75. Janaky
Sreedharan:
somehow
i connect to Buddhism on a different level altogether....i am not
sure if i associate it with all this intellectual hairsplitting...i
feel the spirit of Buddhism is more intuitive....
.......
76. Argo
Spier:
Methodology
and the thing about mango-tasting tomatoes.
[***
I opted for the informal language and style that I used because this
may broadens the scope of the readership. The use of words and
concepts such as 'thing', 'concept', 'knowledge' and 'truth' and even
'true statement' may not always be semantically consistent throughout
the response.]
I
agree with the tautology argument of Madhu. Form his response we have
material for further pondering. I'll elaborate on the 'thin air
issue' which all of a sudden seems to have turned into is an exciting
metaphor.
Here
his quote:
***
"...Tracing a historical Hinduism/Christianity/Islam/Judaism ...
and making judgements according to their essential
actuality/factuality ... appears as if it is sturdily grounded.
Rather one has to understand why do we have the so much realistic-
actuality like- fact mimicking mirages - super virtual- exist- as if
they have unshakable truth foundation.
History
can question existence & appearances of existences. They are
better than histories of impressionisms."
The
appearance of things, the things we know, the things we have
knowledge of and our concepts of these things, as well as the things
we are very certain of as being true and have derived from true
statements (our truths in general) are indeed not always as sturdily
grounded as we may think. Buddhism deals with that in a very
effective way. It says thoughts are entities that just come into
minds and then go out of them again. And that they are produced by
our minds (and our misconceptions). We all have what Madhu calls
'realistic actuality-like' facts but these facts (truths) are many
times just 'fact mimicking mirages'. And, on top of it, we have the
audacity to trade our arguments for these 'facts' on the market place
of academic discourses. This lead to serious mis-bargaining with
others. In plain cheating in some cases. In the process of
communicating with others we very easily end up, when we use these
'fact mimicking mirages', making very untrue statements. This doesn't
stay without consequence, this 'filling the minds of others' with
virtual truths or, if you wish, 'thin air'. In their minds these
ideas mixes with debris layers of thought and truths that they have
themselves and when they then respond to our thin air comments, all
we are getting back really as feedback is double polluted 'thinness'.
The thin air of our arguments and truths comes back to us, not only
as thin air too, but as thin air mixed with debris and discourse and
the search for insight becomes a tiresome thing. This is the dilemma
of academic communication and it underlines the responsibility we as
academics have to try and deal only with true statements. We must try
to work ourselves into positions where it is impossible to produce
thin air. Workshops with topics such as our Cultural Buddhism can
quickly become something like a company dealing in non truths and
rubbish. Our discourses are then a one non-truth that is generated
forwards and backwards in a perpetual way. – Philosophy Departments
at Universities are then Thin Air Producing Trading Companies! In
this respect I find the response of Janaky Sreedharan a most
applicable one.
Here
is what She said:
***
“... .somehow I connect to Buddhism on a different level
altogether.... I am not sure if i associate it with all this
intellectual hair-splitting...I feel the spirit of Buddhism is more
intuitive....”
What
she says triggered the following in me – there are more to
knowledge that just the fact that it is knowledge. Personally I would
be weary to describe this 'extra' to knowledge (due to its thing and
concept nature) as 'levels of knowledge' because knowledge is
knowledge and that's it. I am also weary of possible toxic smells.
Her response forces however an understanding of the issue in a
beautiful straight line. A pleasure to account such linearity. One
understands her point without him having to use complicated academic
words and reasoning. I hope this will be the case with my response
here as well. Why I liked Janaky's response, is that that what she
says, pushes us towards the urgency to come up with an answer as to
how we are going to deal with the topic of Cultural Buddhism. What is
our methodology? A quick metaphor here may provide more perspective
as to what I mean by this.
