used "Vajrayana" I do refer specifically to the Tibetan (and Nepali, Mongolian) varieties of Tantric Buddhism. "Chen-yen," on the other hand, was used by me to denote to specifically Chinese Tantric Buddhism. As the brilliant scholars carrying PhD's can probably tell me, the name "Chen-yen tsung" (True Words or Mantra School) or "Mi-tsung" (Esoteric School) is more often used in the Chinese Tantric tradition itself then "Chin-k'ang Cheng Tsung" (Vajrayana School). I was not "incorrectly implying" that the "zhen" used by the True Buddha Sect (Chen Fo Tsung) "is used in the same sense as in the name of the esoteric tradition of China." If that is the impression that I gave, my humble apologies. To clarify, what I meant to say was that as far as that sect is concerned, the use of the character "chen" is indeed used in the same sense as the name "Chen-yen." I am interested in the phenomena of Buddhist "sects" - groups that are often considered "left-handed," and "heretical" by the "mainstream" Buddhists. What is happening in Hong Kong and other places where there are Chinese communities is that there are a lot of books in bookstores that claim to be Chen-yen Buddhism material. There are teachers (usually lay teachers) who teach Chen-yen. Present day Chinese monks usually agree that Chen-yen should be practised only by those who are highly advanced - usually monastics. Furthermore, there are no Chinese monastics teaching specifically Chen-yen techniques as say there are Shingon masters teaching Mikkyo practices or Tibetan lamas teaching Vajrayana visualizations. So, my question is: where did this Chen-yen practices in contemporary times come from? The Chen-yen tradition did not exist as an independent tradition within Chinese Buddhism for long. Are there specifically Chen-yen masters in China today? As for Shingon, that is the development of Tantric Buddhism in Japan. How accurate it is to say that what is practised in Shingon today is what Chen-yen was in China is highly debatable. It might be Shingon imported from Japan or Tibetan Vajrayana from the lamas but is it "Chen-yen" as in the Tantric Buddhism of Amoghavajra, Pu-k'ung and others in that lineage? I had and have no intentions of denigrating Chen-yen or Shingon. My purpose in the earlier posting (that prompted Dr Astley's response) is to point out the phenomena: the popularity of Vajrayana, Chen-yen AND particularly psuedo-Chen-yen (and psuedo-Vajrayana) among Chinese communities THESE days. Chen-yen might still exist in the world of Buddhist academics but does Chen-yen exists as a tradition today? I am curious as to what kind of "Chen-yen" is practised today among the Chinese - Shingon? Tibetan Buddhism? A mixture of everything (that is believed as identical with the Chen-yen that Kukai learnt in China)? The "avici-karma" that I committed is perhaps assuming that scholars are not only interested in what happened hunderds of years ago but also interested in the present developements in the tradition itself. I guess it is scholarly to study the White Lotus Sect when it is dead or the Siddhas when they have attained "mahamudra" but not okay to study what is contemporary. Another "avici karma" that was committed is to assume that all academics are not buried in texts and treatises but they do come out once in a while to see what's going on around them. I apologised again for all the confusion that I have caused. I will apply for a brain transplant and hopefully get a scholar's brain before I post something again :-) Until then, I will go do my 100,000 Vajrasattva mantras to cleanse the avici karma I have created here! Hun Lye lyeh@alleg.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 14:23:08 EDT From: Hun Lye Subject: Re: Monasteries in New York ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Lin Yutang? Are you referring to the Lin Yutang who wrote quite a few books on Chinese philosophy and religion? I thought he passed away in 1976? Or are we talking about different people? Lin Yutang spent most of his writing life devoted to arguing how Chinese philosophy (including Chinese Buddhism) is somewhat better then Western Christian ideas. Ironically, towards the end of his life he "accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior." I think one of the last books he wrote was "From Pagan to Christian." On "Chenian Buddhism," I have read the two-volume publication containing different articles by Yogi Chen (refered to by Elliot Sperling in his recent posting). My impression of Yogi Chen is that he learnt Vajrayana (of the Tibetan and Nepali variety) and then somehow fit that into the Chinese Buddhist and Chinese context. Hence, some of his writings include his own way of "p'an-chiao" (classification of tenets) which included Islam, Confucianism, Atiyoga, Christianity, Ch'an and Taoism among others. The articles also included lists of different mantras and dharanis to recite for various purposes. I don't remember reading anything like the sadhanas one commonly finds in the Vajrayana traditions. He also wrote about the importance of homa (fire-offerings) and rituals like that. Hun Lye lyeh@alleg.edu ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 23 Oct 1993 to 25 Oct 1993 *************************************************** From owner-BUDDHA-L@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Tue Oct 26 16:09:23 1993 Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 16:02:41 -0400 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 25 Oct 1993 to 26 Oct 1993 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests There are 10 messages totalling 527 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Classification of the Buddhist literature (2) 2. SYMPOSIUM: Buddhism and Psychotherapy 3. Harmony of Dependent Origination and Emptiness 4. Monasteries in New York 5. Berkeley buddhism and a birdbrained request re learning Chinese. 6. Sanskrit originals 7. Tibetan translations 8. Job announcement 9. On free will in Buddhism ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 08:24:35 EDT From: Wong Weng Fai Subject: Classification of the Buddhist literature ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Scholars and others ... The Buddhist Library of Singapore is currently undergoing a computerization exercise. No - it's not a "hi-tech hype" thing - the current system is really in a mess and a revamp is well in order. Anyway, I was asked to help out a little with the re-classification of the books. My question : are there any accepted/standard way of (library) classification of the Buddhist literature ? Any librarians out there ? Your help will be a very meritorious deed ;-) Please respond by email to save bandwidth. Thanks a zillion ! with Metta, W.F. Wong. email : wongwf@iscs.nus.sg ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 08:24:58 EDT From: pncsppc@NCSUVAX.BITNET Subject: SYMPOSIUM: Buddhism and Psychotherapy ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- BUDDHISM AND PSYCHOTHERAPY: AN EAST/WEST DIALOG-- A SYMPOSIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 1993 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Reprinted, with permission, from the Fall 1993 issue of Snow Lion Newsletter and Catalog.] Dharma Friendship Foundation (a non-profit organization) and The University of Washington Department of Psychology are pleased to sponsor Buddhism and Psychotherapy: An East/West Dialog on Saturday, November 6, 1993. Seven panelists who are psychotherapists and/or Buddhist teachers will share their experience, views and ideas on how Buddhist psychology and psychotherapy relate to each other and how we might mutually benefit from both approaches to human well-being. Dialog between audience and panelists is welcome and there will be a reception following the symposium so that panelists and audience have more time to speak with each other. This year's symposium presenters are: Dr. Lobsang Rapgay, Ph.D., Ryo Imamura, Ed.D., Judith Gordon, Ph.D., Venerable Thubten Chodron, May Lu, Ph.D., Geshe Jamyang Tsultrim, Mark Hart, Ph.D.,and Genjo Marinello, Osho-San (Moderator). The program will be located on the UW main campus, from 9 am to 4pm. Admission is $25 general, $10 students or senior. There are also low income and scholarship tickets available upon request. Advance registration is advised as seating is limited. Checks should be made payable to Dharma Friendship Foundation; non-refundable after October 25, 1993. Mail registration to: T.Levington, 3423 Evanston Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98103-8618. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message was posted as a public service. I am not affiliated with the above organization. -pncsppc@ccvax1.cc.ncsu.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 08:25:11 EDT From: Dave Gould Subject: Harmony of Dependent Origination and Emptiness ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >"The Harmony of Emptiness and > Dependent-Arising", a commentary on Tsong Khapa's "The Essence of > Eloquent Speech, Praises to the Buddha for Teaching Profound > Dependent-Arising" >Where Can I get this? I bought my copy at the Tibetan Buddhist Temple in Montreal. It is published by the Libary of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1992, Dharamsala, and printed by the Indraprastha Press (CBT), 4 Bahadurshah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002. >Hmm. I don't know about consequentialists but dependent-arising >as in the Avatamsaka sutra I have seen and I guess it is "mechanistic" in >the same way that Evolution is. In the same way that quantum physics >is. I see it as having little parallel to the Cartesian/Quantum split. >Maybe you could explain more your point more. My understanding of Descartes is not refined enough to know of the Cartesian/ Quantum split. What I meant by Cartesian, and I may be digging myself deeper into the pit, is the movement which eradicated any necessity for God by holding that everything happens in a way similar to the functioning of a machine. This seems a lot like the causes and conditions giving rise to the effect of current experience, as proposed in depend-arising. >I certainly have more interest. My question with Dependent-Arising and >its relation to Emptyness and No-Self, is If this is true, and there is >no-self, that abides, then how does this work with the concept of rebirth? >WHO IS REBORN? >Dave Tilley - Rochester My understanding of this is that rebirth is nothing more than the continued playing out of previous causes (karma). What holds this karma thoughout the intermediate states is a point of debate. This reminds me of a question a friend asked me when I mentioned what I was reading. She stopped me in my tracks when she said " so with this idea of everything being dependent on previous causes, what do buddhists say about free will? I haven't a clue. Dave Gould - dgould@acadvm1.uottawa,ca ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 08:25:29 EDT From: Beata Grant Subject: Re: Monasteries in New York ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- No, this is a completely different Lin Yutang -- but that is his name, and he is very much alive in El Cerrito, CA. You are right about the extremely eclectic and idiosyncratic nature of Yogi Chen's Buddhism -- I recall a trip to a northern California mountain top for a rather elaborate fire offering as well as an offering to the Dragon King... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 08:25:50 EDT From: Jim Murdock Subject: Berkeley buddhism and a birdbrained request re learning Chinese. ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Interesting coincidence. I just returned from Berkeley, with a free copy of a booklet "Two practices of impermanence" by Yutang Lin (Chenian Memorial Series No. 11) in my backpack which I picked up at a vegetarian chinese restaurant on Shattuck Ave., and I turn on my computer and find a discussion going on about "Chenian" Buddhism. The first page of the little booklet shows an altar cluttered with images, including a crucifix (complete with the letters INRI), and the caption "burned incense remains whole and points toward Green Tara." Inside is a poem in Chinese and English about walking through a graveyard, containing the stanza Anyone we come across is sure to be With us for only this moment; Let us be kind to each other And make life a merry-go-round! I was in Berkeley to attend one of the stange sorts of sesshins that us mathemticians get paid by our departments to attend from time to time. For four days we place our butts firmly in chairs, cast our eyes (without focusing) in the direction of a screen illuminated by an overhead projector, and allow the words of one lecturer after another to pass through one ear and out the other without making any attempt to hold on to them. Quite clearly I qualify as one of the "birdbrained" members of this list, in Asley's terminology. It is remarkable that I even have the courage to post again, after the total muddle I made of my last attempt to ask Galen Amstutz a question. (I had reversed the meanings of "jodo" and "shin", and he didn't bother to answer me.) But, I do have a birdbrained question to ask. Richard Hayes recently recommended that we all learn an oriental language. Now I happen to be surrounded by Chinese graduate students, who (I have been disappointed to learn) know nothing about Buddhism and care less (one of them has tried to interest me in Watchman Nee's version of Christianity); but they do know Chinese. My question is: is there a book that enables one to begin to "play" at learning Chinese? I have in mind something more serious than the book I've seen called "Noodle Words." That book begins by explaining how Confucious and his friends were sitting around one day in a Chinese restaurant and decided to create the world's hardest language. So confucious put his chopsticks into his lo mein, threw some noodles on the ground, and said "that's `restaurant'." Once again, and "that's `laundry'." Rather a condescending book, and I refused to buy it. I like grammar and the "philosophy" of a language. I'm bad at vocabulary. (I still remember my Latin grammar from high school but I can't read much because I don't remember the words.) I've learned bits of Hebrew, Greek, and Sanskrit, and I especially like to learn words that are basic to a significant worldview; I don't particularly want to know how to say "the shoes are under the bed" in Chinese, but I'd like to learn how radicals work, how sentences are put together, how tenses and so forth are indicated in the absence of any inflections, and characters for some of the important Buddhist words. If I had a suitable book with the kind of thing I want to know, I could ask my graduate students to help me with pronunciation, and maybe this would give me a way to make more contact with them outside of mathematics. There is a Chinese course offered at my university, but it requires 5 hours a week of committment and I can't afford that right now. Any ideas? ..................................................................... Jim Murdock TO SPEAK is to create the opportunity Mathematics Dept. to learn why what I said is not true. Iowa State University Ames Iowa 50011 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 09:18:14 EST From: Richard P Hayes Subject: Sanskrit originals John Powers is correct in saying that Sanskrit texts could be fairly fluid. This seems to be especially true of suutras, as is apparent from studying various recensions that are still extant of several Mahaayaana texts. In the case of scholastic literature, on the other hand, the texts seem to have been more stable, and I am not aware of many texts in this genre for which there exist widely divergent versions. So I don't see quite as much reason to be skeptical of the authenticity of scholastic texts as one must be of suutra and tantra material. There is no denying that a Tibetan translation of a Sanskrit text can be one of the useful tools that a scholar can use in making sense of a Sanskrit original. In approximate order of how useful I personally find tools of interpretation, I would rank Sanskrit commentaries first (the more the better), discussions in rival Sanskrit texts second (some of the most valuable discussions of Buddhist philosophy can be found in Jaina and Brahmanical texts, where one typically finds very accurate reconstructions of Buddhist ideas before those ideas are torn to shreds), and Tibetan translations third. (I do not list Chinese translations for the simple reason that my command of Chinese is too weak to enable me to use them effectively.) When I say that a Tibetan translation is slightly better (and in some cases slightly worse) than nothing, I am referring to situations in which one has only a Tibetan translation and no Sanskrit original. This is a bit like being very hungry and watching somebody cook on the other side of a cafe window; you know the food is there, and you might even be able to smell it, but you can't get much nourishment from it. Richard Hayes cxev@musica.mcgill.ca Religious Studies McGill University Montreal, Quebec ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 09:46:47 EDT From: coon@IPFWCVAX.BITNET Subject: Re: Classification of the Buddhist literature ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I would be interested in learning of such schemes myself. If answers are not posted to the list would someone provide a summary? Thanks, ************************************************ Roger (Brad) Coon "Better to have one COON@IPFWCVAX.BITNET freedom too many, COON@CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU than to have one too few." Politically incorrect and proud of it. Niquimictitoc inana Bambi. ************************************************ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 11:38:20 EDT From: Joe Wilson Subject: Re: Tibetan translations ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I would like to add a few words to the discussion of translation from Sanskrit to Tibetan. Like Richard Hayes, I confine myself to reflection on the s/aastra texts of the bstan 'gyur. > When I first began studying Tibetan, I both heard and read that > Tibetan translations were particularly valuable because of their > accuracy. After twenty years of comparing Tibetan texts with their > Sanskrit originals, I am inclined to think that this claim of > accuracy was one of those chunks of raw Tibetan propaganda that > several European and American scholars in earlier generations > swallowed without chewing properly. When I began studying Buddhist texts in Sanskrit, I would use the Tibetan translations (insofar as this was possible) as a crib. This yielded somewhat better results when my desire was to narrow down the range of possible translations of a term from those given in Monier-Williams to those relevant to Buddhism than when my desire was to avoid an analysis of the Sanskrit grammar. > It is important to be clear about what one means by accuracy in > translation. Meaning is encoded at many levels in a text, and few > translations can be true to all of those levels, especially when one > is considering languages as radically different in structure as > Tibetan and Sanskrit (which are about as different as English and > Mohawk, which is to say, totally unrelated). Well, linguistically, yes, this statement can be defended. However, given the wishes of the classical Tibetan grammarians to reconstruct the grammar of their language on a Sanskrit model, this is not entirely true. One outcome is that indigenous Tibetan writing and the Tibetan translations of Indic texts have a very different feel to them. The syntax of the translations is, in some cases, so foreign to the way that Tibetan works when it is written by Tibetan authors (other than those trying consciously to write in the translationese genre), that Tibetans will sometimes misread the bstan 'gyur text. By 'misread' I mean that a Tibetan will read a sentence or phrase following the "rules" for reading Tibetan. This is a reasonable thing to do. However, some at least of the translated material follows the rules for reading Sanskrit, which are somewhat more relaxed as regards sentence structure. Sorry this is so anecdotal. One of the things I've been meaning to do is to sit down with some Tibetan translations of Sanskrit and actually prove some of these things. Is anyone aware of any sorts of studies that have been done along these lines? Richard continues: > Sanskrit has a very complex system of deriving nouns and adjectives > from verbal roots. There are often subtle differences in meaning > among all the nouns derived from the same verbal root. Tibetan has a > relatively crude system of derivation. As a result, two or more > words that have distinct meanings in Sanskrit will all be rendered > by the same word or phrase in Tibetan. Information encoded in the > Sanskrit words is therefore lost. This is true, and, like Richard, it is difficult for me to imagine why anyone with a decent knowledge of Tibetan or even the energy to open a copy of Lokesh Chandra's lexicon or, for that matter, Conze's _Materials for a Dictionary of the Prajn~aapaaramitaa Literature_ would feel to claim otherwise. In addition, Tibetan -- compared to Sanskrit -- is a word poor language. There are just plain not as many terms at ones disposal. > Classical Sanskrit typically includes large numbers of long nominal > compounds. Tibetan sentence structure does not allow for long > compounds. So when a compound is translated into Tibetan, the > syntactic relations among the elements in the compound must be > made explicit. This means that the Tibetan translation necessarily > carries more information than the Sanskrit original; there is, in > other words, a loss of some of the ambiguity contained in the > original. It might seem on first consideration that this increase in > information would make the translation even better than the > originals. This might be the case if one could always rely on the > added information. But often one cannot. Look at two different > Tibetan translations of exactly the same text and you'll often find > that the two Tibetan translations offer quite different analyses of > the Sanskrit compounds. There is no automatic way of knowing which > one is correct. Again, quite true -- although, metrica causa, not always the case in translations of verse. Richard (or anyone), do you have any examples that can be easily shared? This can be seen as well in translations of key terms that have, for all intents and purposes become institutionalized. A simple example would be dgra bcom pa as the standard translation of arhat. Although dgra bcom pa (literally 'the enemy has been destroyed' and, thus, 'one whose enemy has been destroyed') captures one folk etymology of arhat, it eliminates any other understanding of the Sanskrit term. > So far I have suggested that Tibetan translations are not (and > cannot be) very accurate at the lexical level and at the level of > compounds. There is yet another level at which the accuracy of a > translation can be judged: whether the meaning of an entire passage > is conveyed from the original language into the target language. It > is here that I have found the greatest levels of inaccuracy. The > fault here lies not with the translators but with the style in which > most Indians wrote. Most Indian texts are written as dialogues in > which the views of several speakers are represented as if they were > having a conversation. But only rarely are the participants in the > conversation precisely identified, and often the reader is given no > clues as to when there has been a shift from one speaker's > perspective to another's. Consequently, it is often difficult to be > certain whether a given sentence represents the view of the author > of a text or the view of one of his adversaries. Almost everyone who > translates a Sanskrit text into any language tries to supply > information (or at least hypotheses) about who is saying what. > Tibetan translators had conventions for showing when a change of > speaker occurs. Look at two different Tibetan translations of the > same text, and you'll often find that the two translations have very > different ideas about which views belong to the author and which to > his adversaries. At least one of the translations must therefore be > inaccurate. But how does one decide which one? > This is a bit trickier, as we are now into levels at which the use of a text (and its historical context) come to dominate. And this is an area in which I think it is not entirely inaccurate to say that reasonable people might disagree. The Tibetan translators (and their Indian cohorts) had access to a living tradition of exegesis, much of it never written down. It would be odd if it was the Tibetans who invented, ex