From owner-BUDDHA-L@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Tue Mar 8 16:56:43 1994 Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 16:00:14 -0500 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 7 Mar 1994 to 8 Mar 1994 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests There are 15 messages totalling 532 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. unknown terminology 2. the bath of buddha 3. The Kosa in Indian History 4. Map Program 5. Ketsubon kyo (Blood Tray Sutra) (3) 6. Buddha's Tongue (2) 7. Buddhist stories for children 8. Literary approaches to jaatakas (2) 9. Buddah's Tongue 10. Concepts and enlightenment 11. Dalai Lama - U.S. Tour (fwd) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 16:00:58 EST From: Christian Lemay <549718@acadvm1.uottawa.ca> Subject: unknown terminology ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Hi, I am doing a research on a recent novel from the Quebec author named R. Ducharme where he uses what seems a terminology coming from different buddhist background. I have been able to find most of them but there is still a few that I cannot replace. The Samtem Dzong is known to him to be a temple for meditation, the vishnouites kalapatas seems to be a tantric group, the barbtrab is presented to be the gardian tree of someone and the stupa of Dharmajika. Thought I have never come accross any of these four terms, I suppose that a specialist in tantric or maybe japenese buddhism could probably identify them. If you do I would appreciate any kind of information Thanks Christian Lemay Ottawa University ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 16:03:10 EST From: Christian Lemay <549718@acadvm1.uottawa.ca> Subject: the bath of buddha ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Hi, I am now reading about the episode of the bath of buddha described by A. Foucher in the Life of Buddha. I am trying to find some kind of symbolical interpretation of this activity of the Buddha. I am even more puzzled bu the affirmation of Foucher that there were two water spirits, called nagas, which haunt springs and ponds that seems to me the equivalent of the bad spirits called rakshasa. There names are Nanda and his younger brother Upananda which are directing a double jet of water upon the Bodhisattva. I am very puzzled by the identification of those two spirits, are they rakshasa? Who are they? I would appreciate any kind of information or interpretation of this curious episode. Thanks Christian Lemay Ottawa University ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 16:06:09 EST From: "Richard S. Cohen" Subject: The Kosa in Indian History ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I surely do not wish to get myself into the middle of any disputations between Dan Lusthaus and Richard Hayes concerning the relative merits of the Kosa and Dharmakiirti, let alone their meaning. However, Dan asks "Why this virtual canonization of the ko'sa by modern scholars? Historically speaking no school ever claimed allegiance to it." This observation may or may not be true. Nevertheless, the Ko'sa's renown within its native Indian setting is suggested by the fact that it is one of the few Buddhist texts referred to by name within contemporaneous non- Buddhist literary sources. The mention of the Kos'a with which I am familiar is in Baa.na's _Har.sacarita_. In fact, this is one of the most interesting passages about Buddhism found in native Indian literature, and so I will reproduce it at length from the translation of E. B. Cowell and F. W. Thomas (_The Har.sa-Carita of Baa.na. Delhi: Motilal, 1961Y: 235-7). This mention of the _Ko'sa_ comes within a description of a forest glade into which King Harsha stumbles while searching for his sister who has fled into the Vindhya mountains. The holy man at the center of this scene is a Buddhist monk named Divaakaramitra. > Then in the middle of the trees, while he King Har.saY was > yet at a distance,the holy man's presence was suddenly > announced by the king's seeing various Buddhists from various > provinces seated in different situations,--perched on pillars, > or seated on the rocks dwelling in bowers of creepers or lying > in thickets or in the shadow of branches or squatting on the > roots of trees,-- devotees dead to all passions, Jainas in > white robes, white mendicants, followers of Krishna, religious > students, ascetics who pulled out their hair, followers of > Kapila, Jainas, Lokaayatikas, followers of Ka.naada, followers > of the Upanishads, believers in God as a Creator, assayers of > metals, students of legal institutes, students of the Pura.nas, > adepts in sacrifices requiring seven ministering priests, > adepts in grammar, followers of the Pa~ncaratra and others > besides, all diligently following their own tenets, pondering, > urging objections, raising doubts, resolving them, giving > etymologies, disputing, studying, and explaining, and all > gathered here as his disciples. Even some monkeys who had fled > to the 'three Refuges' were gravely busy performing the ritual > of the caitya, WHILE SOME PARROTS, SKILLED IN THE S'AAKYA > S'AASTRAS, WERE EXPLAINING THE KOS'A, and some mainas, who had > obtained calm by expositions of the duties of monastery life, > were giving lectures on the laws, and some owls, who had gained > insight by listening to the ceaseless round of instructions, > were muttering the various births of the Bodhisattva, and even > some tigers waited in attendance who had given up eating flesh > under the calming influences of Buddhist teaching, while the > fact that some young lions sat undisturbed near his seat shewed > at once what a great sage he was, as he thus sat as it were on > a natural lion throne. Considering the context within which "explaining the Ko'sa" is situated -- i.e., as one of a number of characteristically Buddhist practices including going for refuge, caitya worship, following the vinaya, rehearsing the bodhisattva's births, vegetarianism -- I would conclude that the _Kos'a_ had a social presence that exceeded its acceptance or rejection by the schools known to us by Indian and Tibetan doxographers. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 08:50:22 EST From: "Dr. I. Astley" Subject: Re: Map Program ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- For those of you on this side of the Great Pond, it may be helpful to know (and certainly a more efficient, speedy and responsible way of using the InterNet) that the EPI MAP files which Jeff Samuels kindly drew attention to, are available at several sites in Europe. I shall dig out the list which I received from Archie in Darmstadt, and post it just as soon as my hard disk stops moaning at me. Ian Astley astley@mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE ******************************************************************** Philipps-Universitaet, FB 11 FG Religionswissenschaft Tel.: [+49] 6421 28-3662, Liebigstr. 37 -3661, D--35037 Marburg or -7035 Germany Fax: [+49] 6421 28-3944 ******************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 08:50:40 EST From: "Dr. I. Astley" Subject: Re: Ketsubon kyo (Blood Tray Sutra) ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Jane Marie Law asks about Blood and Hell: there is an article by the late Anna Seidel in the current issue of _Studies in Central & East Asian Religions_ (Vol. 5/6, 1992--3), entitled, ``Mountains and Hells: Religious Geography in Japanese _mandara_ Paintings''. If you cannot gain access to this issue and need the material urgently, please feel free to contact me directly! Best wishes, Ian Astley astley@mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE ******************************************************************** Philipps-Universitaet, FB 11 FG Religionswissenschaft Tel.: [+49] 6421 28-3662, Liebigstr. 37 -3661, D--35037 Marburg or -7035 Germany Fax: [+49] 6421 28-3944 ******************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 08:51:38 EST From: Robin Brooks Kornman Subject: Re: Buddha's Tongue ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- "SInce the Buddha was not represented in artworks until many centuries laters (a halo, or lingam-like thing, or some other substitute would occupy his spot in a composition while the other people would be depicted as humans), I'm afraid we can't turn to artwork to find out what the Buddha looked like. We can only hope that some of the 32 marks and 80 minor marks are accurate enough to give us a vague idea (did you know that according to the Lalita Vistara, one of the 80 minor marks includes the fact that Buddha had 40 teeth [we have 32, without the wisdom teeth]!)." I'm embarased to admit that I've forgotten the couple of art historians who gave their presentation at the International Association of Buddhist Studies in Paris in '91 or92. They showed slides of a number of representations of the Buddha in pre-Gandharan centuries. The reason we say there were no repsresentations was because certain temple plaques, mementos of pilgrimages to them showed no Buddha, but rather relics of his physical existence at that spot.But these plaques were not the only kind of art that existed at that time. Somebody help me! Who did the study on this and went around making the point I outlined above. Robin Kornman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 08:53:05 EST From: Paul Swanson Subject: Re: Ketsubon kyo (Blood Tray Sutra) ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Are you familiar with the article on "'Menstruation Sutra' Belief in Japan by Takemi Momoko in Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 10/2-3, pp. 229-46? Paul Swanson, swansonp@jpncun10, Nanzan University ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 08:54:29 EST From: Charles Orzech Subject: Re: Ketsubon kyo (Blood Tray Sutra) ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On Mon, 7 Mar 1994 jml16@cornell.edu wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Dear Folks, > > Yet another inquiry as I try to meet all needs of all students at all > times in this kalpa! I need some good reference works on the Blood > Tray Sutra and any other images of hell for women in Japanese Buddhism. > Any suggestions? > > Jane Marie Law > Assistant Professor of Japanese Religions > Department of Asian Studies Jane, See Gary Seaman, "The Sexual Politics of Karmic Retribution," in Emily Martin Ahern and Hill Gates, eds., _The Antropology of Taiwanese Society_, pp. 381-96. (Stanford, 1981). It is a start on the Chinese side of the issue. Charlie Orzech OrzechC@Hamlet.uncg.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 08:55:24 EST From: jht@vax.ox.ac.uk Subject: Buddhist stories for children ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Regarding the request for bibliography on Buddhist stories for children, something just made me remember a wonder little book called The LCat Who Went to Heaven, translated or at least retold from the Japanese. It was orignally published in the 1930's but was reprinted somewhere in the U.S. much more recently, probably in the 1980's. Sorry, can't recall the translator's name, but perhaps one only needs a trip to Books in Print. . . Joel Tatelman. Wolfson College, Oxford, OX2 6UD, U.K. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 08:56:48 EST From: jht@vax.ox.ac.uk Subject: Literary approaches to jaatakas ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- In response to Jacqueline Stone's request for bibliography on literary studies of the jaataka literature, I would first like to say that I would also welcome any such information, for the application of literary criticism to Buddhist narrative is one of my major interests. The problem is that scholars in Buddhist studies, quite understandably are mostly concerned with matters historical, philological and doctrinal/philosophical. We're in a position somewhat analogous to that of scholars of Greek and Latin literature in the seventeenth or eighteenth century. Anyway, I can suggest the following: Graeme MacQueen, "The Conflict between External and Internal Mastery: An Analysis oof the Khantivaadi Jaataka", History of Religions 20, no. 3 (Feb. 1981), pp. 242-252. John Garrett Jones, Tales and Teachings of the Buddha. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1979. And, if you will forgive me for recommending my own not-even- published work: Joel Tatelman, A Translation and Study of the Puur.naavadaana. M.A. thesis, McMaster University, Sept. 1988, in which I attempt what in Depts. of English is or used to be called a 'close reading' of the second story in the Divyaavadaana. Of course avadaanas are not exactly jaatakas, but in the Sanskrit Buddhist tradition jaataka was considered a species of which avadaana was the genus. It might also be worth contacting Graeme MacQueen at the Dept. of Religious Studies, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont., Canada, L8S 4K1, as I seem to recall him saying something about once again working on narrative in Buddhist texts. I'm sorry, I don't know whether he has an email address. Finally, I can highly recommend Robert Alter's The Art of Biblical Narrative. N.Y.: Basic Books, 1981. Without espousing any theory, deconstructionist or otherwise, the author examines a number of Hebrew texts and I found that in many instances his approach enormously helped clarify my own thinking about applying what I had learned as a student of English to texts distant in language, time and culture from that with which I was familiar. Hope this helps. Joel Tatelman, Wolfson College, Oxford OX2 6UD, U.K. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 10:54:29 EST From: "Richard S. Cohen" Subject: Re: Buddah's Tongue ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Robin Kornman writes: > I'm embarased to admit that I've forgotten the couple of art > historians who gave their presentation at the International > Association of Buddhist Studies in Paris in '91 or92. They > showed slides of a number of representations of the Buddha in > pre-Gandharan centuries. The reason we say there were no > repsresentations was because certain temple plaques, > mementos of pilgrimages to them showed no Buddha, but rather > relics of his physical existence at that spot.But these plaques > were not the only kind of art that existed at that time. > Somebody help me! Who did the study on this and went around > making the point I outlined above. I wasn't at the IABS meeting in Paris (alas), but this sounds like the work of Susan and John Huntington. You can find a precis of their theory in Susan L. Huntington "Early Buddhist Art and the Theory of Aniconism," Art Journal. 49 (1990): 401-408. Another art historian, Vidya Dehejia of Columbia University, has written a cogent refutation of the Huntington's theories. I am not sure where Dehejia's article is published, I have a typescript. My memory tells me that Susan Huntington has also published a refutation of Dehejia's criticisms; the bibliography on my computer has no record of this, however. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 11:37:38 EST From: Merrill Peterson Subject: Re: Buddha's Tongue ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Re: no art showing the Buddha until long after his nirvana Isn't the Jowo Rinpoche statue in Lhasa supposed to have been made during the lifetime of the Buddha? Also, I remember seeing thangka depictions of the first painting of the Buddha being made during his lifetime. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 13:34:41 EST From: Raynald Prevereau Subject: Concepts and enlightenment ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- In line with the ongoing discussion about Buddhist enlightenment being of purely experiential character (as opposed to sharing some intellectual qualities because impermanence could not be directly apprehended by the senses), I would like to ask the good doctors about the possibility that Dharmakiirti, when discussing yogic intuition (yogipratyak.sa) as kalpanaapo.dha (devoid of judgment), meant that only the unwholesome kalpanaas (e.g., belief in permanence, self, pleasure) were absent, not all kalpanaas. I have just recently started considering this possibility, after having found out that the activity of kalpanaa is very similar to that of the sa.mj~naa (the 3rd aggregate) of the Paali tradition. Moreover, as Mathieu Boisvert has shown in his PhD thesis (McGill, 1992), while the activity of the sa.mj~naa can lead to the perpetuation of craving and du.hkha if it is accompanied by the belief in a self, in permanence, the possibility of worldly happiness and other counterproductive views (prapa~nca, d.r.s.ti), this is not always the case. In fact, when the sa.mj~naa recognizes that things are marked by impermanence, non-self and du.hkha, one can, in the practice of vipa"syanaa, reverse the chain of dependent origination (pratiityasamutpaada) and work one's way to nirvaa.na by preventing the arising of craving and what leads to rebirth. Apparently, nirvaa.na would be gained once, through the practice of vipa"syanaa, one has exhausted the old stock of karmas or sa.mskaaras capable of producing rebirth. Clearly, in this case, the `good' sa.mj~naa remains active, while the `bad' sa.mj~naa has been disactivated by praj~naa. Similarly, it would seem that some kalpanaa must remain in function when one attains the final goal in Dharmakiirti's tradition, since for him the object of intuition or realization is the four noble truths (the understanding and application of which requires at least the judgment or reconition of things as marked by anitya, du.hkha and anaatman). My question is then: did Dharmakiirti recognize two types of kalpanaas, one unwholesome and leading to repeated misery and one wholesome and leading to liberation? If he did recognizes two levels of kalpanaa (like the Theravaadins recognized two kinds of sa.mj~naa), it seems that enlightenment could not be understood as purely experiential, but that we would have to admit with Richard that it shares some intellectual qualities (at least in the Dharmakiirti tradition) because the wholesome kalpanaas are quintessential to enlightenment. Raynald Prevereau McGill University ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 13:35:26 EST From: mbury@ucdavis.edu Subject: Re: Literary approaches to jaatakas ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I second Joel Tatelman's recommendation of Robert Alter's _The Art of Biblical Narrative_! The book is a model demonstration of looking at a narrative in terms of its own laws--and doing it clearly and readably. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 13:35:41 EST From: SAMUELS JEFFREY Subject: Dalai Lama - U.S. Tour (fwd) ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Forwarded message: >From @CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU:owner-tibet-l@IUBVM.UCS.INDIANA.EDU Mon Mar 7 19:15:04 1994 Date: Mon, 07 Mar 1994 15:49:52 -0700 (MST) From: Nima Dorjee Subject: Dalai Lama - U.S. Tour To: Multiple recipients of list TIBET-L Reply-to: Tibet Interest List Message-id: <01H9P9MGIV3K000L6G@VAXF.COLORADO.EDU> Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT ------------------------- CanTibNet Newsletter ------------------------ Published by: The Canada-Tibet Committee Editorial Board: Brian Given Nima Dorjee Conrad Richter Tseten Samdup Submissions and subscriptions to: ctn-editors@utcc.utoronto.ca or fax to: +1-905-640-6641 Send us your comments, announcements, news or items for discussion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ISSUE ID: CTN 94/01/05 22:00 GMT =========================================================================== 1. HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA VISITS THE UNITED STATES IN APRIL 1994 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Thubten Samphel Will Give Teachings, Public Talks and Participate in Symposiums From 14 to 29 April 1994, His Holiness the Dalai Lama will visit the United States. The Spring visit will take the Tibetan spiritual and political leader to Hawaii, Stanford, Michigan, Kentucky and New York. The upcoming visit of the Tibetan leader is academic in nature. He will give teachings on Tibetan Buddhism in Hawaii and Michigan and participate in symposiums at Stanford and Columbia Universities. Hawaii: His Holiness the Dalai Lama arrives in Honolulu on 14 April. The next day His Holiness will attend a symposium entitled "Local Identity in the Global Community: Creating Global Peace in the 21st Century" at the East-West Center. On 16 April, His Holiness will give teachings on the Buddhist concept of compassion at the Neal Blaisdell Concert Hall. Later, he will give the Thousand-Armed Chenresig blessing. In the evening, His Holiness will give a public talk on the possibility of creating a true non-violent society. The next day, His Holiness will give a talk on compassion at the Hawaii branch of the Nechung Monastery on Hawaii Island. Contact: Ani Karma Lekshe Tsomo, Tel: (808) 948- 6345. Stanford: His Holiness arrives in Stanford on 18 April and will participate in a symposium on science and religion at Stanford University and later give a talk open to the Stanford public. His Holiness will spend two days at Stanford University. Contact: Professor Robert C. Gregg, Tel: (415) 723-1762. Michigan: His Holiness will visit Michigan from 22 to 24 April to receive the Raoul Wallenberg Human Rights Award and give the Raoul Wallenberg lecture at Michigan University. His Holiness will also give the White Tara Long-Life Initiation at the request of the Jewel Heart Buddhist Center in Ann Arbor. Contact: Gelek Rinpoche, Tel: (313) 994-3387 Berea, Kentucky: His Holiness' Kentucky visit will take him to Berea College where about nine Tibetan students are studying. Six are sponsored by Berea College itself and three are Fulbright students whose scholarships are administered by the New York-based Tibet Fund. His Holiness will give a public talk on "World Peace and Kinship of All People" at Phelps-Stokes Chapel on 25 April. On 26 April, His Holiness the Dalai Lama will travel to Louisville to speak at a luncheon in his honor at the Kentucky Center for the Arts. Contact: The President's Office (606) 986 9341 Ext. 5520. New York City: His Holiness will visit New York City from 27 to 29 April to participate in a science conference organized by the Center for Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, Tibet House and the American Institute for Buddhist Studies. The conference, by invitation only, will take place at the Union Theological Seminary, near Columbia University. Contact: Professor Robert A. Thurman, (212) 854 6977. His Holiness leaves New York for India on 29 April. -- ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 7 Mar 1994 to 8 Mar 1994 ************************************************* From: farris@dmark.llnl.gov.noname (Lorenzo Farris) Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern Subject: Re: Permanence and Impermanence Date: 10 Mar 1994 11:49:59 -0800 Approved: nabil@world.net (Aaron Nabil) In article f5h@pdx1.world.net, gt0009b@prism.gatech.edu (Rahim) writes: > If all that we experience is changing and therefore impermanent, is > there anything that is permanent? If so, is there any chance of > experiencing that permanence? Is it possible to connect with this > permanence, knowing that we are in our very nature impermanent? > > Is our sense of being alive and aware also an illusion (please note > that I am distinguishing our sense of being alive/aware and our > culturally-conditioned personality)? You must take care in how you interpret such words as illusory and impermanent. They have specific meanings in Buddhism that might not exactly correspond to the every day meaning. The chair I am sitting on is real, in a relative conditioned sense. The chair-in-itself, the atomic, independent entity that I call a chair, is an illusion, a mental construct. I respond because I have recently come across an analysis by a Tibetan whose name escapes me at the moment. I realized, as he tried to explain emptiness, that, at least where he was coming from, something is not illusory if it is atomic, i.e., not conceptually divisible, if it is eternal, i.e., time has no effect on it, and it is independent, i.e., if nothing else existed, this non-illusory thing still would be. As far as your first question goes: it is possible to be aware in such a way that time has no meaning. The experience of the eternal. You may spontaneously come upon such moments in your life. If you don't want to rely on chance, my personal inclination is to meditate, and find a teacher if you are not inclined to do it on your own. --- Life is a 3D, sensurround, ecstatic farris3@llnl.gov explosion of experience, but only on the cutting edge of the present moment. If that's not where your mind is, you miss it. :-) From: fstawit@icomp01.lerc.nasa.gov (Tawit Chitsomboon) Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern Subject: The A-B-C of Buddhism (Long) Date: 13 Mar 1994 22:36:01 -0800 Approved: nabil@world.net (Aaron Nabil) The A,B,C of Buddhism ---------------------- By (The late) Buddhadasa Bhikkhu Friends! I know that you are interested in studying and seeking the Buddhist way of giving up all the problems of life, which may be summed up as the problems of birth, decay, disease and death. I would like to help you to understand this topic, as well as I can. But I must tell you in advance that my knowledge of English is not complete. It is childish English that is self-taught and self-learned. Thus, you must think carefully; try to understand and know what I mean to say. Since we cannot have a classroom lecture, my talk today must be more like a private conversation. You have heard that the lord Buddha, in his Enlightenment, discovered the Dhamma. I would like to talk about that Dhamma, that which the Buddha discovered at his Enlightenment. That Dharma may be called the Law of 'Idappaccayata'. It is the Law of Nature or the Natural Law of Cause and Effect. The term "law" in English is roughly equivalent to the Thai term 'koad' Thus, in Thai we say 'koad Idappaccayata'. However, the Thai term 'koad' means more than just 'law.' Nevertheless, we must use the term 'law' as it is the commonly accepted translation. This Law of Idappaccayata is the Supreme Thing. It can be called "God." The Lord Buddha was enlightened about this Law. Immediately after that, he worshiped this Law. He declared that all Buddhas - those in the past as well as those in the future- worship this Law in the name of the Dharma. This Natural Law is comprised of six qualifications which all people regard as the qualifications of God. That is to say, the qualifications of being the Creator, the Controller and the Destroyer; of being Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient. The one who has these six qualifications is called "God." We Buddhist have this Natural Law as God; we look at this Law as God who has, in reality, these six qualifications. This is the only God accepted by modern scientists. It is a Natural Law that cannot be established by anyone. If there is anyone or anything who established something, that thing is not a Law, not a Koad in the Thai sense and especially not the Koad Idappaccayata. This is only one Law, but it includes all other laws- all other Natural Laws, not man-made laws. This Law inheres in all atoms which together compose our universe, or universes,both physical and mental. We ought to know this Law well, for it is the thing that control us and all of our problems. Human beings will be happy or not happy by doing right or wrong with regard to this Law; not by the power of a personal God, not even the result of past Karma. This last point is something which we will discussed later. Whether peacfulness of the world will exist or not depends on doing right or doing wrong according to this Law. I want you to think about the following suppositions in order to estimate the power of this Law. Suppose that all the personal gods intend to punish us. We can overcome all of that power and be free from their punishment by doing right according to the Law. Or suppose that all the personal gods intend to bless us. Yet, if we do wrong in accordance with the Law of Idappacayata, in order to be happy for instance, there is no way that we will receive the blessings of those gods. We can see that this Law controls all things, both animate and inanimate. However, problems arise and appear only in animate things. The Law of Idappaccauyata can be seen as God. This God is indescribable and unclassifiable. We cannot know "him" as a person, because "he" is not like anyone among all of those who we know in this world. Idappaccayata-the God- is the first cause and the sustaining cause, in every time and every case in our universe. It creates both the positive and negative. There are both positive and negative results because it is only the Natural Law. If "he" were a personal God, "he" would choose to create only the positive. If we don't want any of the negative, we must know the law of the positive. We can then have positive results by practicing in accordance with that Law. The way to practice to solve such problems is called the Dharma. The actual problem of human beings is the problem of suffering, both in individuals and in societies. Sentient beings must suffer when doing wrong against the Law of Idappaccayata in the moment of contact (phassa) I would like you to know this especially well, since it is the essence of the Dharma. Thus, I will repeat it. All sentient beings must suffer when doing wrong against the Law of Idappaccayata in the moment of contact (phassa). Sentient beings will not suffer when doing right -that is, not doing wrong- according to this Law. This is especially true in the moment of phassa. Now we will discuss this Natural Law in detail. It is that ABC od the Buddha-Dharma. Sometimes we call it patticca-samuppada. Altogether, Idappacayata-paticca-samuppada means the Law of cause and effect, that the origination of all things is dependent origination of all things. But in this case, we intend to discuss only the problems of human beings -human suffering and dissatisfactioness of all kinds. To understand the process of Idappacayata, we must start from the point of the 'ayatana', which are the six sense bases and their six objects. The internal ayatana are the sense organs: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind itself. These are inside us. The outer ayatana are form, sound, odor, taste, touch and idea or thought in the mind. You can see the eye comes in contact with form, ear comes in contact with sound, nose comes in contact with odor, tongue comes in contact with taste, body comes in contact with touch and mind comes in contact with idea. Then we have six pairs of ayatana. Let us study these in the process of ayatana. We will begin with the first pair, eye and form, as an example. Eye, dependent on form, gives rise to eye consciousness. Now, we have three things: eye, form and consciousness. When these three come together in function, we call in contact (phassa). This is the very important moment to know and study. Contact is the moment at which ignorance either arise or does not arise. If it is the occassion of the arising of ignorance, it will go in a bad way to give rise to the problem of suffering. If in the moment of contact we have adequate mindfulness and wisdom to govern the contact correctly, then there is no way, no room and no chance for ignorance to arise. Then, it is contact that cannot be the starting point of suffering. We must study, practice and train in order to have mindfulness and wisdom [Thai: Sati Sampachanya -tawit] to use exactly at the moment of contact. We will discuss this later. Now, I will tell you more about the process of Idappaccayata-paticca- samuppada. If the phassa is an ignorant one - we will call it blind contact or ignorant contact -such contact will give birth to blind feeling, feeling with ignorance. It may be either pleasant or unpleasant feelings, but it has ignorance in it. We call it blind feeling or ignorant feeling. Such feeling (vedana) will give birth to ignorant want or blind want. Usually, we call blind want "desire" (tanha). We mean blind want, ignorant want and wrong want- not simple [sic] (simply?) want. You must know this. When we use the term "desire", it means blind want- the want of ignorance, the want by means of ignorance. Such blind want (tanha) will give birth to attachment (upadana). Attachment arising from blind or ignorant want, then, is ignorant in itself. There is attachment to anything that comes into contact with it, including attachment to that thing as "mine" and this thing as "I". You need to know about the five aggregates (khandha in Pali or skhanda in Sanskrit). They are important because attachment is attachment to these five 'khandha'. The first khandha is this body. When the body is in its function, the ignorant mind attaches to it as "I" in some cases and "mine" in other cases. Then we can see someone get angry with his body. He can regard it as "He" -"himself". Or, in another case, he will regard it as "his" -"his body". This is the first khandha, the aggregate of his corporeality (rupa-khandha). The second khandha is feeling (vedana-khanda). When there is any kind of feeling in the mind, the ignorant mind regards it, or becomes attached to and regards it, as "my" feeling. It is regarded as "I" or "mine", which are the same attachment. The third khandha is called perception (sanna-khandha). This is to perceive something as this, as that, as these or as those; as "my happiness" or "my suffering", as "good" or "bad". In some cases, the perception by the mind is attached to as the "I" who perceives. In other cases, perception is attached to as "my" - "my perception." You can understand that the same can be attached to in two ways: as the doer and as the done. Next, the fourth khandha, or aggregate of clinging, is called sankhara- khandha. Sankhara in this case has a special meaning. Literally it means to form, but here it specifically means "to form in a mental way". that is, to think. As a verb, sankhara means to condition, to give rise to or to cause. As a noun, it means "formation", either the act of forming or the state of having been formed or both. Here, we use the meaning "to think", because to think is to give rise to or to cause the conception that is taking place now in the mind of the ignorant one. One attaches to it as "I think" or as "my thought." You should try to notice this and consider it for yourself. See attachment working in these two ways. Now to the fifth and last khandha. The consciousness aggregate (vinnana- khandha) is to know all things that come to be in contact with eye, ears, nose, tounge, body and mind. The ignorant one will attach to con- sciousness, or the body of consciousness, as "I" -"I" who is conscious. And at another time he will attach to it as "my consciousness." These are two ways. Altogether, we have five groups of attachment. You can see that we become attached to many things, both outside and inside; attaching to them and grasping at them. All this is done mentally, as "I" or "my". These are ignorant concepts, not the real thing. In all cases, it is only through ignorance that the conception of "I" or "my" arises towards things. Now, let's return to attachment taking place in the process of Idappaccayata. Such attachment gives rise to existence (bhava). This is the becoming of something - the illusive "self" [Thai: TuaTon -tawit]. There is attachment to an illusive thing by illusive thought and so we come to have illusive becoming (bhava). At this point there exists the "self" even in the stage of infancy. We call it 'bhava' or becoming. Becoming gives rise to birth (jati). Here the "self" is fullbloomed as a "Self" that is proper and suitable to its case: to be one "I", one "man", one "self." At this moment there is a self- the thing which is imagined to be the "self' or the "I." Now the illusive "I" takes place in the process of Idappaccayata. The "I" thinks, acts and speaks in the way of attachment. Then the "I" begins to speak and acts in ignorant ways, such as "this is I" or "this is my possession"; and even "this is my birth, this is my decay, this is my disease and this is my death." All things come to be problems for such a self. This brings problems to the mind, so that the mind suffers and has suffering and dissatisfaction of all kinds in whatever case. This is Idappaccayata in the way or process of giving rise to the problem of mental suffering. In reality the suffering happens to the mind, but as we said, it is imagined as happening to the man. However, if we have adequate mindfulness and wisdom, we can bring sufficient mindfulness and wisdom into the process just at that moment of contact. To show this, we will repeat the process from the very beginning. The eye, dependent on the form, gives birth to eye-consciousness. These three things coming together in function are called contact (phassa). Now, in this case of a man who has adequate mindfulness and wisdom just in the time of contact, he can use that mindfulness and wisdom to govern the contact. Then , it will be wise contact. Such wise contact will not give birth to blind feeling, but to wise feeling. As the cause is wise, contact gives birth to wise feeling. Wise feeling cannot give birth to blind want, but gives rise to wise want or want with wisdom. We must differentitate this from the first case of ignorant contact. Then, wise contact or awakened contact, give birth to wise feeling, whether the feeling is pleasant or unpleasant. This is feeling with wisdom through mindfulness. Such a feeling cannot give rise to blind want or desire, but will only give birth to wise want, which cannot be called desire. Then, we have wise want. The wise want cannot give birth to attachment. Thus, there is no attachment to the illusive concept of "I" or "my" and there is no existence for the "self" and no birth of the "self". There is no "self", that is no "I" or "my", which will be. Then nothing can come into cantact with the "I", because without "I" there is no problem of the mind at all. So we have seen Idappaccayata in the process of not giving rise to problems in human life. You can see that there are two ways or two kinds of Idappaccayata. The first runs by ignorance and ends in the problem of suffering. The second runs by means of mindfulness and wisdom and is the ending of all problems. This is the Law, the Natural Law. It is not a law established by anyone. The Law is a thing in itself. We must know this. This is what the Lord Buddha discovered in his enlightenment. He was enlightened concerning this thing, knew it as the Supreme Dharma - the Law of Idappaccayata -as the Supreme Thing. It can be called the Buddhist God. It is an im- or non-personal god. I would like you to know this. This is the Buddhist way to be emancipated from all problems. Now, I would like you to recall what I have said. This is A, B, C of Buddhist Dharma. Everyone must start studying or practicing the Buddha-Dharma upon this A, B, C of the Dharma, Learn in your daily life from the eye, ear, nose, tongue , body and mind when they are in their functions of seeing, listening, smelling, tasting, touching and thinking. Don't learn about this from book, but from the actual thing. There is the body, and organs of the body which have contact with the things around the body. In daily life you have yours eyes, your nose and your tongue. The way to know their functions is something that you must study from such actual things. If you want to study the Buddha- Dharma and know the Buddha-Dharma, you must begin your study upon these things- the socalled A, B, C of Buddhism. Don't begin your study with the big, immense system of pre-Buddhist Indian Philosophy or in some such way. It's useless to do such things. I would like you to study Buddha-Dharma by starting your study with these six pairs of ayatana: the six sense organs and their six objects when they are functioning in your daily life. Don't start from a book or a sermon or a preaching. That's useless if you want to get at the heart of the Dharma. -----------------------------------------------------End Extracted from the February 1994 edition of the Newsletter of Buddhadharma Meditation Center 8910 S.Kingery Hwy. Hinsdale, Illinois 60521, USA. (708) 789-8866 Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 16:01:32 -0500 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 15 Mar 1994 to 16 Mar 1994 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests Topics of the day: 1. Women in Buddhism (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 09:00:13 EST From: "J. P. S." Subject: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Last week my professor pursued the topic of - Women in Buddhism The discussion centered around the creation of the female monastic order how it came to be, and the eight conditions for accepting women into the Buddhist monastic order, by the guidence of the 'enlightened one'. The eight conditions are: 1) Nuns, no matter how senior, nust always defer to monks, no matter how junior. 