Let
me try: strong houses are build with heavy materials, portals,
stones, casings, etc. which are too heavy for one man to carry. To
solve this problem the builders have had a sit-down and a long
discussion. They knew they had to come up with a 'how they can do it'
answer, and how to bring on the materials before they can start
building. Some of them came up with a brilliant idea, a 'new way' of
doing the lifting and carrying. The idea was a track and pulley
system with chains. They made it and it worked. We can compare this
to the development of a methodology and the driving force for us to
do that is 'the house that we wish to build', namely Cultural
Buddhism. This is what we have to do, use methodology as a tool
itself. But I'll come back to this idea as I seemed to have skipped
some of my 'process explanation' to arrive at the last statement.
There are 'smaller tools' too. What have I been doing in my response
so far? I have been using metaphors to 'tell' things more
efficiently, trying like Janeky's straight-line methodology to get
'truth' to its point, more quickly. The same as the builders. The
evaluation of the validity of metaphors lie however always with the
reader which make it rather 'communication sensitive'. One has to
communicate for a metaphor to work and explain stuff better. Again,
here the thin air argument comes in and responsibility. Western
metaphors may not so easily be understood by Hindu for example. So
its a good tool, yes … but to an extend. With the metaphor I used
above, you have understood more about the need to have a methodology
than of the actual processes that defines the metaphor and how these
processes are almost organically tied to the subject that one deals
with. That's another limitation but how it may be, you have
understood that we ought to first to have the one (methodology)
before we can have the other (start building a house – our Cultural
Buddhism). And now, with my small explanation to what the tool of a
metaphor is about, you also have understand that Cultural Buddhism
and its methodology are organically attach to one another. But again,
you cannot have the one and not the other. One can say the
methodology of Cultural Buddhism is ingrained in the process of
discovering and/or working it out. Like building a house and having a
house, is. Its but the same thing really, to have a house and to
build it. You have to own the architect's drawings (the concept of
the house) and the ground on which you are building to build the
house. And who doesn't continuously build and renovate his house when
he lives in it. Only a lazy men doesn't do it. Not academics. So you
see, as we built and work with the metaphor more and more insights
(truths) appear. Its an easy thing to do but it also has complicated
ties and knots all over. Its easy to make true statements but it is
not so easy to sustain them throughout your argumentations. Stories
and myths (old accepted myths) and new city-storytelling myths (newly
designed myths) may also have this quality and feasibility. They tell
of secrets and truths without mentioning it. Its straight-line truth
swapping and truthful communication that are their motors.
Understanding of a truth through a metaphor skips complicated
philosophical clarification. Of the story of Little Red Riding Hood
is said that it didn't really happened but that it is absolutely
true. Yes, and it is. There are still paedophiles today and sick
rapists that try to lead innocent contentious little girls astray and
into the woods for their evil deeds. They are even prepared to
smother grand mothers. The metaphor has bearing on how in academic
research the tonality of methodology may be influenced. It has a
relationship with both reality of the process and the result of its
process. Metaphors also have a bearing on the fact that the
philosophical questioning such as the questioning now taking place in
the Workshop on Cultural Buddhism, and the 'truth' of the
phenomenon's existence, depends on processes set aside inside
methodology. This is a difficult one, no? To explain it in a bit more
detail I will try incorporating it in an analysis of 2 more quotes
from the preliminary discussion. Its about that 'wobble' effect I
mentioned earlier. It is up to the reader to determinate if my
observation is correct and whether we have a true statement (and a
truth) in our hands … or whether my clarification is based on thin
air that may have a toxic ordure.
The
use of the metaphor to explain the scope of a truth developed
***Please
understand that I am working more illustratively here than
content-based. I am also, limited by the scope of the response.
Refer
to the following quotes, both from responses of P. K. sasidharan.
1)
*** "... if various ways of finding connection with the
ideas/practices emerge from Buddhist culture could be termed as
cultural Buddhism, of course it could be an inclusive framework for
coming together all people who could go with the most common Buddhist
positions such as, a stance against power (egoist or socio-political)
and existential engagement with the sufferings of life.
religious/spiritual Buddhist communities seem to exclude people who
are connected to Buddhist thoughts and practices on the basis of
cultural ideologies of various sorts."