nihilo, the idea of an oral commentary on a text handed down from teacher to disciple. Is this another one of those common misconceptions that has never been proven (in the classical Indian tradition)? Clearly there are areas in which a modern well-read scholar might have access to information (and to Sanskrit texts) that were not available to Tibetan translators. It seems, however, equally clear to me that the Tibetan translators of Indic texts had access to explanations of those texts to which a modern scholar has no access. I am *not* arguing that Tibetan translators had privileged access to their texts and thus their understanding *must* be the more accurate. However, it seems not unreasonable to say that *if* s/aastra texts come packaged with an oral commentary and *if* in a certain case there might be more than one tradition of oral commentary, there could be more than one accurate translation. Of course, one could then use modern methods and say that both are inaccurate or that, from a more scientific analytical perspective, one is more accurate than the other. I think that's enough for now. Joe Wilson Dept. of Philosophy and Religion University of North Carolina at Wilmington ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 11:48:01 EDT From: Rosane Rocher Subject: Job announcement This was posted on INDOLOGY and I thought it might be of some interest here. --Jim ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- NEW POSITION IN ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA The School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, invites applications for a position in Asian American Studies at the junior or senior level. Candidates with disciplinary specializations in any of the humanities or social sciences are encouraged to apply. The search is conducted by an interdisciplinary committee. We seek a candidate accomplished in one discipline who can think, write, teach, and collaborate across disciplines and contribute to the building of an interdisciplinary program in Asian American Studies. The appointment will be effective on July 1, 1994. Applicants should send an application letter, curriculum vitae, and list of references by December 15, 1993 to: Prof. Rosane Rocher, Chair Asian American Studies Search Committee University of Pennsylvania 820 Williams Hall Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 USA Fax: (215) 573-2138 The University of Pennsylvania is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 14:53:57 EDT From: Raynald Prevereau Subject: On free will in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dave Gould asks about free will vs interdependent origination. This is indeed a very interesting question. I see at least 2 problems with free will in Buddhism: first, whether there is such a thing as a will, and second, to what extent can we say it is free. Here are some of my very sketchy comments. To answer the first question, I believe that the inclusion of desire and its possible "pursuit" in the theory of interdependent origination, allows for the presence of a will since the two are not different, both aiming at the fulfilment of a purpose (a noble word for desire). Moreover, since their goals are identical, they should not be differentiated as something that is often selfish and objectionable (desire), and something noble which we should not only express as much as we can, but also have the right (give me a break!) to express (the will). Let's face it folks, the will is nothing but disguised desire, and the possibility to express our will is nothing but the possibility to give in to our many desires. If we compare desire to a crook, the will is no more than a crook dressed up in a suit and a tie! (Please forgive my use of the word "crook", but we just had federal elections up here yesterday...) And we all know what treatment Buddhism reserves to our mental crooks, our desires: extinction! So not only does Buddhism recognise the presence of the will in its recognition of desire, its whole purpose and praxis is to work on that will and overcome or control it. (Yes, I admit, I read Schopenhauer. Worst than that, I liked it!) Now is the will -- or should I say, the many instances of will -- free? I would tend to say no, considering the power of social, cultural, psychological and biological conditioning (karma, if you like). Yet, when we are "willing" to step back a little and think about our actions and behaviours, there usually comes a point -- if we are patient enough -- where we see the various possibilities and consequences of our actions and I would like to suggest that if there is ever a chance for free will to manifest itself, it comes precisely at that moment when we see the alternatives to an action and decide which road to take. Admitedly, our decisions will still be affected by our past conditionings when we begin to think critically about our actions, but I'd like to think that with practice we can free ourselves of those past conditionings and act as though we were free. But we have to ask ourselves what is so special about one's actions being guided by free will and whether it is a noble goal. Hypothetically, even a murderer's actions may be guided by free will. But Buddhism wants nothing to do with murderers; that is, Buddhism aims not at the transformation of human beings into any kind of free human beings. Rather, Buddhism aims at a transformation that will make us both free and skillful; skillful in the sense that our actions will lead not to suffering, but to the happiness of the many. This is where the eightfold path comes in, a set of recommandations which aims not only at freeing us from our bad habits and conditionings, but also at developing skillful habits which will hopefully lead us to complete liberation from dukkha. But unless one equates "free" with "skillful", even the enlightened being, who has perfect control over the mind and is free from dukkha, will not have a free will since he/she cannot escape the skillful conditionings that make him/her act for the benefit of the world. I suggest therefore that there is no such thing as free will according to Buddhism. Moreover, I suggest that Buddhism is not so much interested in "free will" as in skillful will. Freedom is a dangerous tool in the hands of the unskilled. I hope this was not too murky. With metta, Raynald Prevereau McGill University ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 25 Oct 1993 to 26 Oct 1993 *************************************************** From owner-BUDDHA-L@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Wed Oct 27 17:17:11 1993 Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 16:01:11 -0400 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 26 Oct 1993 to 27 Oct 1993 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests There are 19 messages totalling 700 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. On free will in Buddhism (3) 2. Oral commentaries? 3. jpn natl'ism in prewar Hawaiian Buddhism 4. various topics 5. sex sex sex (7) 6. buddhist thanksgiving??? (2) 7. Pali Tipitaka on CD-ROM 8. Thanksgiving (2) 9. library classification ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 16:40:12 EDT From: DanLusthaus Subject: Re: On free will in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Raynald's thoughtful reflections on the question of "free will" in Buddhism were very much on target. I might suggest a supplement or two. First, the notion of "free will" in Western theological thought is often miscontrued or misunderstood, and there are several (conflicting) versions of it. Before deciding whether Buddhism has such a thing, we need to be clear about what it is. Will (Latin: voluntas) is most often understood as "choice," i.e., free will means the ability to make choices. A Medieval Christian debate between Dominicans and Franciscans was which of God's attributes was superior, His Knowledge (the Dominican position) or His Will (Franciscan position). One of the Franciscan arguments helps highlight what "will" meant for them. If you put an ass in a spot equally distant from two identical piles of hay, "knowledge" will be unable to decide toward which pile the ass should go to eat. Even as he grows hungrier, since the piles and distances are equal, he will have no criteria by which to choose one pile rather than another. Result: If the ass relies on knowledge alone, he will starve to death. Only by will (i.e., choosing one rather than the other, for any or no reason) will he avoid starvation. Thus, Raynald's description of stepping back and viewing alternatives so as to "choose" an alternative action, is very much a part of Buddhist practice. The dispassionate viewpoint developed in mindfulness, e.g., should not lead to inaction, but to a correct action grounded in the absence of self-interest (a point the Bhagavad Gita also emphasizes). Second, cetanaa (volition) is treated in Abhidharmic and some sutta literature as a synonym for sa.mskara (embodied karmic conditioning). Volitions arise not by magic, nor from an autonomous (= self/aatman) source, but are products of previous conditioning. Free will in Western theology is often made to associate with the notion of an autonomous individual or soul - in some formulations the very determinant of the ultimate destiny of that eternal self. Obviously, while Buddhism does have its multiple-lives cosmologies, this basic presupposition is (supposed to be) absent. Thus the will, the making of choices, is framed in Buddhism with different concerns, with a different context. As one is driven by propensities (aasava/aa'srava, anusaya, sa.mskaara, etc.), one acts habitually, reiteratively, i.e., karmically. The ability to be in a moment wherein one can see the "otherwise" and choose an action not scripted by one's previous karma constitutes many of the turning points (bodhicitta qua cittonupaada, aa'sraya-parav.rtti) focused on at length by Buddhist praxis. Conclusion: The sense of "free-will" that requires or reinforces the notion of an autonomous agent of actions is not condoned in Buddhism. The sense of free will that denotes an ability to act otherwise than by the strictures of a hard determinism is promoted and lionized by Buddhism. Dan Lusthaus Bates College dlusthau@abacus.bates.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 06:29:22 EST From: Richard P Hayes Subject: Oral commentaries? On the question of Tibetan translations of Indian materials, Joe Wilson raised a most intriguing issue: The Tibetan translators (and their Indian cohorts) had access to a living tradition of exegesis, much of it never written down. It would be odd if it was the Tibetans who invented, ex nihilo, the idea of an oral commentary on a text handed down from teacher to disciple. Is this another one of those common misconceptions that has never been proven (in the classical Indian tradition)? The claim that Tibetan translators had access to oral commentaries is a good example of a kind of statement that can probably never be either proved nor disproved. It is clearly an article of faith, but there is always the possibility that one might be able to elevate it from the realm of mere faith to the realm of demonstrable truth. I have often thought about just exactly what kind of evidence one would have to have to substantiate or repudiate this claim, and I must confess I have never been able to make much progress on the problem. Let me make a few random observations, and perhaps Joe or someone else can help make good sense of them. First, there is good reason to doubt that there was anything like an unbroken lineage of orally transmitted commentary specific to a text. I doubt very much, for example, that when Kanakavarman helped Dad pa'i shes rab translate Dignaaga's Pramaa.nasamuccaya into Tibetan, he had access to an oral commentary that specifically related to that text. For one thing, the translation was made some seven hundred to eight hundred years after the original text was written, and I find it very hard to believe that an orally transmitted commentary could exist for that length of time. All it takes to break an oral tradition is for one poor slob to trip over a cake of cow dung and break his neck before he has transmitted the text to a disciple. For another thing, Kanakavarman is obviously not a religious name, and certainly not a Buddhist name. (Kanakavarman means Golden Armour and is a fairly typically