2) Nuns must not spend the rainy season retreat in a residence where there is no monk. 3) After the rainy season retreat, nuns must formally report to a convocation of monks as well as to the other nuns. 4) Nuns must observe fortnightly monastic observances under the direction of monks. 5) A nun who has broken a monastic rule must be disciplined by both the order of monks and by that of nuns. 6) Both monks and nuns are necessary for the ordination of new nuns. 7) Monks must never be abused or reviled in any way by a nun. 8) Nuns may be formally admonished by monks, but not monks by nuns. * _____________________________________________________________________ * Taken from Alan Sponberg's article "Attitudes towards Women and the Feminine in Early Buddhism" - Buddhism, Sexuality and Gender. (Ed. Jose Cabezon, SUNY, 1992), p.15 --------------------------------------------------------------------- The argument put forth was that the Buddha did not engage in actions which promoted egalitarian relationships between the gender, and that these conditions subordinate the female gender. How could he be so therefore enlightened? My two cents worth for the concept was taken in light of the context of the times and of the way the world has progressed since the time of the Buddha. - Women did not have access to elaborate education (vedas) - were therefore implicitly equated with sudra (4th class) - were therefore implicitly excluded from finding salvation (as knowledge of the vedas was an important factor in attaining 'enlightenment' - constant dependence of women to men: to the father in childhood, the husband in adulthood and to the eldest son after the death of the husband By incorporating these factors and realizing the political system at the time (regardless of whether the system ws formal/informal, and knowing that the oppression of women still exists today in some places), would it not be logical that this 'subordination' be the way? If women could only access the knowledge through the men who controled it. The Buddha never attempted to explain women's situation, he just provided a way of getting around it. ************************************************************************ Please enlighten me, I look forward to your replies. . . Shane [ jps_mcc@pavo.concordia.ca ] Thanks........ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 14:14:00 EST From: BHV2000 Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Oh dear ! Shane has touched on what is perhaps the biggest challenge to the claim that the Buddha was truly enlightened. He seems truly not to have wanted women to become nuns in the first place, and it was only AAnanda and Mahaapajaapati's determination to establish an order of nuns that finally convinced the Buddha to allow it. ( For a complete account of how the first nuns came to be, please see Cullavagga X, 1 ) It is obvious that even when Gotama's aunt Mahaapajaapati shaved her head, donned the robes, and sat by the hall where the Buddha was staying, vowing never to leave until she was ordained, he still allowed her to go forth grudgingly, saying " just as when the disease called blight falls upon a field of sugarcane in good condition, that filed of sugarcane does not continue long, just so, AAnanda, under whatsoever doctrine and discipline women are allowed to go forth from the household life into the homeless state, that religion does not last long." Some Enlightened One, eh ? Well, there are of course many ways of understanding this. Although this whole account sounds very unsavoury to modern ears, we must remember that times were very different back then. The idea that women were inferior to men was so ingrained (and still is in many parts of the world ) in people's minds that it was almost impossible to break out of. Unfortunately, the Buddha's whole "unorthodox" edifice was riddled with conecpts that were revolutionary and which broke out of the most basic assumptions that were and still are held by most humans. Since, therefore, the Buddha was used to going " against the stream" ten times before breakfast, he certainly could have and should have conceive of equality for women. This is a real problem, isn't it ? Allow me, then, to say two things in this regard. First, we must keep in mind the fact that he did, in the end, allow women to go forth, whereas most other religious leaders, no matter how much pressure was put on them, would not, and did not, allow women to become full members of the religious community. In fact, was it not only last week that females were ordained by the Church of England ? So, yes, he was stubborn about the issue, but ultimately, it only took three tries to enlighten the Buddha on the issue, and not two or three millenia! It is also worth noting that the order flourished (at least for a while..) and the early nun's utterances were deemed important enough to be included in the canon as the Theriigaathaa. Finally, if one is tempted to question the wisdom of the Buddha based on the status of women, it is important to remember the following. In the Theravaada tradition, the Buddha was a human being, like anyone else, except that he attained enlightenment. Now, this enlightenment does not make him omniscient, nor does it make him transcendent, nor does it provide him with the proper solution to every single problem. What it does mean is that he has understood the nature of the most basic problem out of which all other problems arise. That problem is ignorance about the three characteristics of existence - soullessness, impermanence, and suffering ( anattaa, anicca, dukkha ). He knows how the mass of suffering that is ourselves arises, and how it may be quenched. He may,therefore, hold improper views on some specific questions (such as the status of women ) but what makes him a Buddha is that he does not cling to these views, as evinced by his ability to let them go and ordain the nuns. Nowhere does he say that women are not capable of reaching enlightenment or nibbaana, so he is not logically inconsistent, which would signal a severe problem with his state of enlightenment; all we can say of him is that he was not politically correct, which is, unfortunately, not a prerequisite for enlightenment or nibbaana. Or is it ?... Daniel Veidlinger ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 15 Mar 1994 to 16 Mar 1994 *************************************************** Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 16:01:49 -0500 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 16 Mar 1994 to 17 Mar 1994 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests Topics of the day: 1. Women in Buddhism (4) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Oh dear! It is unenlightened in the late twentieth century not to give women equal rights, equal access etc ... therefore Gotama Buddha 2500 years ago was not enlightened. Discuss, with special reference to semantic ambiguity and the use of logical argument. Or let's have a long list of things the so-called 'enlightened One' knew nothing about. Peter Moore, Canterbury, UK ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 13:54:33 EST From: Damien Keown Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > >Oh dear! It is unenlightened in the late twentieth century not to >give women equal rights, equal access etc ... therefore Gotama Buddha >2500 years ago was not enlightened. Discuss, with special reference >to semantic ambiguity and the use of logical argument. > >Or let's have a long list of things the so-called 'enlightened One' >knew nothing about. > >Peter Moore, Canterbury, UK ***************************************************************** The other side of the coin could be that being enlightened the Buddha was right all along and that it's the modern West that's got things wrong. I hasten to add, laughingly, that such a thing is quite unthinkable (..... isn't it?) ************************************************* Damien Keown HSA01DK@uk.ac.gold Department of Historical & Cultural Studies University of London, Goldsmiths' College London UK, SE14 6NW Voice (+44) 071 692 7171 Fax: (+44) 071 694 8911 ************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 13:56:22 EST From: mbury@ucdavis.edu Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I don't think anyone anywhere in the 5th century B.C.E. was awfully "enlightened" in the modern sense. I wonder what has made _us_ so wise? I do have the impression that the Buddha's views on women (as reported, remember, by his followers) are more liberal than those of e.g., Confucius or the Essenes. . . . I sympathize, actually, but the student should remember that the English word "enlightened" has more than one meaning. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 15:26:05 EST From: DanLusthaus Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- It's been awhile since I posted a response to this sort of issue, and if I could find a copy of what I'd said a year or so back when the same sort of issue came up I'd repost it (but I haven't located it). I don't have the time to reconstruct the argument, but the gist was: 1. If you just read some out of context stories - particularly the one about Buddha's step-mother's efforts to become the first nun (she is always identified in these secondary accounts as his aunt - which she was - but never as his step-mother who raised him from the time he was an infant when his mother died --- and no one therefore deals with the question of what would it mean to let your mother - a queen, wife or your father who spent 29 years trying to keep you from leaving home by lavishing everything on you - easily leave home and leave your father?) - then you have some grist for the feminist mill, but you don't have a very realistic picture of what likely transpired or of the attitudes of the participants. 2. Buddha, in order to maintain (1) proper appearances in the eyes of the community from whom they received their sustenance, and (2) decorum amongst the sangha members (who did not become enlightened or desocialized merely by taking refuge), established rules that would keep sangha members above reproach. These rules, then, tell us a lot about the society that surrounded Buddha, but not necessarily what he thought of women in-themselves (and of course ignores the fact that Buddha didn't think either gender had an it-itself - do our enlightened feminists, who can so easily dismiss Buddha, still believe in svabhaavic gyno-logos?). 3. One place to look for what Buddha instituted in the sangha to demonstrate his attitude toward women is in the rules for nuns as controller of medicine. Not only was medicine THE key metaphor for Buddha (the four noble truths are after all a medical model, what today in med schools is called the "pathological model": Symptom, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment), but, when sick, most of the normal rules were suspended. One could eat at times of day otherwise forbidden; one could eat foods and beverages otherwise forbidden; and men and women could have bodily contact if the woman is ministering to him; the men had to treat women, in this situation, as their superiors; etc. In other words, in this very special dimension, the most concrete situation of the treatment and alleviation of dukkha, the normal gendered rules were indeed suspended. 4. There are occasions where envious (aka "sexist" in modern lexicons) monks came to the Buddha to complain about a particular woman preaching in Buddha's name. As when confronted in all such situations when people pretend to speak for him, he asked the complainers: What did she say? They relate what she says, and Buddha then gently chastises them, saying: That is what I say. What's your bloody problem? 5. Therefore, those who are quick to dismiss Buddha as unenlightened (in any of its senses) before giving a close examiniation of the facts are a priori unenlightened and in no position to judge the enlightenment of others. Dan Lusthaus Bates College dlusthau@abacus.bates.edu ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 16 Mar 1994 to 17 Mar 1994 *************************************************** From owner-BUDDHA-L@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Sat Mar 19 16:06:37 1994 Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 16:01:34 -0500 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 18 Mar 1994 to 19 Mar 1994 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests There are 2 messages totalling 69 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Muslim-Buddhist Cross-fertalizations 2. Women in Buddhism ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 17:12:59 EST From: DanLusthaus Subject: Re: Muslim-Buddhist Cross-fertalizations ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >It's always seemed strange to me that the "encounter" between Islam >and Buddhism is so poorly understood & understudied. I've never read >a good account of this transformation - maybe because the information >simply isn't available. Curious how these things go in cycles... Buddha-l spent time awhile back debating the role of Islam in the disappearance of Buddhism in India. Richard and I agreed on one source, a book on Islamic history, that does give the Muslim side of the story of the advance of Islam across Central Asia. They converted the Khans, and fomented discontent against the upper-classes, who were the Buddhists and the supporters of Buddhist institutions -- implying people already hated those damn Buddhists anyway, and the Muslims just helped the downtrodden liberate themselves from Buddhist oppression. Muslim accounts downplay or outright deny the role of violence [wiping out monasteries, monastics, libraries, etc.], but, as I argued back then, with some supporting evidence, their denials are grossly misleading, and, given the actual consequences, perhaps reprehensible. Richard, do you maintain an archive of old postings? Given the perennial arising of certain issues - Islam, women, yogacara scholastic debates, whether Nagarjuna was illogical, etc. - perhaps either reposting earlier discussions, or announcing where/how people with those questions can research back materials would be helpful. Of course, should new ideas about those things come up, people can always post new things as well. Jokes have also periodically been made about establishing a FAQs file - that would help too. Dan Lusthaus Bates College dlusthau@abacus.bates.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 17:13:55 EST From: DanLusthaus Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- John (guess which one) wrote: > how do we know >that such an even occurred? > Please forgive my skepticism, but I frankly have trouble with the >attribution of *any* particular words to the Buddha. The issue is not whether these are historical matters, but rather that these are *canonical* matters, which, because they are then taken as canonical and historical by Buddhists, influence and shape "buddhist" attitudes. So a criticism of an event ascribed to Buddha in the canon, whether or not it actually happened, can still be criticised - it's the canonicity, not the historicity which is at issue. That's why I suggested that a more contextual approach to the canon is necessary before shooting from the (undulating) hip. Dan Lusthaus Bates College dlusthau@abacus.bates.edu ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 18 Mar 1994 to 19 Mar 1994 *************************************************** From owner-BUDDHA-L@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Fri Mar 18 19:46:32 1994 Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 16:00:11 -0500 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 17 Mar 1994 to 18 Mar 1994 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests There are 21 messages totalling 900 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Scholarship as practice (3) 2. John's Preferences 3. Muslim-Buddhist Cross-fertalizations 4. Reincarnation? 5. zen sources on the net 6. Women in Buddhism (5) 7. Zen Resources 8. Physician-assisted suicide (5) 9. On euthanizing Buddhism 10. Looking for a copy of the Lotus sutra 11. Women in Buddhism and political correctness ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 20:57:38 EST From: Richard P Hayes Subject: Scholarship as practice Concerning my statement that my department has a policy of trying to keep people away from topics in which they have a strong personal interest, John Dunne sagaciously remarks: You had best define the phrase, ``strong personal interest.'' Were I not strongly interested in my dissertation, I would probably never finish it. The phrase is not mine, John; it was in place when I arrived here, but I have never had much difficulty understanding what it means. I take it that there is a difference between a personal interest and an intellectual interest. A personal interest, I suppose, is one that has a close connection to one's sense of identity as a person. I have noticed that when people closely identify with some idea or ideology, when they take it as their own, when they take it personally in the colloquial sense of the term, then they are less capable of taking criticism well, less capable of noticing even fairly strong instances of counterevidence to the views that are propping up their sense of who they are, and less willing to modify their views. While I agree that one is less likely to finish a work in which they don't have an intellectual interest, I think they may be more likely to do work that others may find of benefit if their strong intellectual interest is not vitiated by a strong personal interest. I trust that this answer also sets John Powers's worries aside to some extent. I still wonder why John Powers would prefer that the texts he is studying say one thing as opposed to another. Texts just say what they say, and figuring out what old texts are saying can be a very difficult task. That task, in my experience, becomes even more difficult when one is hoping to find the text saying something that one finds agreeable. Being open to let a text's author use me as a tool to express his ideas in readable English is what I mean by being supremely indifferent to the text. Like John (here I think I mean both Dunne and Powers), I take the work of translating a text as a kind of exercise in cultivating unlimited friendship, joy, compassion and impartiality. If I take great care in expressing my own ideas clearly, then why would I not take equal care to express the ideas of someone else with clarity? If a turn of phrase in A"svagho.sa's Sanskrit thrills me or brings a lump to my throat (he plays the human emotions like a virtuoso), why should I not strive to find words that have the same effect in translating his verses into English? This task, it seems to me would be very difficult if I were not open to the text, and this openness would be very difficult if I allowed myself to be insulted or embarrassed by what he said and how he said it. By taking the work of translation seriously in this way, I find that academic work has much the same consequences as practising vipa"syanaa and upek.saa-bhaavanaa (cultivation of indifference) meditation. This is what gives me the courage to give low grades to students who are careless about spelling and punctuation, and dismissive of people who do not agree with their prejudices. Indeed, trying to be impersonal about giving grades and concentrating totally on the quality of a student's work rather than on extrinsic factors is what makes academic work a complete Buddhist practice, as complete as a life of staring at walls and raising organic asparagus. I trust this sets the minds of the two Johns at ease about what I meant in my earlier message on scholarly detachment. Richard P. Hayes cxev@musica.mcgill.ca Faculty of Religious Studies McGill University Montreal, Quebec ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 08:51:47 EST From: DanLusthaus Subject: Re: John's Preferences ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Obviously I am qualified - according to Richard's criterion - to comment on this mini-flame (a penlite actually), since I am utterly disinterested in it. Richard will likely comment that it is one thing to feel passion about the subject one is studying; it is another to identify so strongly with that subject/text/person, that one either cringes when they say something we don't agree with, or, as does happen, we become their advocates so we "translate" our opinions into their texts before presenting them English readers. What the hell, for instance, was Hakeda thinking about when he "translated" the Awakening of Faith? It certainly wasn't what the Chinese text said! That overidentification (related to what Freud called transference), in which ego-boundaries get fuzzy, is not buddhistic; in fact, fuzzy ego boundaries is a deeper case of aatmavaada than a healthy ego (you not only believe in a real self defined by a drsti, but you are appropriating it and making it your own when it already belongs to someone else). Now, let me pretend I'm Chuck Prebish, and tell you boys to stop getting distracted by the jocular asides of the Hays-ing, and stay on topic (external objects). If anyone cares, when I get a chance I will contribute my two cents worth (preview of coming attractions: the Vi.m'satika is NOT an idealist text, and we all need to do a little more thinking about what the term "external objects" means in so-called-Yogacara texts). Dan Lusthaus Bates College dlusthau@abacus.bates.