2)
*** "... What we call 'Cultural Buddhisms' and 'Buddhist
cultures' are to be taken as different entities altogether. The
present exercise of learning from Buddhist cultures need not be a
call for a revival or institutionalization of any one of the
so-called religious sects or philosophical doctrines that go in the
name of Buddhism. Cultural Buddhism seems to inform a recurring
tendency to invoke certain Buddhist ideas in relation to troubling
questions of individual and social life. What makes sensitive minds
to be so? If we make any reference to Buddhist thought or imagery as
part of our contemporary engagements, I think it can very well go by
cultural Buddhism. Consumerism seems to be setting an everyday
context for cultural Buddhism everywhere. In the context of
engagement with the castiesm in India, one may not be able to bypass
Buddhism."
The
first quote is included as it is a perfect description of the process
of experimentation taking place in the 'discovery' of the exceptional
haunch that Cultural Buddhism is. (*There is not a single true
statement that I have read in the responses that makes it viable that
it may indeed be an issue.) The second quote, see the underlined
sentence, is the moment I wish to highlight as an example of 'working
on a methodology' and the organic nature of it. It is the moment in
which the academic attention and focus on methodology starts to
'wobble' and a directional change takes place. What happens here in
the philosopher's mind is the same as what is happening in an
experiment of say, plant genetic modification. This is another quick
metaphor.
Let's
compare the search for a true statement to the process of genetic
modification of a tomato plant. (*Important - the reader must decide
what the effectiveness is of the metaphor, whether is 'helps' to
clarify the point that I am trying to make and/or whether it obscures
the very point I want to make? Also, he has to decide whether the
reasoning as a whole is toxic or not, based on thin air and/or it is
a faked construction or a fabricated one we are dealing with.)
In
the case of the tomato plant 'changes' are taking place in a process
of experimentation. From an 'edible old-variety' the scientist takes
DNA and he tries to make a new species of tomato plants, that say,
will taste like a mango, or to be more reasonable, half like a mango.
The specie will in the end have half of the tomato's genes and half
of the mango's. The fruit of it will look like tomatoes but it will
taste like mangoes. That's the idea. Whether this is good or bad is
not the issue. We are only interested in the process of change and
the organic nature of it. The scientist that worked on the
modification and did the crafting of the new species used a certain
methodology (and tools and knowledge; he dealt with truths and true
statements) and somewhere along the line a genetic variation of the
plant came into being. Did he know beforehand how the fruit would
taste of this new mango-tomato plant? To a degree, probably, as he
had worked into that direction (he had a blue print; a methodology)
but he couldn't have been 100% sure of the taste of it. Nobody has
ever tasted a 50-50% mango and tomato before. It's a new thing and
this new thing, to bend the metaphor over into the philosophy of
knowledge and truth, one could say brought a new true thing (concept)
into existence. The same as with the haunch of Cultural Buddhism
which is a new concept to start off with. A new 'truth'
(plant/specie/concept) had come into being via a 'being busy' with it
and this truth has arrived via the process of modification (search
for methodology). In comparison with our dealings to search for
clarity in OUR topic, I am saying that the same thing has or might be
happening in our own analysis processes of statements of it. We are
crafting at the plant but also at its DNA, methodology … and we
have never 'tasted' the result.
OK,
to go back to the quote again and find the crux of the matter (see
the underlined) - the discourse in the second quote starts off with
the statement 'Sensitive minds' . That is our tomato plant. If you
look closely at the quote, you will be able to see that this
'sensitive minds' are in a modification process. Mango DNA is being
added to it and the concept of it (truth) is getting ingrained into
the tomato plant's 'genes'. The mango DNA comes with the statement 'I
think it can very well go by cultural Buddhism'. 'Sensitive minds'
(tomato) is being linked to 'I think it can very well be by cultural
Buddhism' (mango) and a new species of truth arrived. What had come
out of this linking (the modification process) is a 50-50% new
variety of truth (which may be thin air and have toxic qualities but
never the less its there.) The new specie or new truth is now
'Cultural Buddhism is the motor of softness.' Its a new variety and a
true statement. It means 'I think softness can very well go by
cultural Buddhism.' One can say a 'genetic change' has taken place in
the attempt to find a way to deal with the truth of the quote in our
search for methodology. What the academic was doing, was searching
for a methodology (a new variety to produce a specie of truth about
Cultural Buddhism), he had blue prints but he wasn't sure of the
outcome, etc. but in the coarse of the experiment something organic
has taken over and a new truth arrived. The process of applying
methodology seems to be dynamic and leading an own life. And there
was a 'wobble' in the process. The result is a new questionable
truth. It is a true statement. It says 'Cultural Buddhism is
responsible (or possibly responsible) for the softness'.