Kshatriya name, but nothing is know about this fellow.) Another translation of Dignaga's text was made by an Indian named Vasudhararak.sita, which is also not at all Buddhist sounding. There is no strong reason to believe that these people would have received orally transmitted texts, since I suppose such transmissions would normally be part of monastic life but not of lay life. When one considers that very few Buddhists survived in India into the centuries during which Tibetans were making the majority of their translations, it is most likely that the Indian members of their translation teams were Hindus or Jains. Moreover, quite a large number of them were householders rather than monks. Many of them were, in other words, fairly ordinary blokes like Joe Wilson and me. It is always possible that these ordinary blokes had learned oral commentaries by heart, but it is by no means obvious that they would have done so. I am inclined not to believe that they had access to oral commentaries until someone can provide evidence that more strongly suggests that they did have such access. Notwithstanding the unlikelihood of traditions of oral commentary specific to a text, there is obviously a sense in which people who have inherited a culture can readily make sense of things that an outsider can barely grasp, or can grasp only with considerable effort. Classical Indian scholastic writing is very difficult for a modern person (even an Indian) to read precisely because it was not written for us; it was written for a reader who was highly educated in a number of classical disciplines that are no longer taught in the way they used to be taught, if indeed they are taught at all. There is no doubt that the Indians who interpreted texts for Tibetan translators had access to that general wealth of background information. And therefore it need not disturb us to learn that many of the Indian scholars who served as interpreters for Tibetan lo-tsa-ba were non-Buddhist Brahmins or Kshatriyas. They were still much better educated (and especially better prepared to make sense of classical Indian texts) than Joe Wilson or I can ever claim to be. So even though they were reading a Sanskrit text that was already seven or eight hundred years old by the time they got it, they had some advantages over those of us who are reading that same text some fourteen hundred years after it was written. But, as Joe has pointed out, we also have some advantages over them. What remains to be seen was how much of the understanding and insight that Kanakavarman and Vasudhararak.sita had into Dignaga got translated into Tibetan. For the sake of discussion, let me make a distinction between three styles of translation. Let me call the first a semi-translation. This is one in which the translator gets a text out of its source language without quite getting it into the target language. The result is a text that a native speaker (or skilled reader) of the target language can just barely understand; full sense of the translation cab be gained only by referring back to the original in the source language. (I would cite translations done by Jeffrey Hopkins as examples of semi-translation; they yield much sense to people who know Tibetan and have been trained by Hopkins, but I have never been able to use them as texts in ordinary undergraduate courses or in lectures at Buddhist temples delivered to my fellow bird-brained dharma junkies.) Let me call the second a full translation. This is one in which the translator writes in the target language something very close to what the author of the original text would have written if he had known the target language. (Lindtner, Ruegg, Steinkellner, Lamotte, Schopen, Hattori, Kajiyama and Katsura spring to mind as translators who approximate this ideal. I hope to join their ranks when I grow up.) Let me call the third an overflowing translation. This is one in which the translator renders the text by reading into it a host of anachronistic ideas that were obviously foreign to the original author. (Stcherbatsky's neo-Kantian renderings of everything he touched, and some of H.V. Guenther's later translations of Buddhist philosophy into Husserlian and Heideggerian gobbledygook are examples of overflowing translation.) Most of the Tibetan translations of Sanskrit texts that I have studied seem to be examples of semi-translation. Without a very good grasp of Sanskrit in general and of the subject matter of the text in particular, one can barely make sense of them. Such translations are probably somewhat more accessible to a well-trained Sanskritist than to a Tibetan lama. But even to a Sanskritist they are a very slow and painful study. Richard P. Hayes Faculty of Religious Studies McGill University Montreal, Quebec ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:04:28 EDT From: Galen Amstutz Subject: jpn natl'ism in prewar Hawaiian Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- A question for Ryo Imamura, meant to be challenging but not unfair: Recently I have referred to a book by Louise Hunter, Buddhism in Hawaii (U of Hawaii Press, 1970's). The book appears to have been done as a kind of local history; it relied heavily on first person interviews, newspaper research, and archival research. I want to address a specific point. It is now mainstream politically correct US history to note that Asian-Americans on the mainland were (are) the 3rd most oppressed ethnic body in US history (after African-Americans and native Americans). The versions of this opprssion based Asian-American history that I have looked at so far, however, appear to pay relatively little attention to Hawaii in the couple of decades before WW II; that is, after the initial plantation exploitation period. If this is true (please correct my judgement if it is), what has happened to Hawaii in the story? This is the way it looks, judging from Hunter's book: there are a couple of things "wrong" with the pre-war Hawaiian history for the purposes of telling a pure edifying story of Asian oppression. 1) After approx 1910, the Japanese immigrant community in Hawaii (a US territory, but not state) was quite strong and was duking it out with the whites politically on fairly equal terms, and was enjoying an economic and population boom. 2) That immigrant community--at least the first, or issei generation-- was VERY heavily involved with prewar Japanese ethno-nationalism. 3) The Shin Buddhist institution in Hawaii was the main vector of that ethno-nationalism, throuscribed by Hunter as a "fanatic Japanese national- ist." (Hunter's account has MUCH more information along these lines....) The questions I would like to ask are these: a) What is a proper editorial position to take on Hunter's book for a politically correct college professor of religion? Is it reliable? b) Was the Japanese nationalist politicization of the prewar Hawaiian Shin Buddhist community totally really completely divorced from events that encountered Japanese-Americans on the the mainland from 1945-1949? from: Galen Amstutz, Department of Religion, 231 Williams Bldg. R-15, Florida State University, Tallahassee FL 32306-1029 (904)644-0213 fax:(904)644-7225 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:09:56 EDT From: Galen Amstutz Subject: various topics ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- a) Robin Kornman brought to my attention how much tantrism is involved in Indian bhakti. I consulted with our local FSU expert, a specialist on shakti and northern Indian goddess traditions (who is personaly also a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner). The gist of her opinion is: yes, tantrism is all over the place in India; no, it is not everything in Indian tradit- ions, and you can develop full "orthodox" theories of bhakti without alluding to tantrism at all (this latter approach is how Indians them- selves tend to write about it of course). So both Amstutz and Kornman are empirically correct, and reflect different perspectives that exist within the Indian tradition itself. b) It was also brought to my attention that there may not be any precedent for calling the (normal) Amitabha Pure Land a paratantra realm. Shucks, I've been caught! I don't know of any classical usage like this either, though I would like to find one--and this slightly inventive usage on my part makes entire sense to me if what paratantra means is the place where ignorance and enlightenment "overlap" or "coincide" as it were. But this exchange reminds me that since I don't know the vijnaptimatrata literature very well first hand at this point, and rely mostly on textbook summaries, I don't know what are the standard CONCRETE examples of what paratantra is supposed to be (tt are they? What if no such examples are easy to come by? Then, I would suggest, we have here another astonishingly easy example of a yawning gap in the traditional Buddhist literature (viz. the question about the epistemology of iconography that came up recently). c) My FSU students are still waiting to find out about the politics of nirvana via monism and dyadism. At any rate, for what little it is worth, I'll try to put up on this list some ideas for readings about Pure Land Buddhism soon. from: Galen Amstutz, Department of Religion, 231 Williams Bldg. R-15, Florida State University, Tallahassee FL 32306-1029 (904)644-0213 fax:(904)644-7225 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:14:30 EDT From: Galen Amstutz Subject: sex sex sex ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Here's a question: I recently picked up a book entitled Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven: Women, Sexuality and the Catholic Church by a German theologian Uta Ranke-Heinemann; this is a highly sarcastic, biased work, guaranteed to start dangerous conversations with your conservative Catholic friends, but it does bring forward a mass of information about the Catholic tradition's obsessive concern about the control of sexuality among not only the clergy but also the laypeople. Since I am not up on my Buddhism and sexuality reading, I wonder: has anyone put together a developed argument about why the Catholic tradition has apparently been so much more concerned about this that any of the Buddhist traditions? We all know that Buddhist clericism has its share of misogyny, and that the position of women was muddled in many ways, but I have never become aware of any such "Catholic" concern for control of sexuality even though monastic Buddhism usually took this quite seriously and Buddhism was, like Catholicism, a tradition focused on leadership by sexual renunciants. So what might a comparative explanation be? For my part a couple of things come initially to mind: 1) long time line, multiple rebirths in Buddhism lower the immediate stakes of sensuality; 2) institutionally, Buddhism never controlled any social phenomena like sacraments of birth and marriage that brought it into legal entanglement with customary life, i.e. normal sexuality; 3) maybe even at its most strict Buddhism tended to be less irritable about sexuality on account of its emptiness theory of knowledge (??) Suggestions? Surely everybody has something to say about sex! from: Galen Amstutz, Department of Religion, 231 Williams Bldg. R-15, Florida State University, Tallahassee FL 32306-1029 (904)644-0213 fax:(904)644-7225 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:20:08 EDT From: "Dr. I. Astley" Subject: Re: On free will in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Just a short remark _cum_ plea in response to the recent mailings on free will in Buddhism: Does anyone else feel that it might not be a bad idea to ban the word karma and its anglicized derivatives (e.g. karmic, karmically, karma (as the accumulated consequences of past actions))? At its simplest the term indicates action, doing, from the root _k.r_. The other aspects of the _consequences_ of what one does (e.g., as Dan Lusthaus pointed out, sa.mskaara) are covered by other terms---vipaaka as the ripening, i.e. the fruition of the consequences, would be one example. It would seem to me that Buddhism presupposes the existence of free will, in the sense that if one did not have the choice, or rather, if it were not possible to direct one's efforts in accordance with the demands of the discipline required to attain the Buddhist goal. Otherwise, the whole exercise would be _really_ silly! One reason why I say this is that I cannot think of any scholastic debate or commentarial tradition which sees the matter in similar terms to the philosophic and theological debates so central to much of thinking in this part of the world. The obvious difference is God and His Creation, although there are many other not quite so obvious differences. Homework: Translate ``freedom'' into Japanese in not less than 5000 words. Ian Astley e-mail: astley@mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE Philipps-Universitaet, FB 11 Tel.: [+49] 6421 28-3662, FG Religionswissenschaft -3661, Liebigstr. 