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 08:59:31 EST From: "Edward J. Murphy" Subject: Re: Muslim-Buddhist Cross-fertalizations ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- It's always seemed strange to me that the "encounter" between Islam and Buddhism is so poorly understood & understudied. I've never read a good account of this transformation - maybe because the information simply isn't available. But what happened in Afghanistan? in Gandhara? in the Tarim? You know, there are Khotanese B'ist texts dated (I think) to within a decade of the "Arab" conquest of the city and then !poof! it's an Islamic city inhabited by people who call themselves - of all things - Uighers. Who knows what happened in between? I've heard that the architecture of Islamic madrasas resembles that of Central Asian Buddhist monastaries and that there may be some actual connection between the two (if you had to look somewhere it'd be Bukhara like vihara...) Ed. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 09:02:26 EST From: Marc Wachowitz Subject: Re: Reincarnation? ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Ronald Labhart asked about the conflict between the concepts of anatman and reincarnation in Buddhism. Observe the movement of waves, and their relation to the surrounding waves; this may help you to avoid wasting a lot of your time with metaphysical speculations. Observe the working of your mind, and its relation to the surrounding world; this may help you to avoid wasting a lot of your time with seeking solutions for problems that you create without need ;-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * wonder everyday * nothing in particular * all is special * Marc Wachowitz ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 09:05:42 EST From: anna yamada Subject: zen sources on the net ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- hi. The Internet Directory by Eric Braun, Fawcett publications, NY Is worth the $30 bucks. Also, zendo-L and dharmanet bbs sponsored by Insight Meditations Center in Barre MA 1-508-433-5847 is nice. Also, try shivasys.com for your usenet el-cheapo alternative bbs near you. And then there's coombspaters at anus.edu. Beware of Zen Master Rama and NSA or Sokka Gakkai USA, they tend to be rather coercive and not very rigourous scholastically. the Sanfrancisco Zen center is going through changes, beware, sorta. Or, you could spend a summer in a squat and vollunteer to do soem heavy landscaping and gardening. Talk about your indescribable Zen Satori. Or that's what the cute guys who let me see them sweat say eventuarlally. Better Living through Better Living Gabrielli's Ascenza White-Wine Blend (Mendocino, CA): YUMMY! On Thu, 17 Mar 1994, Tim Gebhart ... the gepski! (205)650-2720 wrote: ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 09:06:30 EST From: Hank Glassman Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- (I must admit I hesitate to post on this subject, since it seems to have drawn more that one sardonic flame. . .) I think it is wrong-minded to go the Buddha or to the rules of the monastic sangha to learn about the subject of "women in Buddhism" in general, and even more so to subject the Buddha's very enlightenment to critique on the basis of the [D]harma or the vinaya. It is said that one who sees the Thathaagata sees the [D]harma and vice-versa, but one cannot therefore substitute the Buddha for Buddhism. Nowhere has Buddhism ever existed in any society where men did not have *more* control over property and cultural production than women. By Buddhism I mean to refer to the large collection of ritual and philosophical practices, undertaken by both monastic and lay people who are "Buddhists." These people always live in social and historical contexts; there is great variation. No Buddhist ritual was ever performed nor any Buddhist text ever composed outside of culture. Isn't the subject better framed in terms of Buddhism(s) and the family? The hymns of the Theriigaathaa document the experience of women renunciants and reveal the joy the found in their practice as well as the hardships that led them to renounce the family life. While the hymns are clearly intended as endorsements of Buddhism, we have a rare opportunity to hear women's voices in them. The practice of lay women is also Buddhism, the rituals of kinship and the life-cycle in various contexts must also be examined. The question of the status of women in Buddhism can only be framed with refference to a particular Buddhist culture (macro or micro). Also keep in mind the male authorship of almost all Buddhist texts. Texts are not the only artifacts of culture, though, and not every text in any given culture is a Buddhist text. The visual record and 'secular' literature offer many insihgts into the actual religious lives of Buddhist women (and men, I hasten to add). If there is a practice or an ideology (be it the "blood bowl" (J. ketsubon, Ch. hsueh-p'en) belief of East Asia or the "eight rules" reffered to in the original post by J. P. S.) that indicates that women are somehow, by reason of biology, inherently inferior to men, this merits close examination. The purpose of would not be to condemn or valorize a particular Buddhist culture, or Buddhism in general, based on the equality or subordinance of women in society but rather to understand more deeply the meaning of Buddhism (in time and in place) for all of the four-fold sangha, male and female, lay and monastic. The essays in the book Shane cited - _Buddhism, Sexuality and Gender._ (Ed. Jose Cabezon, SUNY, 1992) - are a good example of what can be learned by seeing Buddhism as something which happens in culture and in history. be nice, Hank Glassman Stanford University ohank@leland.stanford.edu (415)282-8934 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 09:06:55 EST From: flehman@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Subject: Re: Scholarship as practice ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- It seems to me that Richard Hayes's posting of even date (to which this is a response) is acceptable only up to a certain point. The point is that texts do not in fact speak plainly in the intended sense _ except, perhaps, when they say nothing more than that 'The cat sat on the mat.' The meaning of a text is, if anywhere, in the intentionality of the author or utterer of the text, so that the reader or hearer is ever obliged to interpret that meaning in the light of the only thing he/she has going for him/her, namely, whatever assumptions he/she [Bloody gender marked pronouns!] makes in the background aobut the material, its presuppositions, and so on. This is relatively unprolbematical if the text is utttered by someone from much the same background, say culturally, professionally, technically or whatever along those lines; it is in particular relatively unproblematical if the text is colloquial as to its subject matter and as to its style, and the receiver/interpreter is of the same general sort of cultural community as is the utterer. This, alas, is almost never the case when our texts are about abstruse, technical matter, written ages ago, in a language that is not colloquial to any one to-day. From this, I submit, it follows straight forwardly that we cannot help bringing to the text we are translating some ideas of our own about what WE think the author is likely to have had in mind. We must, of course, be rather cautious in not trying to force a text to appear to say what we want it to, and there I must agree wholeheartedly with Richard Hayes. However, as long as we do our level best to avoid that pit fall, it seems to me to matter very little where we get the assumptions we bring to the text's interpretation - an interpretation that will surely have a real effect upon the translation we end up with. For instance, to take an actual case in my own earlier work, suppose I have an especially obscure passage in the Sumangala Vilaasini (notable, even amongst Paa.li texts, for its difficulties). And suppose I, as both a scholar of Buddhism (at least of sorts; for I cannot claim to be mainly a textualist or historian of the subject) AND as a practicing Theravadin (who, if you allow, brings to his personal understanding of and interpretation of the religion as much as he can of his technical scholarship in logic, mathematics, and anthropology and linguistics as he can - the other face, maybe, of the sin of forcing the material to appear to conform to prior personal commitments) I bring to that passage what I have been able to put together as certain assumptions about the leading, but perhaps inchoate background notions and axioms of the Doctrine. Then I am bound, surely, to interpret and translate the passage accordingly; again, providing I do my very best not to force the text to appear to say what I believe it would have to to fit with my assumptions. I can see nothing wrong with this, and indeed I can see no other way to do my job. In fact I suggest that the source of my assumptions is in principle irrelevant, just so long as I do my damndest to acknowledge these, and to try and devise as many independent tests for (against) them as I can honestly find; as long as I am always prepared to be proved wrong. I remember hearing Einstein respond on some occasion to the perennial question (which I am certain he was thoroughly sick of hearing) as to where he had first got the pretheoretic hunch (intuition?) that led to the theory of Relativity. He replied in effect that he was not quite sure, and that it may have been triggered by a dream, indigestion or whatever. He seemed quite uninterested, in fact. And that makes sense, because, in the last analysis, the test of the validity of ideas is not to be found in their origins or sources but rather in the filter of rigorous, systematic formulation and testing we bring to their development and elaboration, with the greatest amount of honesty we can muster for the task. I submit, that the ideal put forward by Richard Hayes, of the thoroughly impersonal translator is not only too high minded but also impossible on principle. For a hard passage, to bring no beliefs or assumptions to the task (and it is thoroughly difficult to sort out one's commitments neatly into intellectual as against personal - I assure you that there is no more passionate involvement with ideas than that of the theoretical scientist or mathematician who has done any serious, fundamental work and invested his/her time and self in it all) is to preclude any hope of making sense of the text. You have to want it to mean something, else it will in fact not speak to you at all! Now, as long as I am (in a very modified way) inveighing against a too lofty attitude in scholarship, I feel it only right to say that the total impersonality towards the work of at least serious pupils or students advocated by Richard Hayes is also distasteful and, at the same time, unproductive of anything much more than a teacher's attempt to set himself or herself on a plane unattainably above that of his students and, then, of his colleagues, senior, and, especially, junior. It may, for all I know, be splendid 'scholarship', but it seems to me lousy science, at least. If I think I have a student with a first class mind, serious, original, and likely, if given a certain amount of latitude as well as a certain amount of proper constraint and supervision, to help us make some progress, however modest, in the field in which we are working, I will not destroy that student's chances, or motivations either, by giving particularly poor marks and grades for trivial (yes, trivial) mistakes of style or polish. I will work with that student, I will, if needs be, do a lot of editing of that student's work, making every effort to try and instill in him/her a sense of, and good feeling for, polish and accuracy and even limpid clarity of expression, and I will certainly do my best to argue and scold that student when I think the inattention to such detail is the product of a deliberate or simply thoughtless slipshodness. I will make it as clear as I can that an idea not expressed with care for precision, explicitness and the like is simply not being epxressed at all in the sense that, if one cannot tell exactly what is being claimed, one can surely not say whether what is being claimed is right, or makes sense, or not. But I must, I insist, have some respect for my students (the serious ones - those who clearly don't care and aren't really ;'there' intellectually when I am teaching, I let fail themselves; I don't have to fail them at all); if I see a good idea and a good brain behind it, I feel duty bound to encourage that brain and those ideas. I owe this to the student because he or she is, r is poentially, a co-worker whom I need` to help me get on with my own work. I owe it to the world of science and scholarship, which I am bound not to deprive, if I can help it, of possible good workers and good thinkers and the contributions these can make to the inescapably collective work of science and scholarship. Or, in plainer language, perhaps, however high I place my own abilities and accomplishments, I do not believe that any one person can do his or her best work in lofty isolation. My serious students, including those from backgrounds, domestic or foreign, whose control of standard, scholarly English, say, is not as good as my own or as the standards I set for myself, are still, to the extent I see real promise in them, my co-worker apprentices, and hence junior colleagues. My job is little if at all to impress them with my sense of my own importance and unreachable perfection.And I cannot work encouragingly with student apprenctices without a certain human feeling towards them and their respective shortcomings, none of which, surely, I may believe myself wholly absolved from, either. Maudlin and delusionary sentimentality (rasannuta), no; but a good measure of karu.naa , definitely! After all, solemn high mindedness, as Richard himself has recently so elegantly maintained on this Network with regard to his rejection of the expression 'sermon' instead of dhamma-talk, is hardly characteristic 'virtue' of the exposition of Buddhist Doctrine. Chit Hlaing ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 09:20:41 EST From: scoit@cc.brynmawr.edu Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Random thoughts: The Buddha seemed to offer women a radical opportunity by allowing them to form an order given the socio-cultural status quo. Perhaps the seemingly mysogenistic attitudes (i.e. the 8 additional rules) made the order more socially accepable at the time. It seemed to be, at the very least, a step into a more "enlightened" attitude towards the role of women in religion. Everything is impermanent, and it seems to me that so to is the role of women in society and religion. Another thought is that the 8 additional rules seem to keep women from positions of authority and independence (which carried into religious sphere as they had to defer to monks). For these reasons I do not believe that subordination could be considered "the way" for women (especially given the latter two turnings of the wheel). Perhaps at the time when Ananda was requesting the order it was the only was to allow women similar religious lifestyles. ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > >Last week my professor pursued the topic of - Women in Buddhism > >The discussion centered around the creation of the female monastic >order how it came to be, and the eight conditions for accepting women >into the Buddhist monastic order, by the guidence of the 'enlightened >one'. > >The eight conditions are: > >1) Nuns, no matter how senior, nust always defer to monks, no matter > how junior. > >2) Nuns must not spend the rainy season retreat in a residence where > there is no monk. > >3) After the rainy season retreat, nuns must formally report to a > convocation of monks as well as to the other nuns. > >4) Nuns must observe fortnightly monastic observances under the > direction of monks. > >5) A nun who has broken a monastic rule must be disciplined by both > the order of monks and by that of nuns. > >6) Both monks and nuns are necessary for the ordination of new nuns. > >7) Monks must never be abused or reviled in any way by a nun. > >8) Nuns may be formally admonished by monks, but not monks by nuns. * >_____________________________________________________________________ >* Taken from Alan Sponberg's article "Attitudes towards Women and > the Feminine in Early Buddhism" - Buddhism, Sexuality and Gender. > (Ed. Jose Cabezon, SUNY, 1992), p.15 >--------------------------------------------------------------------- > >The argument put forth was that the Buddha did not engage in actions > >which promoted egalitarian relationships between the gender, and that >these conditions subordinate the female gender. > >How could he be so therefore enlightened? > >My two cents worth for the concept was taken in light of the context >of the times and of the way the world has progressed since the time >of the Buddha. > >- Women did not have access to elaborate education (vedas) >- were therefore implicitly equated with sudra (4th class) >- were therefore implicitly excluded from finding salvation (as > knowledge of the vedas was an important factor in attaining > 'enlightenment' >- constant dependence of women to men: to the father in childhood, > the husband in adulthood and to the eldest son after the death > of the husband > >By incorporating these factors and realizing the political system >at the time (regardless of whether the system ws formal/informal, >and knowing that the oppression of women still exists today in some >places), would it not be logical that this 'subordination' be the >way? > >If women could only access the knowledge through the men who controled >it. > >The Buddha never attempted to explain women's situation, he just >provided a way of getting around it. > >************************************************************************ > >Please enlighten me, I look forward to your replies. > > . . Shane [ jps_mcc@pavo.concordia.ca ] > > Thanks........ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 09:21:09 EST From: Franz Aubrey Metcalf Subject: Re: Zen Resources ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Tim, You seem to imply you have ftp and gopher. If so use either to get to the archives at coombs.anu.edu.au. When you get there, look for coombspapers, then otherarchives, then (love this name) electronic-buddhist-archives, then you get to the Zen-Buddhism directory. There are some teishos, some poems, a couple things by comtemporary roshis, and, perhaps best, a couple of good, current bibliographies. I realize I did not give you quite exact instructions, but they are good enough for gopher. For ftps just do some dir commands to look at the directories, you'll find the stuff. Still, your old-time paper books are likely to remain the most helpful, as far as I can tell. I am just beginning a dissertation on Zen in America, and I'm a long way from my university library, so if you find anything more than the Coombs stuff, will you please tell me? I'd appreciate knowing what else is out there. Peace, Franz =====<>=======<>=======<>=======<>=======<>=======<>=======<>===== Franz Aubrey Metcalf fmetcalf@midway.uchicago.edu That ol' UofC Also: fmetcalf@crl.com =====<>=======<>=======<>=======<>=======<>=======<>=======<>===== ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 10:00:04 EST From: Richard P Hayes Subject: Physician-assisted suicide Thanks to all of you who provided references, both on the list and privately, that I can use in cobbling together a lecture on possible Buddhist attitudes on euthanasia. They were most helpful. As it turns out, the lecture has evolved into a debate. In speaking to my colleague Katherine Young, whose office is next door to mine and with whom I have many a fruitful conversation on matters of mutual interest, I learned that she and I have diametrically opposed views on classical Buddhist ethics. As we talked the matter over, we thought it might be productive to have a debate in front of the class on medical ethics. This should confuse the students no end, and it is ever so much fun to confuse undergraduates, especially just before final exam time! Essentially the position I intend to argue is this: The current discussion of physician-assisted suicide is largely based on the presupposition that people have rights and responsibilities and that these are sometimes in conflict. Thus much of the discussion has been over whether or not a physician's responsibility to preserve life overrides the patient's right to die when the quality of life becomes such that the patient no longer wishes to continue living. The issue in Canada and the United States is largely one of public policy, and ultimately law; that is, the question is one of whether the laws ought to be such that a physician can legally accede to a patient's request to be given a lethal dose of some substance without facing possible murder charges. Given that the issues are framed in this way, I shall argue, there is not much to be gained by looking to classical Buddhist sources for inspiration on how to resolve the conflict, since the conflict arises out of presuppositions that classical Buddhists did not hold. Of course, one could try to resolve the conflict by challenging the presuppositions themselves, but this is something that very few people in modern society would be prepared to do, since this would entail questioning the very idea of inalienable rights. The very idea of rights, I shall argue, is alien to Buddhism, the ethical guidelines of which were based on other considerations. More importantly, I shall argue that the moral guidelines spoken by the Buddha (or whoever really said the things for which the Buddha got all the credit) were never intended to become the basis of public policy and law; on the contrary, they were intended to be a purely voluntaristic guideline. (Example: a Buddhist might choose to be a vegetarian but would never dream of bombing or even boycotting a McDonald's restaurant or a butcher shop, since it is not in the spirit of the advice `act as the wise would act' to try to impose wisdom on others.) Therefore, even if one could discover a series of texts proving that the Buddha felt that enabling people to die rather than face hopeless pain is not the sort of thing a wise person would do, it still would not follow that this description of what the wise would do is suitable as a prescriptive or proscriptive law governing the lives of society as a whole, which is made up mostly of fools. If Buddhist ethical attitudes are instructive to the modern situation, I shall argue, it is because of the underlying insight that there is not much point in trying to modify the behaviour of the foolish masses through legislation and coercion. As concerns fools, oh monks, the best policy is to avoid them and leave them alone. This is an insight, I shall argue, that it may be worthwhile for modern people to ponder as an alternative to turning to the increasingly coercive measures currently being favoured. The way in which Katherine Young's position differs from mine is that she believes the Buddhist reverence for life is intended as a universal moral principle that is an expression of a kind of natural law. Discovering that Buddhists were opposed to euthanasia might not in itself be significant, but seen as part of a pattern that is found in societies all around the world, the Buddhist moral guidelines can be used as evidence that euthanasia is a violation of this universal natural law. I hope I have fairly summarized her view. (Since she is much wiser than I, as evidenced by her refusal to use electronic mail, she cannot correct my summary of her position, so I feel it is especially incumbent on me to state her position accurately.) There is still time to save me from the humiliation of losing a public debate to my esteemed colleague, so if I am barking up the wrong tree, please advise me now. I'll do anything to win a debate. Richard P. Hayes Faculty of Religious Studies McGill University Montreal, Quebec ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 10:31:17 EST From: John Dunne Subject: Re: Scholarship as practice ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- After reading Richard's response to my plea for an explanation of ``personal interest'' and its disadvantages, I find myself in complete agreement with him (what a shock!). Subhaa.stiam, Richard. John Dunne Study of Religion Harvard University ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 10:42:31 EST From: John Dunne Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Perhaps someone has already raised this issue, but might I ingenously ask, ``How is it that we know what the Buddha said?'' The story of Mahaaprjaapati and the induction of women into the monastic order has been blithely bandied about here with the apparent assumption that this literary passage somehow records an actual event. But how do we know that such an even occurred? Perhaps the Buddha actually said something far worse. Or perhaps he was completely open to the idea, but later redactors introduced the passage out of chauvanistic spite. Please forgive my skepticism, but I frankly have trouble with the attribution of *any* particular words to the Buddha. It seems likely that there was some fellow known as the ``Buddha,'' but I really do not have any idea how I can determine what he actually said. John Dunne Study of Religion Harvard University ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 10:52:05 EST From: John McRae Subject: On euthanizing Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- One person who has considered the topic of euthanasia from a Buddhist perspective is Karl Becker, formerly of Tsukuba and now of Kyoto University. He gave what I thought was a very thoughtful paper on the topic at a Fo Kuang Shan conference several years ago. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have Karl's current address at hand... But if we all harass my colleague Jane Marie Law to read her e-mail rather than finish her book (I mean, where are her priorities?), the address should be forthcoming. -- John McRae, Asian Studies Cornell University jrm5@cornell.edu, 607/255-1328 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 11:22:39 EST From: "Charles S. Prebish" Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- For those interested in an incredibly lucid study of the Theriigaathaa, filled with much new information and exciting insights about the role of women in early Buddhism, refer to Kate Rennie Blackstone's M.A. Thesis at McMaster University. Dr. Charles S. Prebish Pennsylvania State University E-Mail: csp1@psuvm.psu.edu Religious Studies Program Voice Mail: 814/865-1121 108 Weaver Building Fax: 814/863-7840 University Park, Pa 16802 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 11:23:56 EST From: Geosh Von Vathauer Subject: Re: Physician-assisted suicide ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >From my somewhat limited background, I would tend to agree with you, Richard. The presuppostions of Buddhism are extremely incongruent with modern western society, and when you throw in politics as well, we're talking about comparing apples and ibms. There are places that I have problems with, though. The moral foundation as I understand it is to relieve suffering in this world. For those becoming strict adherents, i.e. monks and nuns, this was mandatory; this is the basis of the five precepts. For the lay-person, there were practices that they could do to relieve suffering in their life, so it was pretty much voluntary for them. >From the buddhist angle, when a person dies that has not achieved nirvana, then that person is reborn in a form according to their merit. One would have to ask if they are suffering now and end their life, how much suffering would they have in their next life? The form of rebirth also relates highly to the final thoughts of a person. From my perspective, wanting to end your life to reduce the suffering is a highly ego-centric act. Having the hope that whatever comes afterwords is less pain then the end of this life would backfire and rebirth would probably be of a lower form. So, overall, the answer would probably be it is against buddhism to end your life to reduce the suffering. Having said that, I realize that I haven't addressed the topic of assisted suicide. It would seem that assisted suicide is a sefless act, accumulating merit for the person providing aid, for if their thoughts are in the right place with their acts, they are working to relieve the suffering of others. Having drawn this conflict, at the moment I see no resolution, so I will ponder a bit more upon it. Geosh Antioch College ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 13:27:35 EST From: mbury@ucdavis.edu Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- While we're on the subject, I would like to call the questioner's (and everyone else's) attention to the fact that Univ. of Hawaii Press has announced the publication of Kathryn Tsai's translation of Pao-ch'ang's 6th-century _Pi-chiu-ni-chuan_ (Biographies of Chinese Nuns) for late this Spring. I assume it is based on her 1972 disserrtation (written as Kathryn Cissell). This is an outstanding, and even inspiring work, which shows you what Buddhism meant to these notable women, what obstacles they devoted themselves to overcoming, and the very real respect they enjoyed within their society. There is also a translation by Li Jung-hsi, but it may not be available at the student's library, and it may be more difficult for a beginner to read. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 13:37:43 EST From: Guy Isabel Subject: Re: Physician-assisted suicide ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dr. Richard Hayes wrote: >The issue in Canada and the United States is largely one of public >policy, and ultimately law; that is, the question is one of whether >the laws ought to be such that a physician can legally accede to a >patient's request to be given a lethal dose of some substance >without facing possible murder charges. There was an article a couple of months ago in a major French-Canadian newspaper where the columnist -- a physician who had denied such assistance in the past because he feared being charged with murder -- mused that maybe he should have convinced several colleagues to join him in giving the patient a fraction of the lethal dose. Guy Isabel ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 13:38:44 EST From: "gfitz@vnet.ibm.com (Greg Fitzpatrick)" Subject: Looking for a copy of the Lotus sutra ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Can someone point me to a (preferably electronic) copy of an English translation of the Saddharma-pundarika (White Lotus of the True Dharma). I've ftp'd to coombs.anu.edu.au, but didn't find a copy there. Did I just miss it, or is there another ftp site that might have it? Many thanks. /gpf/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 14:13:34 EST From: "Charles S. Wan x2596" Subject: Re: Physician-assisted suicide I would like to remind everyone responding to this topic that the original query was with regard to Buddhism and is not a general discussion on the topic. --moderator ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Geosh Von Vathauer wrote: >From the buddhist angle, when a person dies that has not achieved >nirvana, then that person is reborn in a form according to their merit. >One would have to ask if they are suffering now and end their life, >how much suffering would they have in their next life? The form of >rebirth also relates highly to the final thoughts of a person. From >my perspective, wanting to end your life to reduce the suffering is a >highly ego-centric act. ...... But how about the suffering of the family members, friends, etc., of the patient? Frankly, I had a similar personal experience a few years ago. A very close relative of mine got into coma due to brain damage and needed a ventilator to keep her breathing. I was the one to decide whether to turn off the machine. For various reasons I do not want to talk about in this public forum, I decided not to turn off the machine. Later on she recovered well enough that she now can survive without machine assistance. But her brain damage is permanent. The whole family suffered, and is still suffering, and will have to suffer as long as she lives. Did I make the right decision? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 14:55:05 EST From: Mathieu Boisvert Subject: Women in Buddhism and political correctness ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- In a previous message concerning the status of women in Buddhism, Daniel Veidlinger suggested that: "Nowhere does he (the Buddha) say that women are not capable of reaching enlightenment of nibbaana, so he is not logically incosistent, which would signal a severe problem with his state of enlightenment; all we can say of him is that he was not politically correct, which is, unfortunately, not a prerequisite for enlightenment or nibbaana. Or is it?..." ******************* I do agree with Daniel that the Buddha was not politically correct, but for totally different reasons. First of all, I feel that the position of the Theravaada Canon regarding the institutional status of nuns is grounded in a politically correct attitude. We must remember (sm.rti), that what is now considered politically correct might have been totally different 2 500 years ago. The subordination of women to a male authority was normative in the sixth century BCE India; the reflection of this pattern on monastic regulation is therefore "in accord" (or politically correct) with the mainstream orientation of the time, though it would not be now! However, the fact that the tradition explicitly allowed women to partake to its soteriological goal, that women were permitted to join the Buddhist monastic community, THIS WAS NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT (although it is according to our standards). The context of the time was not at all conducive to the renunciation of women. The theravaada tradition, moreover, put forth certain doctrines which considerably challenge the main stream brahmanical tradition: the rejection of the vedas, of the authority of the brahma.na, of the concept of aatman were all part of a revolutionary ideology which, by no means, could be considered politically correct. If we start with the a priori that the Buddhja was enlightened, these could be foundations for an argument that political uncorrecteduUis indeed an important factor for enlightenment. If this whole thing holds up, however, we are still left with the same problem: if the Buddha was enlightened (or at least a being motivated by political UNcorrectness), who do we explain that he instituted the subordination of nuns to monks (a politically correct attitude)? In his article on _Attitudes on Women and the Feminine in Early Buddhism_, Sponberg is offering a (out of many, of course) way out. By reading different attitudes towards women and assigning them to different tendencies within the community (and not to the Buddha himself), Sponberg puts forth an argument supporting that these attitudes simply reflect an on going dialogue (at least for the first two centuries following the Buddha's death) between different factions in the community. This leads to a much broader question: how are we to interprete the textual material that we are faced to? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 15:54:05 EST From: Spencer Seidman Subject: Re: Physician-assisted suicide ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- My question is, What has been historical Buddhist theological thought on altruistic suicide? Spencer Seidman ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 17 Mar 1994 to 18 Mar 1994 *************************************************** From owner-BUDDHA-L@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Mon Mar 21 16:30:09 1994 Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 16:01:01 -0500 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 20 Mar 1994 to 21 Mar 1994 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests There are 19 messages totalling 766 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Women in Buddhism (5) 2. Re[2]: Physician-assisted suicide 3. Transvestism 4. Physician-assisted suicide 5. Mappo and Kamakura Buddhism 6. Obaku Zen (3) 7. Women in Buddhism and political correctness 8. Queries from the peanut gallery 9. women in Buddhism 10. conference on computerization of oriental manuscripts 11. GIFs 12. Is there a John Dunne? 13. Sandy Huntington ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:13:50 EST From: HMARAIP@usthk.ust.hk Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I heartily agree with John Dunne's concern that we not so hastily attribute things to the Buddha (and, I might add, anybody) when there is no proofof it. I have been working on the issue of women and Buddhism for some time now, and I am frequently consulting works that try to explain women Buddhists in various cultural contexts and time periods. Due to the paucity of materials available, many (including myself) are left to taking clues here and there and doing the best we can with them. Now it is in the use of the clues that I am most concerned. I have tried to work through androcentric perspectives and analyse them for what they do and do not tell us, but I found it hard to not get caught somewhere. Therefore, I would like to encourage scholars to imaginatively take the perspective of the women concerned. It seems this is a reasonable first step in a hermeneutical strategy that gets to the point of the matter in a rather expedient way. Let me give an example of what I mean. Based upon investigation of early Buddhism, there have been numerous assertions about early Buddhist attitudes in regards to women. One of the things I have seen in a number of places is that one of the features of early Buddhism is that it was misogynistic, or at least not entirely fair to women. This does not strike me as a description of what the women's attitudes were. This smells like an androcentric perspective. There is no proof that I have seen that the women Buddhists practiced misogyny. What we have then in a statement that early Buddhists were misogynistic is at best some of the male's perspectives on the situation. It is not shown to be the women's perspective of their own practices. Male, female, lay, monastic, scholar, Japanese, ancient, modern, whatever--all perspect- ives are just that, perspectives. In short, when discussing women's experience, it is important to try (it is sometimes hard to know, but it is helpful as a hermeneutical strategy) and see how the women saw and thought about things. Hopefully, then, we can get more mileage out of the clues we do have. I feel sorry for the students who are merely told that the Buddha said this or that without being informed that this is informat- ion that comes filtered through other sources. At best we can talk about different things that have developed in the Buddhist tradition, but students should be informed that many of the materials, especially regarding women, are still "raw." We don't really know what much of it means yet. We don't know from whose perspective a lot of the materials are written. We do know, however, that we don't know excactly what the Buddha said. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:27:28 EST From: HMARAIP@usthk.ust.hk Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Sorry, I pushed the send button before I signed my name to my entry on women and Buddhism (the one that begins with agreeing with John Dunne). Paula Arai Hong Kong University of Science & Technology ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:29:16 EST From: HMARAIP@usthk.ust.hk Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Hank Glassman makes the statement: "Nowhere has Buddhism ever existed in any society where men did not have *more* control over property and cultural production than women." It might be prudent not to say things that are not supported, but it is certainly an interpretive mistake if one begins to explore the issue of Buddhist women with assuming that they were all oppressed and had little influence on their culture. It's like saying that nuns did not study philosophy but not being able to explain what they did do. How do you know they didn't study philosophy if you don't know what they did study? Likewise, how do you know that men had "*more* control," if we don't yet know what control women had? I think it is important to be highly critical of historiographical principles before we talk too much about history. Let's be more careful, Paula Arai Hong Kong University of Science & Technology ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:31:30 EST From: "Michael J. Sweet" Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Just a note of this discussion--the Buddhists were not the only group politically correct before their time. The other surviving Indic heterodoxy, Jainism, also admits women to full mendicant status and accepts that they can attain mok.sa just as men do (well, to be technical, the .Svetaambara Jains accept this--the more stodgy Digambaras think women are too "passionate" and yucky to achieve mok.sa--P. Jaini's wonderful "Gender and Salvation" details the interesting debate on this subject). Going beyond even the Buddhists, the Jains accepted (not at first, but eventually) also people of variant gender and sexuality (napu.msaka-s) entering the mendicant order and being able to achieve mok.sa--the first equal opportunity sangha. Michael Sweet ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:33:23 EST From: BHV2000 Subject: Re[2]: Physician-assisted suicide ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- With regards to the very interesting and important issue of assisted suicide and youth-in-Asia, I think that Richard seems to be on the right track. However, I do think that much can be learned from the circumstances surrounding the Buddha's own death. I have always felt that the story of his death as related in the Mahaaparinibba anasutta is a bit odd. To my dull mind, it seems as if there was some element of suicide in the Buddha's own death. He says that he could live for many more years if he so desired, but chose to die when he did. Perhaps he ended his life because his body was getting old and weak, and therefore extending his life, although possible, would have been unpleasant.Are thesenot exactly the type of problems that arise when discussing doctor-assisted suicide ? To me, the matter seems clear - the Buddha had the option to artificially prolong his life, but he chose not to, and let death take its course. The Buddha, my friends, "pulled the plug". Daniel Veidlinger Earth ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:35:28 EST From: John Dunne Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- In a skeptical delirium brought on by reading too many of Rirchard's messages, I wrote: > > Please forgive my skepticism, but I frankly have trouble with the > >attribution of *any* particular words to the Buddha. > Dan Lusthaus replied: > The issue is not whether these are historical matters, but rather > that these are *canonical* matters, which, because they are then > taken as canonical and historical by Buddhists, influence and shape > "buddhist" attitudes. So a criticism of an event ascribed to Buddha > in the canon, whether or not it actually happened, can still be > criticised - it's the canonicity, not the historicity which is at > issue. This is precisely my point, Dan. The "Buddha" might be best scene as a literary character, something like the proverbial ``Sweeney'' of Irish fiction -- a repository of attitudes. The problem, however, is that we often seem to assume a homogeneity to his character which is not at all supported by the texts. We might best speak of the ``Buddha'' of certain types of texts, or even the ``Buddha'' of individual texts. The result could easily be that one "Saakyamuni Buddha is a pillar of phallic domination, while the other "Saalyamuni Buddha is a politically correct saint. And as we well know, segments of the Buddhist community will turn the Buddha into whatever they please, so their commentaries (and not the suutras) are the place to look for their attitudes. If we do not tie the relevant passages on women to particular strands within the Buddhist community, all we will really talk about is our own response to those passages. We are of course welcome to do so, but we should not pretend that our responses represent some historical reality (whether it be of canon formation or anything else). John Dunne Study of Religion Harvard University ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:38:32 EST From: Alan Sponberg Subject: Transvestism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- For a colleague doing cross-cultural research on transvestism I would appreciate any relavant references, posted here or sent to me directly. I have already referred him to Michael Sweet's chapter in _Buddhism, Sexuality and Gender_, but there must be more I am not aware of. Thanks! ************************************* Alan Sponberg, Professor of Asian Philosophy and Religion Asian Studies Program, Arts & Sciences Bldg. University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812 E-mail: sponberg@selway.umt.edu Ph: (406) 243-2803 FAX: (406) 243-4076 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:38:55 EST From: Alan Sponberg Subject: Re: Physician-assisted suicide ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On Fri, 18 Mar 1994, Spencer Seidman wrote: > My question is, What has been historical Buddhist theological > thought on altruistic suicide? Isn't it proscribed in the vinaya? ************************************* Alan Sponberg, Professor of Asian Philosophy and Religion Asian Studies Program, Arts & Sciences Bldg. University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812 E-mail: sponberg@selway.umt.edu Ph: (406) 243-2803 FAX: (406) 243-4076 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:39:12 EST From: Hunyeow Lye Subject: Mappo and Kamakura Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Can someone kindly give me some references on studies, articles, and/or books in English on the subject of "mappo" - especially during the Kamakura period? I am working on a small paper on this subject - comparing and contrasting Honen, Nichiren and Dogen. Any leads much appreciated. And thanks for the help! Sincerely, Hun Lye -- Hun-yeow Lye hl2m@poe.acc.virginia.edu 304 14th Street NW Charlottesville VA 22903 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:40:28 EST From: Hunyeow Lye Subject: Obaku Zen ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I'm asking this question again - in case some learned ones missed my previous post on this subject. I am curious if there is anyone working on the Obaku Zen tradition. Rumor has it that there are a couple of people doing their PhD dissertations on Obaku Zen. Can anyone help? Thanks! Regards, Hun Lye -- Hun-yeow Lye hl2m@poe.acc.virginia.edu 304 14th Street NW Charlottesville VA 22903 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:42:24 EST From: Alan Sponberg Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism and political correctness ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Whatever the Buddha's own thinking regarding the establishment of a monastic order for women, several crucial points must always be included in any adequate discussion of the topic. The first has already been mentioned (this time round): the fact that the Buddha considered women capable of nirvana, as women. And we should note moreover that women attained the same nirvana attained by men, that the path to be followed was the same for both men and women, and that the canonical sources report ample instances of wome who did in fact complete that path. A second, related point was that the Buddha not only allowed women to follow his path, he also allowed them to teach it---even to men (eg Dhammadinnaa). These two attitudes were quite radical in the context of the times, suggesting, as Mr. Boisvert rightly points out, that the Buddha was in fact not very concerned with political correctness. So how might we look differently at the matter of the supplementary rules for nuns (guru-dhammas) in light of the broader picture? One possibility is to see them as an attempt at skilful means (whether on the part of the Buddha or the later monastic establishment), a skilful means to deal with the social problem posed by a community of women unattached to any male athority or protection. Even if male authority and protection was not required soteriologically by Buddhism, Buddhist nuns would still be subject to the censure (and aggression) of the society in which they lived and upon which they depended for material support. Seen in this light, placing the nuns "officially" under the control of the monks would have solved two problems simultaneously, the problem of protecting the nuns from the rest of society and also the problem of preserving the social acceptability of an already rather unconvet- ional and controversial movement. This last point has to be qualified, however, because in the case of this second problem the "solution" actually just substituted another problem for the first, in that having the nuns nominally under the control of the monks inevitably raised concerns (and actual problems, no doubt) of monastically inappropriate intercourse (both senses intended---note how carefully regulated contact between monks and nuns becomes in the vinaya rules). Little wonder the Buddha saw it as a no-win situation (according to the story), even though he clearly was committed to furthering the liberation/enlightenment of women. Considering this story only in terms of contemporary views encourages another ironic oversight moreover, a failure to see that the nuns themselves had a certain practical interest in accepting the guru- dhammas. Relatively speaking the nuns were surely much freer to pursue their own interests and practice under the nominal (and likely not very enthusiastic) control of the monks, than under some other socially acceptable _in loco parentis_ arrangement. "But why then didn't the Buddha actively challenge these social conventions, instead of simply giving into them,"--we quickly ask from the perspective of our contemporary sensibilities. He very likely felt that he had challenged them, I suspect, in propounding a teaching of "going forth" that rejected the ultimacy of any form of conditioning, social or biological. The significance of this last point is easy to overlook, given the extent to which our contemporary sensibilities assume--however un- consciously--some notion of biological determinism. In our PC liberal- ism we fear that acknowledging the spiritual relevance of any biological conditioning (male or female) will lock us into a state about which we can do nothing. But this would not have been a valid problem for the Buddha, since he rejected all forms of determinism. On the other hand, recognizing and actively dealing with all restrictions imposed by sex/gender-related conditioning was a crucial concern in pursuing the path to liberation, and perhaps we could indeed (all) learn something from that.... ************************************* Alan Sponberg, Professor of Asian Philosophy and Religion Asian Studies Program, Arts & Sciences Bldg. University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812 E-mail: sponberg@selway.umt.edu Ph: (406) 243-2803 FAX: (406) 243-4076 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:50:59 EST From: Erik Davis Subject: Queries from the peanut gallery ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- ESTEEMED, KNOWLEDGEABLE AND OCCASIONALLY CRANKY SCHOLARS: I'm writing an article for Wired magazine about the Asian Classics Input Project, which as you all undoubtedly know is committed to providing massive chunks of Tibetan materal from the Kangur and Tengyur on CD-ROM. As English-language philosophy scholars are the heaviest users of "Woodblock to Laser" (good title, no?), I'm posting my request here. How good is the project? What are its main faults? What other projects like this are underway? Where is it available on the Internet? How does using CD-ROM effect your own utilization of these texts? Any cool hypertext projects underway? Unless you feel like these questions deserve a thread (which is unlikely), then feel free to email me at erikd@panix.com. My next questions derive from my own arcane garage scholarship. I'm interested in Mahayan cosmology, both secondary sources and the orig- inal texts (if they're in English). I'm particularly interested in discussions in the Abhidharmakosha that concern subatomic particles and the existence of other planets.I'm also interested in stories involving Shakyamuni that include discussions of his incarnations on other planets. What are the best secondary scholarly sources that address the role of the active imagination in Buddhist (particularly tantric) practice (I'm thinking here of something along the lines of Henry Corbin's wonderful work with Sufi theories of the mundus imaginalis, etc). Similarly, has much rigorous work been done on the apparent syncretism in Tibet between Vajrayana practices and the pre-Buddhist shamanic Bon-po tradition? Okay folks, show off that erudition! erikd@panix.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:54:25 EST From: Li Yu-chen Subject: women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I have published a book on the Chinese Buddhist Nun (T'ang-tai te pi-chui-ni, Taipei, Hsueh sheng shu-chu, 1989). I also translate part of it in English. This part is related to the establishement of Indian nunnery. However, the English in unpolished. If you do not mind, I can upload it. Best Yuchen ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 09:55:12 EST From: "Maureen H. Donovan by way of T.Matthew Ciolek " Subject: conference on computerization of oriental manuscripts ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Apologies for cross-posting. The announcement which follows was sent to me by Alexander A. Stolyarov whom I met in Hong Kong at the ICANAS/ IAOL meetings last August. I have also received two numbers of a bul- letin which his group has published entitled: Bazy dannykh po istorii Evrazii vsrednie veka (Data Bases on the History of Eurasia in the Middle Ages). The translations of article titles in Vypusk 1 (1992) and Vypusk 2 (1993) are listed after the conference announcement. If anyone wants a particular article, please make a request to the Inter- library Loan Department of the Ohio State University Libraries. This publication was issued in 250 copies so it might be hard to find. That is why I am inputting the information for everyone's benefit. Please pass this on to other appropriate listservs/individuals. ************* First Circular Dear colleagues, The History Department, the Institute of Oriental Studies and the Orientalists' Society of the Russian Academy of Sciences are holding an International Conference in Moscow on the 7-11th February 1995 under the title 'The Spiritual, Material and Written Monuments of Ancient and Mediaeval Orient (the Problems of Database Creation)'. Subjects of the conference include reports, seminars and discussions on the problems of the creation of databases on bibliography, sources, literary texts, monuments and so on, on the peculiarities of methodics in oriental historical and philological researches, on the problems of formalizing and correlating the artefacts of material culture, folklore and literary sources, on the practice of editing the reference books, indexes, directories and other results of computer studies, and also on the problems of creating the special software for carrying out the oriental researches. The list of themes embraces the historical period from archaic times to the 18th century A.D. It may be connected with the nations, cultures, ethnoses and persons of Asia and Eastern Europe (in connection with Asia). The Organizing Committee of the Conference asks you to send your claim and abstract of your report not later than the 1st July 1994. You can also propose a special topic of a seminar or discussion. In this case we ask you to give us the names of participats who in your opinion will be interested in proposed topic. Organizing Committee Co-ordinators Dimitry D. Vasiliev Alexander A. Stolyarov 12 Rozhdestvenka, Moscow 107753, RUSSIA tel.: 7 (095) 928 5764 fax: 7 (095) 975 2396 E-mail: astol@glas.apc.org ********** Bazy dannykh po istorii Evrazii v srednie veka Vypusk 1 (1992) Contents (articles are in Russian except where noted; translated titles are given as found on the title page -- ie. as translated by the editors not by me-- MD) The Principles and the Perspectives of the Programme of the Computer Researches on the Mediaeval History of Eurasia..........5 [in Russian and English] The Principles of the Work with the Factographical Historical Databases........10 Blyumkhen, S. I. The Structure of the Database on Ancient Chinese Oracle Bones.........12 Vassilyev, D. D. The Databases on the Monuments of Turkic Runic Script: The Burial Epigraphics of South Siberia....14 Vertogradova, V. V.; Lelyukhin, D. N.; Stolyarov, A.A.; Tzygankov, Yu.Ja. The Multipurpose Bibliographical Database on All-Indian Inscriptions......16 Davidovitch, E. A. The Problems of the Making of the Database on Sheibanids' Golden and Silver Coins (XVI AD)..........21 Dodhudoeva, Lola N. The Prospects for the Use of Computer Methodics in the Historical Researches of the Mediaeval and Modern History Department of the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the Tajik Academy of Sciences...........30 Dubrovskaya. D. V. The Problems of the Computer Produced Hieroglyphic Texts of Chinese Mediaeval Historical Sources.........34 Ermolenko, L. N; Smirnov, D. A.; The Structure of the Database on Asian Steppes' Stone Sculptures....... 36 Kazakov, B. The Experience of Formalisation of the Historical Documents' Regests (the Collection of Budkhara's Regional Library)......43 Nastich, V.N. Mediaeval Tombstones of Middle Asia with Epitaphs in Arabic Script........46 Pichikjan, I. R. Computerization of the Votive Artefacts of the Temple the Oxus.....53 Rexvan, E. A. Tikhonova, I. G. The Databases on Manuscripts' Depositories: the Problems and Perspectives on the Beginning of the Programme......55 Stolyarov, A. A. The Possibilities of the Computer Treating of North Indian Early Medieval Acts.......64 Rogozhin, N. M. Posolski Books as a Source in the Study of Political Relations of Russia with Peoples and Countries of the Orient......70 [ in English] Beisembiev, T. K. The Kokand Historical Texts of XIX-XX AD........73 Goryaeva, L. V. Malay Mediaeval Literary Monuments......73 Zagorodnikova, T.N., The Computer Treating of the Archival Documents on the History of Russian-Indian Relations......74 Kochnev, B.D. Middle Asian Numismatics of VIII-XIII AD.......74 Kullanda, S. V. The Possibilities for the Creation of the Database on Indonesian Material.....75 Kumekov, B. E. Kypchaks of VIII-XIV AD in Arabic, Persian, and Turkic Sources.......75 Kurpalidis, G. M. The Multi-Level Research of the Sources on the History and the Culture of Near and Middle East (X-XIX AD)........75 Luzhetskaya, N. L. The Computerized Database on Afghan History...76 Nabijan Tursun, The Computerized Database on the Ancient and Early Mediaeval History of Uighurs (prior to XIII AD)......77 Ter-Mkrtichyan, L. Ch. Armenian sources of V-XVIII AD on Middle Asia and Palestine.....77 Authors of the Issue.........78 ******** Vypusk 2 (1993) The Problems of the Complex Study of the Sources on the History of Eurasia.....5 [Russian & English] Anufriev, V. Yu. The Multilingual Word-Processor (MWP) under Windows ......10 Boguslavski, O. I. Matekhin, K.A. A Rated Method of Construction of Chronological Systems by a Research of Archaeological Unicultural Assemblages and an Elaboration of Automatized Data Base.....15 Ivanov, V. B. Arabic Fonts Utilities for Orientalists.......21 Lyubchenko, V. I. The Retrieval System of Chinese Characters.....26 Maracha, V. G., Novikov, A. V., Shulgin, S. V. On the Academic Section of Intermunicipal Telecommunication Computer Network......34 Maron, M. E., Larin, I. E. On the Technology of the Editing of the Multiscript Texts.....43 Starostin, S. A. The Working Environment for Linguists......50 Trifonov, A. B. On the Question of the Usage of the Optical Character Recognizer System for the Input of Arabic Printed Texts......64 Tikhonova, I. G. Arabic Optical Character Recognizer......68 [ in English] Authors of this issue............74 ************** with best wishes, Maureen H. Donovan Japanese Studies Librarian Ohio State University Libraries donovan.1@osu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 10:02:56 EST From: John McRae Subject: Re: Obaku Zen ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Prof. Moroni (sorry, but her first name escapes me at the moment) of the Dept. of Religious Studies at the University of Hawaii, wrote her dissertation on Oobaku Zen under Phil Yampolsky at Columbia. -- John McRae, Asian Studies Cornell University jrm5@cornell.edu, 607/255-1328 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 14:46:23 EST From: ahale@vax.ox.ac.uk Subject: GIFs ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Does anyone know of any GIF (image) files for Buddhist studies out there on the net? I found one of the Buddha in the dharma/Buddhism/Art directory of Dharmanet I was wondering if there are any others. It seems a potentially useful idea, especially for Tantric Buddhism! Adrian Hale Wolfson College, Oxford. U.K. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 14:52:27 EST From: L S Cousins Subject: Is there a John Dunne? ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- John Dunne writes: > In a skeptical delirium brought on by reading too many of Rirchard's > messages, I wrote: > >From the far side of the water I wonder whether in fact there is such an individual as John Dunne ? Would not a simpler explanation of the data be that Richard Hayes is making a series of postings under different names ? > > > Please forgive my skepticism, but I frankly have trouble with the > > >attribution of *any* particular words to the Buddha. And in reply to Dan Lusthaus: > This is precisely my point, Dan. The "Buddha" might be best scene as > a literary character, something like the proverbial ``Sweeney'' of > Irish fiction -- a repository of attitudes. The problem, however, is > that we often seem to assume a homogeneity to his character which is > not at all supported by the texts. We might best speak of the > ``Buddha'' of certain types of texts, or even the ``Buddha'' of > individual texts. Taking the strictest criteria of proof, no doubt we cannot prove very much about the Buddha (or for that matter the founders of Christianity and Islam) or indeed most figures in history before the nineteenth century. To me such extreme scepticism seems rather sterile and uninteresting. However, turning the argument around, can one prove that the general information about the ideas and teachings of the Buddha as preserved in the nikaaya/aagama literature in Pali/Sanskrit, etc. are NOT an accurate representation of his basic ideas and teachings? I don't believe one can. The usual argument cited here is inconsistency or 'lack of homogeneity'. My problem with this is that whenever I see this argued I find it implausible and not really born out in detail. Part of the difficulty may lie in one's expectations. I would expect that if the Buddha was teaching for 45 years (more according to some non-Pali sources), then he must have given a rather large number of dhamma talks. It is only to be expected that as time went by his ideas would be formulated in more and more detail - whether because the understanding of his disciples increased, because his own thought developed or because (as tradition would have it) he responded to the needs of many different individuals and situations. Given this, I do not see an impossibly large variation in the teachings attributed to the Buddha. (I am assuming that some canonical texts are likely to be of a later date - mainly those not presented as Suttas (< Su + ukta).) I grant that it is likely that there are at least some additions, given the tradition that a Sutta should be accepted as 'Word of the Buddha' if not inconsistent with the Dhammavinaya. Lance Cousins. -- 35 Burlington Rd, Withington, MANCHESTER, UK, M20 4QA Telephone (UK): 061 434 3646 (International) +44 61 434 3646 Fax (UK): 061 275 3613 (International) +44 61 275 3613 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 15:44:26 EST From: B Bocking Subject: Sandy Huntington ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Can anyone put me in touvhch with, or forward this to, Sandy Huntington, author of thesis on the Akutobhaya, and other works? Formerly of Michigan, I think. Thanks Brian Bocking ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 15:49:22 EST From: Hank Glassman Subject: Re: Obaku Zen ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > >Prof. Moroni (sorry, but her first name escapes me at the moment) of the >Dept. of Religious Studies at the University of Hawaii, wrote her >dissertation on Oobaku Zen under Phil Yampolsky at Columbia. > >-- John McRae, Asian Studies * * * Hi, Isn't this Helen Baroni? (I think so. . .) Hank Glassman Stanford University ohank@leland.stanford.edu (415)282-8934 ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 20 Mar 1994 to 21 Mar 1994 *************************************************** From owner-BUDDHA-L@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Tue Mar 22 16:29:36 1994 Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 16:00:12 -0500 From: Automatic digest processor Subject: BUDDHA-L Digest - 21 Mar 1994 to 22 Mar 1994 To: Recipients of BUDDHA-L digests There are 12 messages totalling 577 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Women in Buddhism 2. Scholarship as practice (3) 3. Mappo and Kamakura Buddhism (2) 4. Obaku Zen (2) 5. Transvestism 6. Women in Buddhism -Reply 7. Is there a John Dunne? 8. GIFs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 15:50:30 EST From: Hank Glassman Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Paula Arai writes: >Hank Glassman makes the statement: "Nowhere has Buddhism ever existed >in any society where men did not have *more* control over property and >cultural production than women." > >It might be prudent not to say things that are not supported, but it >is certainly an interpretive mistake if one begins to explore the >issue of Buddhist women with assuming that they were all oppressed and >had little influence on their culture. It's like saying that nuns did >not study philosophy but not being able to explain what they did do. >How do you know they didn't study philosophy if you don't know what >they did study? Likewise, how do you know that men had "*more* control," >if we don't yet know what control women had? I think it is important >to be highly critical of historiographical principles before we talk >too much about history. > >Let's be more careful, > >Paula Arai >Hong Kong University of Science & Technology * * * Hi Paula, It's a relief to have a woman post on this issue at last, all of the other posts so far have been from men. Even the original post? - Shane, where are you, which are you? I suppose I should know by now not to put the words "nowhere" and "ever" in the same sentence, it can certainly give the impression of views too strongly held. By putting the word "more" between asterices, though, I had meant to soften the statement. (I guess it didn't work.) I meant to emphasize that, as a group, women in these unspecified Buddhist societies held less power RELATIVE to men as a group. (Of course, in any given society a woman may have wielded a great deal more power than most men, by virtue of her own high stuatus or that of her husband, father, brothers, etc.) Really, the statement was just meant to echo the contention of many feminist writers that no such thing as a "matriarchal" or "gynocratic" society has ever existed (for early examples, see Shulamith Firestone, Simone de Beauvoir), in other words that patriarchal dominanation has been a reality in women's lives to one degree or another throughout world history. Of course there is room for disagreement with this, especially in reference to Neolithic cultures. I still feel fairly, confident, however, that no Buddhist culture was ever a gynocracy. I certainly do not, as suggested, begin my exploration of this topic with the premise that women in a given society "were all oppressed and had little influence on their culture." Since my area of specialty is medieval Japan, I could hardly hold such a view. My point was that, if we want to know about something called "women in Buddhism," then, rather than trying to determine if the Buddha was enlightened or not on the basis of semingly discrminatory attitudes toward nuns, we should instead look to specific places and times to examine the role of women in Buddhist culture, and, conversely, the effect of Buddhism on women's lives. When possible, we should look to texts authored by women, or to women's cults to learn more about how women percieved Buddhism and their how they imagined their place in it. I am sorry I didn't make myself more clear; I certainly didn't mean to suggest either that women were not active shapers of culture or that the records of their religious lives are completely lost to us. (I also hope that the foregoing apologia is not too perscriptive in tone.) more carefully, Hank Glassman Stanford University ohank@leland.stanford.edu (415)282-8934 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 08:25:48 EST From: Robin Brooks Kornman Subject: Re: Scholarship as practice ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Personal Interest: One of the reasons I decided to get my degree in Comparative Literature and not Comparative Religions or Religious Studies is because I wanted to be in a profession where passion for your subject and bias towards it would not be a disadvantage. Hayse's injunction to deny graduate students the right to do papers on things that really interest them personally is all to familiar to me. But he effects a playfulness and a personal tone in his announce- ments on Buddha-L, as if he is terribly biased in every opinion he has. Well, as a matter of fact, like all of us, he is. Scholars are biased towards their subjects and ruled by their perceptions of self-interest, ruled by their passions, ruled in their opinions. So far that one can predict, after a while, where most of us will stand on most major controversies that arise on Buddha-L. For example, the scholars whose strengths are in Sanskrit and Pali cater to those strengths in their scholarly opinions and ignore oral tradition. Those who were educated, like myself, by Tibetan lamas, cater on the other hand, to the world of texts most ignored by the North American Sanskritists. We both act as members of biased schools of thought full of self-interest. So why pretend otherwise in your rules for graduate students' work? It seems to me to ignore the facts. When I approached my advisors at Princeton and discussed with them what topic I should undertake for my dissertation, I suggested a fashionable one that I knew would be in line with their own studies and acceptable to the current academic climate in my field. I thought of the dissertation as a thing I would polish off in two years and then get to the real work I cared about. But my profesors at Princeton were wise and friendly. They complained that the topic I chose was not like me and one of them asked me "If you were absolutely free, what would you write about, satisfying your wildest dreams?" I said, "You would never accept this topic, but I would write about Tibetan epic." My advisor said, "Then why don't you write about that? Why waste your time on something you don't care about deeply?" The result has been that my dissertation studies have opened up into a life's work. My advisors gaze on the vastness of my topic in wild surmise. But they generously have let me follow my star to my own bliss and I hope one day their added glory. I was so lucky. The stiff, stuffed-shirt, starched-shirt attitude of that terrible committee that is going to enforce their current prejudices of objectivity on the student's work chills my blood. Hayse says that they want to avoid the evils of advocacy and and propoganda. Those evils are not avoided by forcing students away from areas in which "they have an obviously strong personal interest." What happens instead is that your students, knowing the narrow attitudes of their faculty offer topics which are mere continuations of their professor's work. The professors never notice the absence of what they cannot imagine and think everything is just fine. But the student has been robbed of the bliss which comes from a sense of complete involve- ment in the topic. Sometimes scholars in the humanities and social sciences appeal to the model of the hard sciences, thinking that there researchers were disinterested. And it is this "disinterest" which enabled their famous discoveries. But I'm teaching history of science here at St. Johns and if one thing is evident in every great text of scientific discovery it is the passionate personal advocacy and polemical force behind the discoverer's work. Read Harvey's On the Circulation of the Blood or Lavoisier on The Elements of Chemistry and try to imagine what his work would have been like if it had been disinterested and passionaless. Robin Kornman, St. Johns College ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 08:32:10 EST From: "Randall R. Scott" Subject: Re: Mappo and Kamakura Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Can someone kindly give me some references on studies, articles, > and/or books in English on the subject of "mappo" - especially during > the Kamakura period? I am working on a small paper on this subject - > comparing and contrasting Honen, Nichiren and Dogen. > > Sincerely, > Hun Lye Dear Hun-yeow, You might find the following resources helpful: Robert E. Morrell. Early Kamakura Buddhism: A Minority Report. Asian Humanities Press. 1987. ________. Sand and Pebbles: The Tales of Mujuu Ichien, A Voice for Pluralism in Kamakura Buddhism. State University of New York Press. 1985. Jackie Stone. "Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age: Mappoo Thought in Kamakura Buddhism." The Eastern Buddhist. Spring 1985 and Autumn 1985. Carl Bielefeldt. Doogen's Manuel's of Zen Meditation. University of California Press. 1988. On Shinran, see his works as translated in the Ryukoku Translation Series. Also James C. Dobbins. Joodo Shinshuu: Shin Buddhism in Medieval Japan. Indiana University Press. 1989. Allen A. Andrew's. "Pure Land Buddhist Hermeneutics: Hoonen's Interpretation of Nembutsu." The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. Volume 10, Number 2, 1987. Hope this helps. Randy Scott Washington University in St. Louis ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 08:33:53 EST From: "Jacqueline I. Stone" Subject: Re: Obaku Zen ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Helen Baroni, of the University of Hawaii, wrote her dissertation on Obaku Zen. She can be reached at University of Hawaii at Manoa Department of Religion, Sakamaki Hall 2530 Dole Street Honolulu, Hawaii 96822 email: hbaroni@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu --Jackie Stone ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 08:35:03 EST From: cesloane@maroon.tc.umn.edu Subject: Re: Transvestism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Not exactly transvestism, but Charles Keyes has an essay, entitled "Ambiguous Gender: Male initiation in a northern Thai Buddhist society". It is in _Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols_, edited by Caroline Walker Bynum, Stevan Harrell and Paula Richman, Beacon Press, 1986. Lucky for me, it's next to the computer. Cliff Sloane ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 09:14:20 EST From: nrs2460.bhc1@pcmail.dcccd.edu Subject: Re: Women in Buddhism -Reply ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Friends - It sounds as if the quest for the historical Buddha would be even more fun than the quest for the historical Jesus/quest for the real Jesus which has occupied so much of scholarship since the 1600s. As far as I can see, the methods would be roughly the same. People would divide into camps about which parts of the literature represented the "real" Buddha, which were later accretions or changes made by his monks and nuns, which represented the mores of the times, which represented the exalted view of the Enlightened One, which prefigured current politically correct attitudes, etc. We could have shelves of material on the real Buddha, the same way as there are rows and rows of material in theological libraries on the real Jesus Christ. Some of the studies would be marvels of great scholarship; some, marvels of wishful thinking; some, marvels of psychological difficulties. Each generation of political correctness could rewrite the canon in its own image. Buddha could be seen, as Jesus has been, as the Great Liberator; the Great Philosopher; the Great Paternalistic Oppressor; the Great Guy; the Great God; or the Great Whatever. This is not to say that any given work of scholarship must be shot through with psychological projections. Some scholars believe that it is vital to maintain the integrity of the texts as we have them, and to study as carefully and objectively as possible what they may have meant to people of the time and what they might mean to any generic humans. (I believe that saying that no one can ever be objective is merely another faith position.) It seems true, however, that the more revered a leader, the more likely people are to remake him/her in their own images. But what does all this work get us at the end of the day? Well, I would contend that there is a place for genuine historical scholarship working to be as objective as possible; genuine philosophical examination of the arguments and contentions; and genuine examination of the materials as guides for practice. Beyond those disciplines, though - I would rather get my wish-fulfilling fictions straight from the romance, adventure, or mystery sections of the bookstores. And, by the way - if any foundation wishes to support me paternalistically and take care of all my financial, legal, and paperwork needs, I would be happy to be considered. I think that some women went wrong somewhere in clamoring to work in the "man's workworld". Shouldn't you guys have been clamoring to work/play at home and let the machines support us all lavishly? Retrophilosophically, Nancy Smith nrs2460.BHC1@pcmail.dcccd.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 13:54:13 EST From: John Dunne Subject: Re: Is there a John Dunne? ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- The alleged L S Cousins recently wrote: > > > >From the far side of the water I wonder whether in fact there is such > an individual as John Dunne ? In fact, there is no John Dunne -- at least, I have not found him yet. If I do find a John Dunne in this fertilizer producing mass of confusion, I will let you know. > Would not a simpler explanation of > the data be that Richard Hayes is making a series of postings under > different names ? > After much deliberation, I have decided to take this as a compliment, although I suspect that other interpretations are more tenable. Lance goes on to say: > Taking the strictest criteria of proof, no doubt we cannot prove very > much about the Buddha (or for that matter the founders of > Christianity and Islam) or indeed most figures in history before the > nineteenth century. To me such extreme scepticism seems rather > sterile and uninteresting. > > However, turning the argument around, can one prove that the > general information about the ideas and teachings of the Buddha as > preserved in the nikaaya/aagama literature in Pali/Sanskrit, etc. are > NOT an accurate representation of his basic ideas and teachings? I > don't believe one can. The usual argument cited here is > inconsistency or 'lack of homogeneity'. My problem with this is > that whenever I see this argued I find it implausible and not really > born out in detail. Well put, Lance. Probably even a greater degree of variation would be acceptable to many people, and complete lack of coherence would be just fine for fanatics. One could neither prove nor disprove such claims because the alleged events are so removed in time (ativiprak.r.s.ta) that both proof and disproof are impossible. An example of such a situation is the blue monster on your head. He is visible to all of us, but we do not mention it because we have agreed that it would overly discomfit you. You cannot see him because, since he is telepathic, he disappears any time you think to touch the top of your head or look in the mirror. He also casts no shadow, for he is transparent. With such a definition, it is impossible for you to either prove or disprove that there is a blue monster on your head. I submit that one can supply similar criterion for what constitutes buddhavacana. The result is an inability to either confirm or deny the assertions of authenticity. By the way, why do you exclude the Mahaayaana suutras? Lance also says: > I grant that it is likely that > there are at least some additions, given the tradition that a Sutta > should be accepted as 'Word of the Buddha' if not inconsistent with > the Dhammavinaya. What are your criteria for detecting additions? Beware of those blue monsters. John Dunne Study of Religion Harvard University ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 13:57:54 EST From: James Peavler Subject: Re: Scholarship as practice ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- According to Robin Brooks Kornman: > > > Hayse says that they want to avoid the evils of advocacy and > and propoganda. Those evils are not avoided by forcing students away > from areas in which "they have an obviously strong personal interest." > What happens instead is that your students, knowing the narrow attitudes > of their faculty offer topics which are mere continuations of their > professor's work. The professors never notice the absence of what they > cannot imagine and think everything is just fine. But the student has > been robbed of the bliss which comes from a sense of complete involve- > ment in the topic. > > Robin Kornman, St. Johns College > You seem to me to have either completely misunderstood what Dr. Hayes said, or are misrepresenting it. I am certainly glad that, as a historian of science, you did not choose to write your dissertation advocating creationism. I firmly believe that a person with an axe to grind will grind it. If grinding it requires ignoring important evidence, or creating necessary connections, the axe grinder will make sure the argument is tight. Understanding "the best that has been said or thought by man" requires no less discipline and dedication to finding out the "truth" than does physics or biology. Perhaps it requires even more care because it is so much more difficult to "prove" a thesis about the objects of the mind than one about the objects of the senses. The tests and experiments for most objects of the senses can be duplicated and tested by others. The tests of statements about objects of the mind can only be argued from textual and other evidence, but never reproduced. I have had perfectly intelligent and widely-read grad students write me some theses of almost shocking absurdity when left alone to "prove" one of their currently held beliefs at the expense of the subject of their research. And I was just teaching "easy" stuff (Chaucer & his contemporaries), nothing hard or foreign like ancient Chinese or Pali, which western students are even more likely to get wrong because of the values and assumptions we cannot help but bring to our work. -- Jim Peavler Albuquerque, NM peavler@plk.af.mil ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 13:58:18 EST From: Hunyeow Lye Subject: Re: Mappo and Kamakura Buddhism ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Thanks a lot for the references. I will look them up. Regards, Hun -- Hun-yeow Lye hl2m@poe.acc.virginia.edu 304 14th Street NW Charlottesville VA 22903 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 13:58:44 EST From: Hunyeow Lye Subject: Re: Obaku Zen ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Thanks a lot for the lead. I will try to contact her. I am interested in the ritual aspects of Obaku Zen - how much of it still mirrors the practices in Chinese Buddhism. Hun -- Hun-yeow Lye hl2m@poe.acc.virginia.edu 304 14th Street NW Charlottesville VA 22903 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 13:59:36 EST From: Derek Heyman Subject: Re: Scholarship as practice ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Robin Brooks Kornman writes: "Personal Interest: One of the reasons I decided to get my degree in Comparative Literature and not Comparative Religions or Religious Studies is because I wanted to be in a profession where passion for your subject and bias towards it would not be a disadvantage. Hayse's injunction to deny graduate students the right to do papers on things that really interest them personally is all to familiar to me." It was certainly an unfortunate choice of words chosen by Richard Hayes' predecessors in his department. Obviously, interest i a subject matter helps one to work in that subject, especially a huge and taxing project like a dissertation. I think that Richard's point in bringing this up, which he has already clarified in a subsequent posting, is that one shouldn't be concerned with defending a philo- sophical position when one is only trying to clarify that position. That is, it is unimportant for clarification purposes, to be able to defend, in modern terms--that is, in relation to the contemporary intellectual milieu--an ancient system of thought. It may even be harmful, because it could lead to a distortion of that system of thought. I agree that one must be careful, particularly in translation and explication. However, philosophers are often interested in defending a position, and there is no reason whatsoever why a contemporary scholar should no wish to defend the position of the Indian Yogaacaara, or whatever other ancient school, if they find it to be a defensible position, or even just for the sake of conversation. Further, there is nothing wrong with looking for contemporary relevance for an ancient position. OUr society needs all the wisdom it can get, and if we can glean some from the ancient Indians, so much the better for us. One way of finding the contemporary relevance of an ancient position is to engage this position in dialogue with contemporary schools of thought. For this activity, one needs, as much as possible, to get "inside" both schools of thought, to make the ancient one, as well as the contempor- ary one, a living philosophy. Otherwise, how can one engage it in a discussion? For this, deep personal involvement is necessary. One must think long and hard about what the ancient writings mean, not just as a conceptual system, but from an experiential point of view. Such involvement may be seen as a merging of horizons of the two worlds, contemporary and ancient. This is not antiphilosophical, but an important hermeneutical (that is, interpretive) technique. I'm wondering if Richard denies the validity of such an approach, even for the typoe of philosophical project I'm talking about--finding the contemporary relevance for old thoughts. Or does Richard deny the validity of this project? He has said things like, why should we be concerned at all about the truth of what the ancient Buddhists said? But if we are not looking for contemporary relevance at all, then why study these texts at all? To restate my position: In translation, it is probably true that one ought concern oneself with *what* was said, and not with its truth value. But there are other philosophical projects, for which trans- lation is perhaps merely a propadeutic, in which truth value is of the greatest importance. Derek Heyman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 15:47:02 EST From: Charles Orzech Subject: Re: GIFs ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On Mon, 21 Mar 1994 ahale@vax.ox.ac.uk wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Does anyone know of any GIF (image) files for Buddhist studies out > there on the net? I found one of the Buddha in the dharma/Buddhism/Art > directory of Dharmanet I was wondering if there are any others. It > seems a potentially useful idea, especially for Tantric Buddhism! > > Adrian Hale > Wolfson College, Oxford. U.K. > The Society for Tantric Studies is currently negotiating with the Sunsite at UNC Chapel Hill for the establishment of just such an image bank. Charlie Orzech ------------------------------ End of BUDDHA-L Digest - 21 Mar 1994 to 22 Mar 1994 *************************************************** Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 22:38:24 -0700 From: Edward Gierke Subject: Re: Homophobia To: Multiple recipients of list TIBET-L Perhaps it would be useful to see the comment in context: Magazine: OUT Issue: Feb/Mar, 1994 Title: Hello, Dalai Author: Scott Hunt Scott Hunt takes to the Himalayan foothills and chats with the Buddhist leader about sex, AIDS, and the fate of the world. Buddhist Scott Hunt is writing a book on the Nobel Peace Prize laureates. He has contributed to The Advocate and Christopher Street. TENZIN GYATSO REFERS TO HIMSELF as "a simple Buddhist monk -- no more, no less." But millions of people around the world know him as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a living Buddha and the 14th incarnate spiritual and temporal ruler of Tibet. Most people who meet this 58-year-old man in a maroon robe, tinted glasses, and brown Oxfords expect a supernatural encounter. Indeed, many tell stories of being rendered speechless in his presence. Some say that they were floating; others had visions of his previous incarnations. Although I personally had no supernatural experiences in his company during my private audience last August at the Dalai Lama's home in the Himalayan foothills of northern India, I did find it impossible to see him as an ordinary man. His benevolence is remarkable by any standard. Even for the Chinese, who have killed more than 1.2 million of his people, forced sterilization or abortions on thousands of women, plundered the country's cultural treasures and natural resources, and destroyed 6,254 of Tibet's monastaries, he says, "I have no hatred." When the Chinese Communists invaded Tibet in 1950, the Dalai Lama was only 15 years old. Faced with this crisis, the country granted His Holiness absolute power over the government. He immediately sought help from Great Britain, India, and the United States to expel the foreign invaders, but the international community failed to respond. Despite meeting with Chairman Mao and an honorary position in the government, the Dalai Lama was powerless to stop the atrocities. In 1959 the man who was often called the Precious Protector of Tibet secretly and unhappily slipped through the rugged Himalayan mountain passes into exile in northern India. From there he has continued his gentle campaign to liberate his country, and in 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent opposition to Chinese oppression. The Chinese, who have called the Dalai Lama "a social parasite" and "red-handed butcher," denounced the award as "ludicrous." THE GREAT 14TH DALAI LAMA was born in a cow shed in the village of Takster in the northeastern Tibetan province of Amdo, beginning life as a typical farm boy. But in 1937, at age two, his life was forever changed when a search party of monks was led to his house by visions and auspicious signs. In accordance with Tibetan tradition the young boy was given an array of tests that confirmed that he was the reincarnation of the Holder of the White Lotus. At age four, Tenzin Gyatso was taken to the Potala Palace in Lhasa, seated on the Lion Throne, and proclaimed the Dalai Lama (meaning "ocean of wisdom"). Having left the isolated kingdom that inspired the myth of Shangri-la, the Buddhist leader now travels extensively, giving lectures on Universal Responsibility and teaching Buddhism to eager Westerners, including Richard Gere, Harrison Ford, Allen Ginsberg, Loni Anderson, Philip Glass, and John Cleese. His high profile invites comparison to another well-known Holiness, the Pope. The Dalai Lama himself has noted the similarities between Catholic and Buddhist monastic orders, particularly their strict vows of sexual conduct, and between the ritual traditions of the two religions. The Dalai Lama, however, is clearly much more receptive to change and more tolerant of differences than is his Catholic counterpart. On the issue of birth control, for example, he declared in our interview, "A further increase in population is out of the question. In order to save a better future and our fight for precious life, our conclusion must be that we have to take birth control measures." He spoke in a rich baritone voice, leaning back regally in a simple chair in his receiving room. "If some religious tradition is against birth control, we have to study and find ways to get past these. . . . I have already shared this thought with my Catholic brothers and sisters." The Dalai Lama is also more liberal on issues of sexuality. "Using one's hand is not harming on others, and if you have no vow, then it is simply for temporary satisfaction," he said. This principle apparently applies equally to homosexuality, a topic that caused noticeable discomfort for the translator and the assistant who sat in small chairs on the side of the room. At first the Dalai Lama seemed to say that homosexuality was prohibited by traditions proscribing sexual misconduct. "Blow, here," he said in broken English, pointing first to his mouth and then to his groin, "is wrong." After giving the issue more thought, however, he arrived at an answer that modified his initial response: "If someone comes to me and asks whether it is OK or not, I will first ask if you have some religious vows to uphold. Then my next question is, What is your companion's opinion? If you both agree" -- he laughed heartily -- "then I think I would say, if two males or two females voluntarily agree to have mutual satisfaction without further implication of harming others, then it is OK." This may seem a surprising statement for one of the world's foremost religious leaders. But in Buddhist teaching, the Dalai Lama pointed out, "individual rights means we have the individual right to engage in any action that gives satisfaction, provided it does not harm others. We cannot say on the basis of individual rights that it is OK to steal from someone or to kill someone. Why? These also give individual satisfaction, but this is not sufficient, because it creates harm on others. Any action or activities that do not create a problem for others, and even for the temporary satisfaction of the individual if it does not create suffering in others, then that kind of action is all right." Far from the Christian concept that the Bible is unquestionable, Buddhists are encouraged to debate the dharma (Buddha's teachings). "If someone introduces someone better than Buddha, then you may accept another one," the Dalai Lama said matter-of-factly. "From a Buddhist tradition that is the most correct position. In the beginning your attitude toward Buddha should be somewhat skeptical and questioning, not accepting. And then if you have a questioning attitude, that attitude will automatically lead to more investigation. . . . That is the democracy of Buddhism." Unlike religions that can compel their numbers to abide by doctrine through the threat of expulsion, the Dalai Lama noted that Buddhist belief in individual freedom also means "it is not dependent upon someone else's power whether to accept you as a Buddhist. No one can expel you. It is not an organization. If a person accepts Buddha . . . that person is automatically Buddhist, so long as the faith is there, even if he kills someone." Buddhist respect for the individual also leads to respect for other religious faiths. "Sectarianism I think is not good," the Dalai Lama declared. "Buddha, as one person, himself created contradictions. It seems almost that we have to ask Buddha, `Which is real teaching?'" He laughed. "Anyway, Buddha was quite clever. . . . The purpose of his teaching was to help each person, and he respected each individual's right. So now this creates new perspective toward other religions like Christianity. In the past, millions of people have gained from that teaching, so the right of millions of people must be respected. We must accept the potential of different religions. To me Buddhism is best, but this does not mean that it is best for everybody. That is clear." In fact, according to the Dalai Lama, religion itself will not be suitable for everyone. The important thing, he declares, is to treat other people with simple kindness. THESE SENTIMENTS HAVE MADE the Dalai Lama popular in the West, where people are increasingly reluctant to follow Judeo- Christian religions but still seek some form of spiritual practice. Moreover, the Dalai Lama put into words what many Westerners have begun to realize: The insatiable material appetite of the West has led to widespread inhumanity and environmental destruction. "Basically, I believe that the material lifestyles of Western society have developed problems," he said politely but firmly. "The whole lifestyle of the society -- of producing and consuming and the concept of promoting a higher level of living standard -- must change. It looks like you are going in a vicious circle and no one knows how to break out of that circle." Part of the problem, he noted, is the "tremendous gap" between the wealth of the industrial nations of the Northern Hemisphere and the poverty of the less-developed nations in the South: "Because of the gap with richer nations there will be a refugee and immigration problem with political consequences. If the living standard of the South improves to a similar standard that the North has already achieved, nature's resources will be inadequate. So the richer nations have to sacrifice something. This is not based just on morals but on our own long-term existence." With characteristic honesty, he added, "Where to start, I don't know. It is much easier to see the problem than to find the answer! But if people recognize the tremendous negative consequences of their present lifestyle through use of their intelligence, they will realize that they must change the present economic system." Equally difficult to solve is the AIDS epidemic, and on my mention of the disease a sense of sorrow overcame the Dalai Lama's face. To answer, he relied on his knowledge of Tibetan medicine, which is legendary in Northern India for curing terminal illnesses. According to Tibetan medicine, the causes of disease may be divided into two types, long-term and immediate. The long-term causes are anger, desire, and mental darkness that create an imbalance in the body's constituents. Immediate causes are such things as diet, use of the sense organs, sleep, and daily conduct. "To Tibetan physicians," said the Dalai Lama, "AIDS is really something new, and the immediate cause is negative: sexual liberty. That is the way one receives the disease. Tibetan medical experts say that the present use of more chemicals, air pollution, and contaminants on vegetables is another part of the immediate cause." Like most diseases, he added, "such a major illness or major negative event also has a karmic cause, no doubt. But," he said frankly, "I think AIDS also has a positive aspect. It has helped to promote some kind of self- discipline." With this statement, the Dalai Lama's assistant imposed discipline on His Holiness' schedule and asked us to end the interview. The Dalai Lama took my hands in his and bowed his head close to mine. As I left the room, returning into the hot, thin Himalayan air, I heard his vibrant laughter one last time. I turned to see his face in a brilliant smile. In spite of my many memories of despair, with so many reasons to be angry, I had a newfound hope that the world just might begin to listen to this simple Buddhist monk. -30- ------------------------------------------------------------ The contents of this file are copyright 1993 by the publisher in whose directory this file appeared. Unauthorized copying of this information is strictly forbidden. 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