Now
this is where YOU, the reader comes in. I have distilled a new truth
from a quote. I have used a certain methodology and the tool of a
metaphor, but have I really produced a new truth? Was my construction
fabricated or were the statements in the quote fabricated? Is there a
hint of a faked thing in here and is it toxic in its construction?
Are we dealing with thin air or just plain rubbish? And the whole
idea of working in this way, is it a thin air argument? And even a
more complicated question, if my effort to discover a truth via a
certain methodology resulted in toxic material distribution, isn't
that then true for all methodologies?
With
this, the issue that arrived in Madhu's response becomes actual again
– what is the difference between a faked and a fabricated academic
construction and a true argument and the resulting true statement
from it? We are confronted with language philosophy now. 'What do we
say when we talk?' Is it possible to talk sense überhaupt? Is our
talking not only leading us to modified possible toxic plants and no
real communication at all? The 'wobbling' that happens in
modification processes balances Cultural Buddhism now on the narrow
rift of the Kantian imperative and the Wittgenstein and Husserl call
for a perfect language to avoid ontological parallelism. Words and
existence aren't the same. Janeky conveyed that. Their loads are
different, that we know. But their codes? We aren't so sure of that
in our dustbin minds.
I
must say, Janeky Sreedharan's, Madhu's and Sasidharan's input were
very stimulative! And here is a last 'metaphor' to analyse and ponder
about. It was written by an anonymous Buddhist monk in the 16th
Century and called a poem. It is probably the best poem ever written.
It gets and says truth in a straight line, skipping all that thin air
that can be so pollutive. This is for your recuperation while you
think what is the true nature of fabricated and faked stuff or
something like that.
Lying,
thinking last night
How
to find my soul a home
Where
water is not thirsty
And
bread loaf not a stone
I
came up with one thing
And
I don't believe I'm wrong
That
nobody, but nobody
Can
make it out here alone
And
as an illustration of the exchange of truth (knowledge) here's my
answer to it, 400 years later. Hopefully there hasn't crept toxicity
into the process of communication.
reciprocation
it
flows from here to there
and
back again
the
river runs through the cast
of
our eye
-
yours and mine -
and
when I look at you
when
warm at brace and bank
you
feel the sensation too
-
you can feel it
with
your hand touching mine -
and
at riverbank and prop
where
you wait
where
you used to wait
I
too wait to see with you
how
it flows from me to you
and
back again
That
the metaphor is a tool that can be used in methodology to drive home
truth is undeniable – you however have to decide the extent there
is to it. And leaving the issue to rest in your mind now, I cannot
help but to think that should all the intellectual academic power
involved in the Workshop have been involved in the genetic
experimental preliminary discussions of the tomato experiments, we
really could have pushed the idea of a modified 'mango-tasting
tomatoes'. There was never such a genetic modification. Its just a
figment of my imagination. But just imagine the taste of the chutney
that can be made from such a variety! The thin-air boys company would
have done a good job! Of that I am even more sure than of certain
parts of my reasoning concerning the 'wobble' in methodology.
........
77. P.
Madhu:
my
contention is simple: 1. the arguments of religious determinism is
flawed. 2. all the more it is flawed if the religious determinism is
about the late construct of 'Hinduism' 3. my contention is expandable
in the case of other faiths or isms too. 4.arguments from all
academics from whatsoever reputation is contestable if it make causal
claims from religious determinism.