37 or -7035 D--35037 Marburg Fax: [+49] 6421 28-3944 Germany ---PLEASE NOTE the new postal code!--- ---AND the new e-mail node address!--- ******************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:20:30 EDT From: Robin Brooks Kornman Subject: Re: buddhist thanksgiving??? ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Thanksgiving prayer: I think a nice Buddhist thanksgiving prayer would be a middle-length aspiration (monlam, pranidhana) prayer. If you want one, I will be glad to suppy a translation of a Tibetan one. Then again, perhaps a short feast-offering (ganacakra) would be more appropriate. It's a pretty problem. Robin Kornman ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:20:44 EDT From: Greg Eichler Subject: Re: Pali Tipitaka on CD-ROM ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- The Pali Text Sociey ough to be ashamed of itself. Impeding the Buddha's Word in *any* way is indeed disgraceful. -G. Eichler San Francisco On Mon, 25 Oct 1993 INDINST@vax.oxford.ac.uk wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > From: K.R. Norman, President of the Pali Text Society > > BUDDHISM AND INDIAN STUDIES > IMPORTANT - PLEASE NOTE VERY CAREFULLY > > You may have received a communication from Professor Witzel of Harvard > informing you that the Dhammakaya Foundation has completed the input of the > whole of the Pali Tipitaka on CD-ROM, and will be distributing it free. > > Please take note that the material which the Foundation proposes to distribute > in this way is the property of the Pali Text Society, of which I am President. > The Foundation has no right to copy the material on CD-Rom and distribute it in > that or any other way. We have been negotiating with the Foundation for some > time with a view to possible copying and distribution, but the negotiations > have not been completed, and any copying, distribution and use are therefore in > breach of our rights. > > Please also take note that we reserve the right to take legal action to enforce > our rights in this important material against those who disregard them. > > The Pali text Society is a non-profitmaking organisation established for many > years and dedicated to the advancement of the study of Pali texts and the Pali > language. The material which the Dhammakaya Foundation has put on CD-ROM > represents many years of work and original research by this Society's scholars. > Any legal proceedings which we institute will be necessary to enable us to > carry out the purposes for which this organisation was founded. The pursuance > of academic studies everywhere becomes impossible if the rights of others are > abused as is happening in this case. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:20:57 EDT From: Dave Gould Subject: Thanksgiving ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- As was recently noted, there has been little response to the request for examples of thankgiving rites, prayers, or what-have-you. Perhaps this is because there are few examples to give. Who does a buddhist thank? There is no creator. The only offering I can make, from my one year accumulation of experience is that of the rite associated with eating -saying grace. Amoung the Tibetan Buddhists I have seen, there is no mention of thanks, but rather, the food is offered to the three jewels, for the awakening of all sentient beings. Dave Gould -dgould@acadvm1.uottawa.ca ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:21:14 EDT From: Michael EDMONDS Subject: library classification ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- For large collections, the Library of Congress classification system may be useful. It is not as Anglo-centric as other classification systems and is widely used in North America. Its breakdown for Buddhism runs to more than 100 pages in _LC Classification Schedule, Class B: Religion. Religions, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism_ (Washington: LC, 1984). There's a two-page overview in the table of contents that I'd be happy to photocopy and mail to anybody who reads this. Send a post office address to me at: michael.edmonds@mail.admin.wisc.edu The full schedule in the volume above should be for sale from the Cataloging Distribution Service, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20541 USA (tel: 202-707-6120) Any other librarians know of systems they prefer? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:25:33 EDT From: Rodger Kamenetz Subject: Re: On free will in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Reflecting on R. Prevereau's commentary on Buddhism and free will, I'm wondering if, in certain Buddhist traditions, free will isn't the will to do good, i.e., good will. I am thinking of the Tibetan emphasis on bodhicitta, on the cultivation of the "altruistic motivation", as I have seen it translated into English. In this sense then, and contra Raymond, there is such a thing as will in Buddhist thought that is separable from desire. Rodger Kamenetz enrodg@lsuvm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:56:57 EDT From: Mark Larrimore Subject: Re: sex sex sex ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I'm embarrassed that it should be in response to Galen Amstutz's question about sex that I should make my first appearance on the Buddha list but karma will out. Just two, related but ill-thought-out suggestions. (1) The Catholic Church has been so much concerned about sex because of the way in which Augustine made sexual desire (and succumbing to it) PRIMUS INTER PARES of desires. The central place the Augustinian notion of original sin -- transmitted by the copulative act of one's parents -- should go a long way, I should think, to accounting for the disproportionate emphasis placed on sex in the traditions it infected. (2) In Buddhist traditions, on the other hand, couldn't one perhaps say that sex has no such crucial part to play, being JUST ONE of the many ways in which one's desires draw one to the world? In post-Augustinian Christian thought, sex becomes in some ways the paradigm for all thought about desire and carnality (and society and history, but those are other issues). Is there such a single main paradigm in Buddhist traditions? I am no authority. But based on my reading, things like THIRST seem more central. If there are central metaphors for desire, etc. in Buddhist traditions, one might make some revealing comparative discoveries if one were to trace the circumstances of their emergence. Mark Larrimore Princeton ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:57:27 EDT From: "Nathan Katz, University of South Florida" Subject: Re: buddhist thanksgiving??? ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I'd be grateful to see the prayers referred to by my old pal, Robin Kornman. --Nathan Katz ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 11:01:31 EDT From: "Dr. I. Astley" Subject: Re: sex sex sex ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Perhaps Galen Amstutz would have a lot of fun reading the Vinaya: goodness only knows where they got their ideas from. Roughly speaking, anything with more than one leg and an orifice was forbidden at some point, presumably because it was a problem. Also, I am rather wary of the idea that philo- sophical ideas (not that I would call ``emptiness theory of knowledge'' a philosophical idea) are what counts in this area. It is basically a question of the right (=meet) way to conduct oneself, i.e. discipline, i.e. vinaya, if you want to attain the Buddhist goal. Aramaki's work on the origins of the pratity. sam. formula, where he puts emphasis, sorry: reveals the emphasis on the deepest affective layers in the pyscho-physical complex as the primary determining factors in the perpetuated round of suffering, is instructive, although I would hate to be asked to pronounce an authoritative judgement on whether he is correct, since the early Sanskrit and Pali materials that he uses are not my specific area of research. This goes back to one of his earlier points, i.e. about the round of births and deaths: the impression that rebirth theory serves to give people an excuse for hanging around for the next ride on the caroussel is mistaken (although many may perhaps behave in a way which would suggest this). The basic idea, as I understand it, is that you should be scared out of your skin at the thought that you may not have another chance to extricate yourself from this seething mess for rather a long time if you do not avail yourself of the advantages of a human existence. Ian Astley e-mail: astley@mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE Philipps-Universitaet, FB 11 Tel.: [+49] 6421 28-3662, FG Religionswissenschaft -3661, Liebigstr. 37 or -7035 D--35037 Marburg Fax: [+49] 6421 28-3944 Germany ---PLEASE NOTE the new postal code!--- ---AND the new e-mail node address!--- ******************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 11:07:25 EDT From: Dave Tilley Subject: Re: Thanksgiving ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > > As was recently noted, there has been little response to the request for > examples of thankgiving rites, prayers, or what-have-you. Perhaps this > is because there are few examples to give. Who does a buddhist thank? There > is no creator. The only offering I can make, from my one year accumulation of > experience is that of the rite associated with eating -saying grace. Amoung > the Tibetan Buddhists I have seen, there is no mention of thanks, but rather, > the food is offered to the three jewels, for the awakening of all sentient > beings. > > Dave Gould -dgould@acadvm1.uottawa.ca > Hmm. It seems to me that there are beings to thank. True there is no big-daddy-creator-god to thank for the food. But everything being eaten was a living being or the fruit of such. Those beings can be thanked and respected not as hunks of meat or veggie but as beings that gave of themselves so that you might eat. You can recognize the pain that may have been felt. This (I think ) is very much in the tradition of the Native Americans. In addition, one can recognize that there are beings in the universe, on this planet, indeed in your town, that are without food now. One can recognize this and understand the suffering that goes on. Further, one can dedicate onself to attaining enlightenment for all beings to aleviate (sp?) that suffering. And one can dedicate onself to helping aleviate that suffering here and now. My plan is to fast before Thanksgiving to bring these points home to myself. When I eat that food. I WILL BE THANKFULL AND AWARE. Dave ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 13:25:32 EDT From: coon@IPFWCVAX.BITNET Subject: Re: sex sex sex ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- One reference that might help for the Buddhist side is a book titled Lust for Enlightenment by John Stevens (1990). I have it but it is still on my "get around to reading it someday list" so I can not vouch for it one way or the other. ************************************************ Roger (Brad) Coon "Better to have one COON@IPFWCVAX.BITNET freedom too many, COON@CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU than to have one too few." Politically incorrect and proud of it. Niquimictitoc inana Bambi. ************************************************ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 13:25:46 EDT From: Rob Gimello Subject: Re: sex sex sex ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I would be grateful if Prof. Astley, or someone, would cite the particular work(s) by Aramaki to which he referred in his recent post. Thanks. R.Gimello ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 13:45:13 EDT From: "Dr. I. Astley" Subject: Re: sex sex sex ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I think I posted the reference to the List about 6.2384 months ago, but I cannot be sure. I shall re-transmit tomorrow: it is now dark in this part of the world, and I am hungry to boot. If I forget, you are welcome to contact me directly. Ian Astley e-mail: astley@mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE Philipps-Universitaet, FB 11 Tel.: [+49] 6421 28-3662, FG Religionswissenschaft -3661, Liebigstr. 37 or -7035 D--35037 Marburg Fax: [+49] 6421 28-3944 Germany ---PLEASE NOTE the new postal code!--- ---AND the new e-mail node address!--- ******************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 13:45:25 EDT From: "Dr. I. Astley" Subject: Re: sex sex sex ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- John Stevens' _lust for Enlightenment_ contains some good ideas, but I am not too sure about his handling of his sources. Alexander Kabanov wrote a chapter on the Tachikawa movement of Japan, Esoteric Buddhism in Japan, ed. my good self (1993, release pending outcome of a legal action). Van Gulik, Sexual Life in Ancient China, is a useful evergreen and has a bit specifically on Buddhism, as does Needham's Sc. and Civ., Vol. 5. Finally, I do not recognize the language of Roger Coon's dictum, but I wonder if this could be taken as evidence of pre-historic cross-cultural influences from Japan, where the age-old dish, Bambi-yaki, is still consumed with relish? Ian Astley e-mail: astley@mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE Philipps-Universitaet, FB 11 Tel.: [+49] 6421 28-3662, FG Religionswissenschaft -3661, Liebigstr. 37 or -7035 D--35037 Marburg Fax: [+49] 6421 28-3944 Germany ---PLEASE NOTE the new postal code!--- ---AND the new e-mail node address!--- ******************************************************************** ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 26 Oct 1993 to 27 Oct 1993 *************************************************** From owner-BUDDHA-L@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Thu Oct 28 16:10:44 1993 Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 16:02:17 -0400 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 27 Oct 1993 to 28 Oct 1993 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests There are 8 messages totalling 338 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Asian students, English grammar (4) 2. P-correct, birdbrained sex on CD-ROM -Re 3. On free will in Buddhism 4. Pure Land and paratantra 5. sex sex sex ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 16:20:03 EDT From: Jim Murdock Subject: Asian students, English grammar ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- While not directly about Buddhism, the question I wish to raise must certainly be of interest to academics having Asian involvement of any kind. I would appreciate responses from anyone who (a) teaches Asian students or (b) is Asian him/herself. To what extent should an Asian student in an English-speaking university be expected (required?) to have (or develop?) competency in English grammar? Chinese students especially have great difficulty with inflections, since their language has none. I am reconciled to undergraduate students who cannot write grammatically but can solve routine mathematics problems. My question concerns graduate students who submit a draft of a master's or doctor's thesis that contain sentences like: "The multiple scale methods is use in the perturbation problems to producing approximation solution of the problem." (This should be something like: Multiple scale methods are used in perturbation theory to produce approximate solutions of the problems.) I seem to have the following courses of action. 1. Let the thesis pass as it is. The library, where our theses must be deposited, no longer attempts to check the writing, as they once did, but confines itself to such things as margins and footnote style. 2. Require that the student resubmit the thesis in an acceptable form. This assumes that the students are capable of figuring out the correct grammar given enough time; or it forces them to hire someone to correct the grammar for them. Both of these are problematic, the latter because it would be nearly impossible to find someone who could understand the mathematics sufficiently to correct the grammar in a way which gives the proper nuances. (It can be crucial, for instance, to choose the article "a" or "the" according to whether the object spoken of is or is not unique.) 3. Extensively mark up each version of the thesis myself. I have done this a number of times, sometimes until I felt that I have written the thesis myself. Combined with the fact that our students are often weak mathematicians (who might never have passes their prelims at the universities I attended) and that I might already feel that I have contributed most of the ideas in the thesis, this leads me to feel that I am pushing students through the mill merely in order to be able to have students. One of my Ph.D. students is now teaching in his home country (Taiwan) in a position which apparently has lifetime security with no obligation to continue in research. He was evidently offered this job via an "old boy network" before he ever came here to study (provided that he got his Ph.D.). Obviously the academic morality and customs in Asian countries are very different from our own. This person's English has (judging by his email correspondence) completely fallen apart after he stopped using English on a daily basis, although it was fairly good while he was here. Under these circumstances, do we have any business imposing our own cultural standards (whether of academic honesty or of ability to communicate in English) on our students? Or should we adhere to our own western ideas of what a university should be, even if we lose all our graduate students as a result? I know I'm probably putting things in exaggerated terms here, but that is a result of my confusion. ..................................................................... Jim Murdock TO SPEAK is to create the opportunity Mathematics Dept. to learn why what I said is not true. Iowa State University Ames Iowa 50011 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 16:20:17 EDT From: nrs2460.bhc1@pcmail.dcccd.edu Subject: P-correct, birdbrained sex on CD-ROM -Re ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Fellow Budhs - No, my answer has nothing to do with sex, politics, birds, or brains - I just wanted some readers..... I initially assumed that Greg E. was joking in his post about the Pali Text Society's policy. Then I wondered if he were serious. Surely, Greg, you acknowledge that, at least in the modern world, people have to make money in order to stay alive to pass along Buddha's (or anyone else's) words. I find nothing amiss in paying scholars and data-entry people for their time for translation, cd-rom mastering, distributing, and advertising of Buddhist texts. Book publishers receive money for their products, and this project is certainly at least as labor-intensive as publishing a book. If your argument is taken further, then surely it is wrong to pay Buddhologists and teachers of Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, and Tibetan for their time, as they are at least partly assisting in the dissemination of Buddha's words. Well, there's no need to labor the point - I just wanted you all to know that your faithful laisse-faire capitalistic correspondent is still here and ready to point out the need for fiscal compensation for work, even for Buddhists. Nancy Smith nrs2460.BHC1@pcmail.dcccd.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 16:20:31 EDT From: Dan Lusthaus Subject: Re: On free will in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- At 10:20 AM 10/27/93, Dr. I. Astley wrote: >Does anyone else feel that it might not be a bad idea to >ban the word karma and its anglicized derivatives (e.g. karmic, karmically, >karma (as the accumulated consequences of past actions))? At its simplest >the term indicates action, doing, from the root _k.r_. The other aspects of >the _consequences_ of what one does (e.g., as Dan Lusthaus pointed out, >sa.mskaara) are covered by other terms---vipaaka as the ripening, i.e. the >fruition of the consequences, would be one example. I'm not sure why you want to ban the word karma, Ian. After all, the texts say, for instance karma-vipaaka, so that the use of vipaaka on its own implies that compound. Why is the only option an either/or between "karma" and its substitutes? Why not try to smuggle more useful Sanskrit terms into the discussion without abandoning karma? In every language there are words that do not refer to only one referent but function as an emblem of the collectivity of many other words. Buddhists called that verbal collectivity praj~napti, and much of the Indian Buddhist literature warns against confusing praj~napti-type terms for singular corresponding realities (the skandha model is the most famous example of that). Karma is one of those collective terms, that connotes a full range of subjects. Since karma was universally identified as the root problem, and Buddhism is almost entirely devoted to curing the root problem, EVERYTHING is Buddhism is somehow intimately linked to the notion of karma. Karma - in Buddhist usage - does not mean merely "action", but "intentional action." Mere physical activity (whether bodily, linguistic or mental) if devoid of intent is called k.riya, not karma. Intent relates to desire, and karma is the euphemism for what holds the whole sa.msaaric process together. So rather than ban the term karma, I think we should become *more* cognizant of its full range of implications in Buddhist thought and practice (and by all means get vipaaka, etc., into the discussion). Dan Lusthaus dlusthau@abacus.bates.edu Bates College ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 16:20:45 EDT From: Nobuyoshi Yamabe Subject: Pure Land and paratantra ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This is in response to Dr. Amstutz on Pure Land and paratantra: Although it is not an explicit statement, the Mahaayaanasa.mgraha seems to consider pure land as purified paratantra (see Paul Griffiths et al, _The Realm of Awakening_, p.38). But please also note that the boundary between purified paratantra and parini.spanna is rather vague in this text (II.29). On the other hand, in the face of the kaalaantaraabhipraaya (Jpn. betsuji ishu) theory of this school (Mahaayaanasa.mgraha II.31; Mahaayaanasuutraala.mkaara XII.18), it seems that only aaryas can be reborn in Amitaabha's Pure Land. Therefore, if you imply by paratantra that Pure Land is the field where Buddha/aaryas and p.rthagjanas interact, I'm rather skeptical (as far as the Yogaacaara theory is concerned, of course). Actually on this point (whether p.rthagjanas can be reborn in Pure Land), there was a controversy in Japanese Hossoo school. Please see Kusunoki Junshoo, Nihon yuishiki shisoo no kenkyuu: Annyoo yuihoo, tsuukesetsu no tenkai, IBK 35(1): 191-93, 1986. Typical example of paratantra is consciousness and its projections. Pure land seems to be paratantra because it is the mental construction (rnam par rig pa, *vij~napti) of Buddha's pure wisdom (Mahaayaanasa.mgraha X.30), which is a special type of consciousness. Also, although this would not be "concrete examples," the similies of trisvabhaava given in Nagao's _Maadhyamika and Yogaacaara_, p.61ff may be interesting. Nobuyoshi Yamabe ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 09:48:28 EDT From: Dan Lusthaus Subject: Re: Asian students, English grammar ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Jim, the questions you raised are pertinent across the disciplines. The most common solution is for the student to find (or the instructor to recommend) a proofreader, either one competent in the field (e.g., a fellow grad student - to whom s/he might be willing to offer some remuneration for services), or a Writing Workshop person (there is a growing field of ESL - English as Second Language - programs springing up throughout academia), or some other reliable proofreading source. Ideally a student's English would improve so that such measures could be minimized, but the reality is that, especially if the "texts" they are reading are loaded with jargon, their writing often does not substantially improve (though I have known many Asian students who have improved dramatically). I leave it to your judgement about the advisability