..........
78. Argo
Spier:
Cultural
Buddhism - developing a methodology and how a 'wobble' creates a
process
NOTE
to the reader: The following input may aid students to rethink the
methodology they are using when proceeding with the theme Cultural
Buddhism. I have made used of a subtle set of metaphors. It is for
the reader to see the connections between content and metaphor and
decide whether the scope of the metaphors are not overdrawn. It is
also up to him to decide whether these introduction ideas forms a
usable whole with an accepted reasoning. The difference and yet
inter-connectivity between the thingness of a concept and the concept
itself was also touched upon, as was the 'spaces' connected to
methodology. I may have repeated certain thought streams but
hopefully not overloaded the repetition. The input has to be seen as
a quick response and the reader is begged to only use what he finds
applicable and delete the rest. Due to the scope of the Quick/r
preliminary I also refrain from writing a conclusive paragraph. This
may give the piece a 'hanging' feel. The reader may write the end
paragraph for himself if he so desires (and post it to me). - Argo
Most
of the posts and per-luminary chat so far in the Workshop (up to
February 2015) seem to be dealing with content-orientated history.
There also seems to be an accepted hear-say reasoning in the method
of many of the posters and a firm belief in some of them that that
what they post, and their arguments in getting to their statements,
deals with 'the truth' of the historical developments of Buddhism.
But isn't that exactly what is at stake in the issue Cultural
Buddhism, namely the questioning that the method and analysis of
existing knowledge escapes historiography and that historiography may
not hold the truth one has got used accepting? And isn't this
questioning an inherent part and parcel of the concept? How do we
know that what we know of Buddhism, its history and development
through the ages and/or decline, isn't but a colored version tainted
with local myth and/or the rusted concepts of 'truth' that are
ingrained inside our thoughts and memory? Our concepts of what
history and what development is even may be wrong. And 'truths',
especially 'historical-truths' … are they not always true to a
degree per definition? Our knowledge of truth too, is this an
absolute true thing? What about half-truths and even non-truths? How
do we distinguish between these categories? Another issue applicable
here is that there are the 'things' that we name and then believe
that by naming them we have made them true. And there are more
uncertainties. For instance, there's that Kantian imperative and the
issue of having knowledge of knowledge. How can one know that he
knows something without knowing what he knows is part of knowledge?
And the ability of the individual to deal with knowledge as a truth,
is that based on a standard and is it sound? One has to know what
knowledge is to know that it is knowledge (and one has to prove that
this knowledge is the correct knowledge to know). And verification
comes into the equation. How can we know that our ideas are truthful
at all and what definition do we give to the attribute truth that is
so often attached to what we formulate? And there is the Heidegger
issue of the meaning of the meaning of knowledge? What is the meaning
of truthful knowledge? All this has bearing on the topic of Cultural
Buddhism. The very 'meaning' of our talking has influence over that
what we say about subjects and objects. In all our utterances we all
have to be aware of this and the issues mentioned. And with our
efforts we have to exercise an openness in which it is possible to
consider that that what we say is true. But this isn't as easy as it
seems. There are many aspects of knowledge and true statements that
one has to be aware of in order to really get to some level of not
only clarity but meaning as well. The way that we have been looking
at things and the way we have been dealing with the truth may not
have been the absolutely right way and, in our openness, we have to
incorporate that as well. An awareness of all the aspects of
knowledge seems to be a worthwhile approach to start with. Then
issues such as what truth- and trustful knowledge is has to be
incorporated. We need to know 'what it is' that we are saying when we
make a statement and hold that we have dealt with a 'true thing',
that we are speaking the truth, saying something 'real' that others
may use to built their 'knowledge' upon and be on the 'right track'
to find the meaning of what was said. This seems a good way to 'go',
to deal and research Cultural Buddhism. It may even be the right
methodological approach to discover the full extend to which Cultural
Buddhism may reach.
To
speak of knowledge, the first question that comes to our minds is
'what is it?' What is knowledge? How can we know what knowledge is?