of providing your students with their thesis ideas. In Asian studies they often need to be taught methodology and more critical approaches to texts, but they are usually full of ideas that have to be honed, refined and focused in ways similar to the process one undergoes with American students. If an individual is intellectually not up to the task, perhaps a terminal MA is the solution. As for the questions of intellectual imperialism, others may disagree, but my feeling is that if they come here to study and to get a degree from a U.S. institution, they should be expected to do so according to U.S. standards. If one is worried about polluting them with our ideas, then they shouldn't come here in the first place. Asian students may need a bit more explanation about precisely what those standards are (things were different back home), but they usually are more than willing to comply. Dan Lusthaus dlusthau@abacus.bates.edu Bates College ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 09:49:12 EDT From: "Dr. I. Astley" Subject: Re: Asian students, English grammar ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Jim Murdoch is lucky. I have to deal with German students who cannot even use their native language properly. Put succinctly, I am a swine: I marked one master's dissertion down nearly two full points on the grading scale because (a ) it was ugly, (b) I did not have a clue what the person was talking about. Obviously, in cases where students from radically different cultures are involved, one has to be accommodating. The degree to which one should accommodate these differences is a matter for discretion and judgement. In my own experience with Asian students, I have found that makingthem sweat a bit helps them greatly, and in allowing them the opportunity to acquaint themselves with our methods and thinking through a more disciplined use of language, I also end up with perspectives that can be refreshingly different. Some, naturally, fall by the wayside. One is even due to be deported. But I cannot for the life of me see what good it does anybody to allow crass incompetence to parade as certified excellence. I have some very good students and I refuse to have them regarded in the same way as any Tom, Dick or Harry. The Asian students I have should, by the same token, have similar, deserved recognition, even if the same standards as those whic are applied to the natives would force a lower grade on them. In short, as removing your head In short, as many other researchers who served a hard apprenticeship in an Asian environment will testify, bridging cultures like this is like removing your head and screwing it back on in a different direction, only to have to put it back in the original place when you return home. I was helped in Japan, so I help Japanese and other Asians in whatever way I can. But I do have my limits. As far as Asian ``old boys networks'' are concerned, there is little one can do about that. On the other hand, why should one be obligated to concur with their requirements? And on yet another hand, we have our networks, too, but do not notice them in quite the same way. Ian Astley e-mail: astley@mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE Philipps-Universitaet, FB 11 Tel.: [+49] 6421 28-3662, FG Religionswissenschaft -3661, Liebigstr. 37 or -7035 D--35037 Marburg Fax: [+49] 6421 28-3944 Germany ---PLEASE NOTE the new postal code!--- ---AND the new e-mail node address!--- ******************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 09:49:24 EDT From: cesloane@maroon.tc.umn.edu Subject: Re: Asian students, English grammar ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I have both a genteel and a passionate response to Jim Murdock's posting. I shall offer only the genteel one here. Any school that admits students from non-English-speaking countries has an ethical obligation to provide ESL support services. This can include tutoring, writing clinics, remedial ESL classes or study/support groups. Any university that admits international students without such support services is committing a terrible disservice to students and faculty alike. I am one of the ESL tutors at Metro State University, an innovative school for working adults. I was hired expressly for the purpose of working with students on the grammar of their writing assignments. Needless to say, I provide far more than just clean-up services. I also guide them in presenting basic arguments, rhetorical devices, etc. You as the instructor have every right to make your requirements as stringent as you need. However, this presents you with the obligation to help connect your ESL students with the requisite support services. They should not be penalized for finding English hard. Cliff Sloane ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 09:49:40 EDT From: Robert E Morrell Subject: Re: sex sex sex ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On Wed, 27 Oct 1993, Dr. I. Astley wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > > John Stevens' _lust for Enlightenment_ contains some good ideas, but I am > not too sure about his handling of his sources. Alexander Kabanov wrote a > chapter on the Tachikawa movement of Japan, Esoteric Buddhism in Japan, ed. > my good self (1993, release pending outcome of a legal action). Van Gulik, > Sexual Life in Ancient China, is a useful evergreen and has a bit specifically > on Buddhism, as does Needham's Sc. and Civ., Vol. 5. > > Finally, I do not recognize the language of Roger Coon's dictum, but I wonder > if this could be taken as evidence of pre-historic cross-cultural influences > from Japan, where the age-old dish, Bambi-yaki, is still consumed with relish? > > > Ian Astley e-mail: astley@mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE > Philipps-Universitaet, FB 11 Tel.: [+49] 6421 28-3662, > FG Religionswissenschaft -3661, > Liebigstr. 37 or -7035 > D--35037 Marburg Fax: [+49] 6421 28-3944 > Germany > ---PLEASE NOTE the new postal code!--- > ---AND the new e-mail node address!--- > ******************************************************************** . . .And let's not forget The Erotic Gods: Phallicism in Japan, by Donald Richie and Kenichi Ito (Tokyo: Zufushinsha, 1967), 252 pp. Parallel Japanese and English text WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS!!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert E. Morrell Dept ANELL, Box 1111 Washington University Compuserve: 71640,1036 St. Louis, MO 63130-2030 (314) 862-5418 (voice) ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 27 Oct 1993 to 28 Oct 1993 *************************************************** From owner-BUDDHA-L@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Fri Oct 29 16:06:39 1993 Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 16:01:26 -0400 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 28 Oct 1993 to 29 Oct 1993 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests There are 6 messages totalling 235 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Freewill in Buddhism (2) 2. P-correct, birdbrained se 3. chakravartin 4. sex sex sex 5. free will in Buddhism ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 09:19:13 EDT From: John Richards Subject: Freewill in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I liked Dan Lufthaus's offering on the subject of freewill in Buddhism very much. He asks the right preliminary questions. Where does the idea of freewill come from? What does it mean in its original context? and What do we mean by freedom in Buddhism anyway? He is quite right too that the emphasis in most Christian thought about freewill is the question of "choice". He might well have added, but probably wished to spare us too much scholasticism, that the idea came into Christian thought from Stoicism, where the idea of "proairesis" is precisely that of choice, and where the word "free" is not actually used. It got added later in Latin Christian thought. However the Stoics emphasised very much the freedom of "proairesis" (choice) from anything external - ie. from everything, in the final analysis, but our own opinions. This would agree strongly with the Buddhist idea of the need for Samma ditthi, and the inevitable truth the Ignorance is the cause of activity - Avijja-paccaya sankhara. The simple fact is that there is no possibility of religion in any sense unless choice is in some sense a meaningful activity. Even the question of "What should I do?" becomes just a conditioned process in the mind. We _feel_ we are free - particularly when aiming for the things we really want! We have to work on that basis in all intellectual activity, and in all moral choice. The Stoics and the early Christians were keen to secure the philosophic basis for moral action. Our choices (and their consequences) are our own, and not forced upon us by anything external, whether sideral determinism (astrology) or even some external God. That is the basis of any religion and what Buddhist would go around telling people it does not matter what they do, since everything is inevitable? That is undoubtedly all on the level of "relative truth" - but not the less important for that. There is a "mouthwash Christianity" as much as a "mouthwash Buddhism" - and vice versa! Beyond that, we have to ask ourselves - What do we MEAN by being "free"? What ARE we - to BE free? What are we to be free FROM? What do we want to be free FOR? (Just to fulfil our desires?) There are more than verbal questions. They go to the heart of our whole religious motivation and sincerity. All agree that to be led by one's desires is the deepest form of bondage. Christian mystics say that, "Our wills are ours to make them Thine" and pray, "Thy will be done on earth (the relative truth of the senses) as it is in Heaven (the realm of absolute truth)." After all, who is more free, the person sitting in the passenger seat of the taxi, or the driver? It all rather reminds one of the famous Huakujo's Fox koan. The monk who had been reborn 7 times as a fox for giving the wrong answer (ie. "Yes") to the question, "Are enlightened men free from Paticca Samuppada (ie. causality)?", asks the Master for the correct answer. He gives the reply, "Enlightened men are not _blind_ to Paticca Samuppada!" Is not this the same answer then as the Christian idea, "whose service is perfect freedom"? The idea of freewill is certainly much closer to a koan than a straight philosophical statement with a simple, immediate answer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Richards Pembrokeshire (UK) Internet - jhr@elidor.demon.co.uk CompuServe ID - 100113,1250 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 09:19:43 EDT From: James Roy Subject: P-correct, birdbrained se ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Nancy Smith wrote: BAD>No, my answer has nothing to do with sex, politics, birds, or BAD>brains - I just wanted some readers..... BAD>I initially assumed that Greg E. was joking in his post about the BAD>Pali Text Society's policy. Then I wondered if he were serious. BAD>Surely, Greg, you acknowledge that, at least in the modern world, BAD>people have to make money in order to stay alive to pass along [deleted] BAD>to know that your faithful laisse-faire capitalistic BAD>correspondent is still here and ready to point out the need for BAD>fiscal compensation for work, even for Buddhists. I agree with your sense of morality and fair play. Let us hope that the Pali Text Society is: 1. successful in suing the shirt off these thieves; 2. clever enough to strike a good deal with a CD-ROM publisher who can do hypertext links on the texts and sell them at a reasonable price as the Pali Text Society paper texts are, of necessity, expense and limited in accessibility as they cannot be hypertexted. Jim Roy --- ~ OLX 2.1 ~ Please reply to Internet: james.roy@synapse.org ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 09:25:37 EDT From: "Nathan Katz, University of South Florida" Subject: chakravartin ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Colleagues, Please recommend readings on the cakkavatin concept. Thank s, --Nathan Katz ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 09:26:02 EDT From: John Richards Subject: Freewill in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I liked Dan Lufthaus's offering on the subject of freewill in Buddhism very much. He asks the right preliminary questions. Where