It is a word, a concept one can answer and that would be a true
statement. But knowledge is also something more than the word that
explains the concept of it. It is something we know. But how do we
know that we know it? And how do we know that it is knowledge? Don't
we have to know what knowledge is before we can know that we know it
and know that it is knowledge that we know? It all doesn't seem so
easy, does it? One can reason that this is ah, this is interesting
but that it has nothing to do with Cultural Buddhism. But a person
thinking that, has he it at the right end? How does he know it has
nothing to do with the topic? And if he sure of his view how does he
know that it is a true view, one worth to have? And how does he know
he knows that it has nothing to do with the subject? Where did he get
that 'knowledge' from and where is that knowledge now, in his head?
How does he know it? How does he know it is in his head? Indeed this
is an Ororobos snake eating its own tail and going into a seemingly
never-ending loop. It matters. It matters because we are trying to
get truthful knowledge about our subject. We don't want to fool
around, no, we want to know true things about our subject. That's why
we have a Workshop, to out things and preferably true thing about our
subject.
But
what are 'true' things? How do we know that things are true and how
do we know that that what we know is true? Oh, one again could say
things that cannot be proved to be true are false. That seems a good
answer but is it? Really, what is truth and what way and/or method do
we have to follow to get it? To find the answer and also to ponder
more about knowledge, I suggest you read the following piece I worked
on before I started with the 'wobble' idea in the methodological
process, a topic I probably will not conclude. .....
Much
of the 'rubbish in the world' (our pondering of what true things are
as well resort under this heading) can still be used, recycled in
some way. Others not. Radio-active material radiate dangerous
radio-activity and only after some 20,000 years or so the effect
seemed to has lost its bite. We are dealing with toxic stuff when we
deal with it. Toxic stuff that lingers. How many rusted theories do
we not have in our heads that blur our vision and harm our ability to
think clearly about and on academic topics and issues? It is as if
there is a 'lingering' of 'toxic' stuff in our heads that prohibits
the discovery of new means of approaching a subject, work out a
methodology. Just as with contaminated materials, it too lingers.
Some of the truths we have have been with us for a long time. 20,000
years? Yes, things like Archetypes are from Paleontologist times in
our minds. Are they toxic? Yes and no, depending whether you
incorporate them is some kind of religious truth and fill your life
with it. They certainly are of the lingering kind too. How do we know
whether concepts that we hold for true in our minds are producing the
right or wrong'kind of truth? I don't know, do you? I suppose you
have to work with it, test it and mull it over and over till the true
nature of that what you hold true really becomes knowable. I'd say
awareness of the nature of truths and a long pondering of it is a
good way to start with the endeavor to find out what a true thing
really all about. And if we mean to know that what we know is true,
we must become doubly aware as this as this especially is a true
signal of toxic content. People who tell other people that they tell
the truth certainly lie. Has any one of us ever have asked ourselves
whether if that what we know that we know are true whether then that
what we don't know is to be definitely untrue? Do you see, what I
mean by toxicity? You are using the same methodology for the lefts
side and the right side. In this case it leads to nonsense. Like with
radio-activity, we do not see the dangerous radiation that causes the
cancer in our bodies. We also do not we see that whether that what we
know is to be true may be false and not true at all. It seems that
the idea to work with a truth of degrees isn't such a bad idea after
all. What we know of Buddhism, its development and possible decay (as
many academics in Kaledy seem to believe to be true as far as Kerala
is concerned), may only be true to a degree of the level of truth
about it. This is all linked to what I had said earlier about
knowledge and the question of where we did get the knowledge that we
know is knowledge and treat as truthful knowledge issue comes into
play again. Methodology is a question more of how we ask the question
of what knowledge is than of a content-logic reasoning of what
knowledge is. The same goes for the dealing with truths. And we have
to develop our ways of doing it, get a methodology. Methodology is
the space into which you dump the question whether that what you
believe you do, is true or false. View it as a per-designed
letterhead. You use it for all your letters. Or even, view it as as
the dustbin icon on your computer screen. You can dump things into
it. They are not really in it. The codes to the items is what are in
the dustbin. When you delete the codes the documents crumble and
evaporate from your computer. There is a handy function however to
this dustbin. You can salvage documents from it, move them back to
the original places they come from and use them again. And then you
can dump them again. Methodology is like that. It is a way to deal
with the roots of things. And this brings us to the following issue –
roots of things, what are that? For instance, Cultural Buddhism is a
concept dealing either with the roots of Buddhism or the results of
Buddhism. But we, when dealing with Cultural Buddhism, do not know
where the idea and concept of Cultural Buddhism comes from. And since
we have that idea where does it resides? In the concept of it? Or in
the thingness of it? We don't even know if it is a true thing or even
a true concept of a true thing. We have found it in ourselves as a
discarded debris layer of thought (coming from waste theories whether
toxic or not) that was placed there by an earlier times for deletion.