does the idea of freewill come from? What does it mean in its original context? and What do we mean by freedom in Buddhism anyway? He is quite right too that the emphasis in most Christian thought about freewill is the question of "choice". He might well have added, but probably wished to spare us too much scholasticism, that the idea came into Christian thought from Stoicism, where the idea of "proairesis" is precisely that of choice, and where the word "free" is not actually used. It got added later in Latin Christian thought. However the Stoics emphasised very much the freedom of "proairesis" (choice) from anything external - ie. from everything, in the final analysis, but our own opinions. This would agree strongly with the Buddhist idea of the need for Samma ditthi, and the inevitable truth the Ignorance is the cause of activity - Avijja-paccaya sankhara. The simple fact is that there is no possibility of religion in any sense unless choice is in some sense a meaningful activity. Even the question of "What should I do?" becomes just a conditioned process in the mind. We _feel_ we are free - particularly when aiming for the things we really want! We have to work on that basis in all intellectual activity, and in all moral choice. The Stoics and the early Christians were keen to secure the philosophic basis for moral action. Our choices (and their consequences) are our own, and not forced upon us by anything external, whether sideral determinism (astrology) or even some external God. That is the basis of any religion and what Buddhist would go around telling people it does not matter what they do, since everything is inevitable? That is undoubtedly all on the level of "relative truth" - but not the less important for that. There is a "mouthwash Christianity" as much as a "mouthwash Buddhism" - and vice versa! Beyond that, we have to ask ourselves - What do we MEAN by being "free"? What ARE we - to BE free? What are we to be free FROM? What do we want to be free FOR? (Just to fulfil our desires?) There are more than verbal questions. They go to the heart of our whole religious motivation and sincerity. All agree that to be led by one's desires is the deepest form of bondage. Christian mystics say that, "Our wills are ours to make them Thine" and pray, "Thy will be done on earth (the relative truth of the senses) as it is in Heaven (the realm of absolute truth)." After all, who is more free, the person sitting in the passenger seat of the taxi, or the driver? It all rather reminds one of the famous Huakujo's Fox koan. The monk who had been reborn 7 times as a fox for giving the wrong answer (ie. "Yes") to the question, "Are enlightened men free from Paticca Samuppada (ie. causality)?", asks the Master for the correct answer. He gives the reply, "Enlightened men are not _blind_ to Paticca Samuppada!" Is not this the same answer then as the Christian idea, "whose service is perfect freedom"? The idea of freewill is certainly much closer to a koan than a straight philosophical statement with a simple, immediate answer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Richards Pembrokeshire (UK) Internet - jhr@elidor.demon.co.uk CompuServe ID - 100113,1250 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 12:06:43 EDT From: "K. G. Zysk" Subject: Re: sex sex sex ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Another book on the subject is _Comrade Loves of the Samurai_ by Saikaku Ihara, and "Songs of the Geishas", trans by E. Powys Mathers. Originally published in 1928, reprint Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo, Japan: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1978. It is part of a series entitled "Eastern Love". ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 13:42:42 EDT From: Jim Murdock Subject: free will in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Everyone agrees that alternatives (forks in the road) arise and choices get made. At least part of the issue of free will can be formulated as the question of whether "I" make the choice or whether "the universe" does. (If my choice is caused, for instance by my conditioning, doesn't that mean that the choice actually took place in some larger part of the universe than what I call my self?) If there is no separate self, or if there is no unique place to draw the line between what is self and what is other (two interpretations of anatta), then how is the question of free will even to arise? This all seems to me to be in the same can of worms as: -own power vs. other power -salvation by grace vs. works -Dogen's question about enlightenment and practice. In every case it is a matter of too acute analysis splitting what is originally one and then opposing the two halves. ..................................................................... Jim Murdock TO SPEAK is to create the opportunity Mathematics Dept. to learn why what I said is not true. Iowa State University Ames Iowa 50011 ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 28 Oct 1993 to 29 Oct 1993 *************************************************** From: verma@pfeast.enet.dec.com (Virendra Verma) Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern Subject: The Problem of the Evil Date: 4 Nov 1993 10:34:57 -0800 Approved: nabil@world.net (Aaron Nabil) For the sake of clarity, I have changed the topic from 'Om Namaya Shivaya' to 'The problem of the Evil'. In article <2asdn1$jn5@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, Roger Adams writes... >I feel it is practical to be able to speak of relative truth and not be too >rigid and speak only of ultimate truth. Agreed. But, discussion is necessary to understand any truth. >At the level we are at now in >communicating with each other, there is duality. I am not denying the existence of duality. However, it exists only for the ignorant NOT for the enlightened or self-realized one. Ofcourse, I am not claiming to be enlightened one, but, a discussion is necessary for understanding the truth. >In this duality, there is good and evil. Yes, it is with respect to something. This is besides the point. The main point of discussion purtains to how we got good and evil in the first place. If we all strive for happiness, then evil should not exist. There has to be someone who brought evil. Dualists say it is Satan. In my opinion, it is the 'collective desire' of the Purusha (the net effect of all jivas). It is the same 'collective desire' of the Purusha that brings goodness. >Follow the path of evil and you become disappointed because evil >never satisfies the soul's longing for God. But goodness also never satisfies the so called 'soul' (I will prefer to say jiva). Hindu scriptures also talk about an enlightened one returning to ignorance. If 'goodness' is all that 'soul' desires, it must be eternal or permanent, and, once attained that state one must never return to evil state. >Yes, ultimate truth says that the >soul and God are one but we are not speaking at that level but at the level >where souls feel some separation from one another and from God or Truth. I don't understand why 'soul' should feel separation from 'God' when 'soul' and 'God' are same as you said in the above sentence. >Intellectually we may quote the scriptures and say that there is no doer, but >that alone does not get rid of the ignorance and I see no advantage in purging >our discussions of any reference to dualities since duality is the necessary >basis for our having a conversation in the first place. Two points here. First, 'Getting-rid-of-pain-or-solution-to-pain' is a different issue than explaining the 'existence-of-pain'. Second, by creating the God for goodness and Satan for evil cannot also solve the problem of evil and pain. To a dualist, satan and god are the ultimate reality. To me they are ordinary jivas like you and me. The pain, according to Vedas, is of three types - atmic (spiritual), adhyatmic (intellectual) and bhautic (physical). The atmic pain involves when the self is not aware of the divine nature within oneself, adhyatmic is due to the lack of education, and bhautic is due to want of material wealth. Most of the non-material pain in the world can be easily removed by education. >Now I know that Vedanta fans don't like to talk about goals because the >ultimate truth is that none of us are really in ignorance and that the feeling >we are not free or not illumined is part of the dream delusion we are in. Fine, >but I think it is good for practical purposes to recognize the suffering and >then do something about it even though ultimately there is no suffering and no >doer to do something about it. I agree with you that the recognition of the problem is practical. This is after the fact. I am not suggesting that one should not do anything about it or knowing the misery ahead of time, one should not avoid it. By saying that one is not the doer of actions has a great teaching for the eradication of the pain. First, the idea raises the very question about the real doer of all actions who inflicts the pain upon us. A deeper thought will lead us that these are the desires and egos, which have a preponderance of rajaswic and tamasic gunas, which make us slaves and weak. Second, the idea will force us to know as to how such desires and egos can be controlled in one's favor. Third, this idea makes us strong as it makes us responsible for all the evils that was inflicted upon us. Also, the same idea tells us that we have all the potentialities to change the forces of gunas in our favor. All the energy is within us. One doesn't have to depend upon the mercy of some god or satan although we need their blessings (BTW, I believe in god or devas and the forces of evil as ordinary jivas which have acquired miraculous powers through karma. I also believe that one can become like them through karma). The following argument can be made against the dualists. What if they are successful in their effort that there remains no evil. What 'good' that existence will be for? If pain is measured by wealth, then a better existence will be that of animal. If pain is measured by food, then plantation will be much better because plant will feed the earth (by providing better climate) and earth will feed the plant in turn. You name any basis of measuring the pain, it is very easy to come up with a solution. That is certainly possible with their Almighty God on their side!!! Why do they conceive a weak God which could not prevent evil in first place? May be dualists need something for a living. That is the only logical argument one can make. >I think that as long as there is creation, there is Maya or Satan. True, but we don't have to be slave of maya and satan. What can be a better idea than going beyond Maya and Satan!!!! >When >the soul becomes attached to the body, it pursues desires not because it >wants pain but because it thinks it will find happiness. Why does it get attached to body when the abode of soul is all Bliss? Do you think there is no happiness in soul without attaching to the body? >I think the soul tries to find happiness and avoid pain except when it >thinks that pain will lead to happiness but even there it still wants to >transcend the pain to some sort of enjoyment after the pain. Is soul that weak that it can't even get happiness? What makes it to lose that happiness when it gets it? >You say that the Souls want to experience or have different experiences and >then you say that the Soul cannot seek anything. It is jiva that seeks for experience. Jiva is not entirely soul (atma). Atma (spoul) is Parmatma (Soul). It is a combination of soul and matter as explained again and again in my postings. You must look for the definition of these basic terms. >The Yogi seeks to realize what the >scriptures only talk about. No. Scriptures are only a starting point for seeking the truth. There are three major steps to get to the truth - shravan (in which the truth is 'heard' throgh scriptures), manan (in which a person 'argues' about as to what is heard for the purpose of understanding the truth), dhyana (in which the person realizes and sees the truth for him(her)self). namaste, -- Virendra Verma ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "To dwell in our true being is liberation; the sense of ego is a fall from the truth of our being" - Mahopanishad "All is the Divine Being" - Gita XVIII 61 -------------------------------------------------------------------------