We have the codes of it in our dustbin. With this earlier I don't
mean from a previous lives and/or that we know about it via
incarnation or rebirth. Although it may be true that we had previous
lives, and many Buddhists know this to be true, it is more in a
historic way that I am using the term, it's collective
unconsciousness embedding by culture.
This
is an uncontrolled vast domain of continued space of human existence.
It spreads through all people. In this space (this is our second use
of the word and concept space) we must look to find sense to the
concepts we work with. The how we look for Cultural Buddhism contains
the methodology question and has everything to do with the collective
unconscious of man. How we deal with that what we think we know that
is important. So undefined creative cultural space and the space of
methodology are areas of outlet to watch out for. Attitudes towards
Buddhism can be found in the collective unconscious of culture of
which we are psychologically part and parcel of. These attitudes must
be viewed as sedimented layers of 'waste' (rubbish) that the 'stream'
of civilization activity through the eons has left behind in our
souls. To 'find' Cultural Buddhism we have to become archaeologists
of these layers and dig it up in the above mentioned spaces ….
which in the end may prove to be only the very same one. As
archaeologists, diggers, excavators we will have to compare the
pieces related to the subject that we have found with the images
(concepts) we have imprinted in our mind systems and do our
selections. While doing it we must try to disregard what's
academically irrelevant and fit what's relevant and in this way
slowly build our grand theory (which may prove to be our our
methodology) to find out whether that what was recorded (in the
historiography), and had produced certain theories and truths that
were through the ages been sedimented in our minds, can compare to
new theories of the past that we hold for true and/or false. We will
then slowly understand whether we are victims of false codification
or gallant academics riding real horses. We need to question the
historiography of both the present and the past. And we have to do
this in fully awareness of the categorical imperative, that issue and
question as to what knowledge is. Its not an easy pursuit, I agree.
Nothing is 'true' in the World of Everything and everything is only
recorded and sedimented inside the World in Us, our mind. Truth is
its own concept and rather the philosopher's enemy because of the
possible toxic nature of it. We must be very careful not to make
fools of us, saying something to somebody that we think is the
absolute truth and then to discover only some moments later that we
we fooled by our lack of methodology in the space of our minds (third
time) and had dealt with the wrong layer of rubbish, the wrong
theory. But this is rather besides the point now. Our knowledge of
what we know of the past and also that of what we know of the present
is for a great deal only that what we think we know of it. We must
know more of what we know – that is why we are having a Workshop on
Cultural Buddhism. Our knowledge fits our habits, attitudes and the
theory of what it takes for a thing and a concept to be known (and be
true). As diggers and searchers for academic validity we may at one
stage even may consider abolishing the concept Cultural Buddhism or
chose to see it as a fabrication, when we conclude that the totality
of is but yet another layer of sedimented on top of a newer level of
how to ask the question concerning it … in the riverbed of our
thinking. Once again, methodology is the message and carries the
message. Does this mean that that the message IS the meaning as was
pondered in the 60ties? Yes, in a way. We even may conclude, in our
quest, that we have taken a presupposed road in our academic fervor
and made something true that is absolutely not true. We have then
taken another 'thing' that exists and we have treated it as Cultural
Buddhism. The space (fourth time) of dynamic affluence and creativity
is important in methodological method.
First
steps in this 'real political' methodology and excavation I am
advocating may have to allow for a shift from a content-based
knowledge methodology towards a more fluent intuitive and creative
drive in attitude excavation and analysis. And to do so, and take the
first step, we have understand that the concept of Cultural Buddhism,
and to understand it, carries the possibility of being a real
'thing'. And also understand that real things cannot be in our minds.
Cultural Buddhism is a thing and a concept. The concept lives in our
heads and the thingness of it is a quality that exists somewhere
else? Cultural Buddhism as a word makes sense because of this
possible meaning of it as a thing and as a concept driving a thing at
the same time. Or, to be more elaborative, there are more categories
of this. Cultural Buddhism is a concept, a thing, carries a meaning
of being a concept and a thing and from here you can hop on the bus
and go to the meaning of the meaning of the concept of Cultural
Buddhism as a thing. Once again we are back to where we have started,
back at the categorical imperative of Kant, the how do we know that
we know, the question of knowing what knowing is. But we have also
covered some ground. So we are probably on track.
We
need to look at how we relate to Buddhism ourselves and what
attitudes we have towards it to find our methodology and truthful
knowledge. The sedimented rubbish of what may be the truths of
Buddhism lies not only in our mind but the colour of it can also been
seen when we look in our attitudes. In our attitudes it is as if we
do not know if our knowing of things and concepts of what we know. It
is as if the debris in our minds has a steering power over our
actions. We do what we are and we are what we think. Reality is only
that what keep us busy. If we are aware of this space (fourth or
fifth time?) in us we can utilize it. In our attitudes towards
concepts/truths creative methodological processes sometimes give
clear indications of the direction into which has to be looked in
order to find clarity. It is in the locality of attitudes that unseen
things really gets their meaning. Cultural Buddhism and the truth of
the phenomenon's existence depends on processes set aside inside
methodology … but do analyse people's attitudes and you will be a
mile closer in understanding Cultural Buddhism and its meaning.
.........
79. P.
Madhu:
This
is in repose to Argo Spier and my stand on overall position of the
workshop (agreeing with Sasi),
"It
is there because it is" is a tautological argument. Is Kalady is
there because it IS the Kalady (foot-print) of Shankara? It is like
sun rises in the east because sun IS rising in the EAST! Tracing a
historical Hinduism/Christianity/Islam/
Judaism
for that matter of any of mirages because it IS- and making
judgements according to their essential actuality/factuality -though
has no balance at all on whatsoever the thin air- appears as if it is
sturdily grounded. Rather one has to understand why do we have the so
much realistic- actuality like- fact mimicking mirages - super
virtuals- exist- as if they have unshakable truth foundation.
History
can question existence & appearances of existences. They are
better than histories of impressionisms.
..........
80. Argo
Spier:
Historiography
- a case study of how and why history is fasified.
The
following link is about the Spanish play write Garçia Lorca. His
plays brought new insights into the relationship between public and
actors and defined drama in a new and exciting way. He was from a
rich family but he was also a homosexual and that may have been an
embarrassment to his family. This and other reasons may have played a
role. Also political reasons. The point to this response is that the
article makes us aware that the records that exist of Buddhism may
not contain be the full truth about its development through time as
was queried by the Draft paper of the Workshop. I post it here as an
additional piece of information that may make us fully aware through
what mists the academic researcher must wade when he incorporates
history into the subject of Cultural Buddhism. Unfortunately I cannot
copy and paste the relevant passages and you will have to accept that
the information comes via a link. The relevant paragraphs are the one
just before 'Censorship and manipulations after his death' and the
paragraphs in 'Censorship and manipulation'.
HERE
the link - http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/deisenbe/Lorca/lorca.pdf
....................
81. C.
P. Vijayan:
This
response and the link seems to have not much in common with the
missing links we find in India on Buddhism, I suppose.Though it is
common knowledge that a Saint and a Bikshu are equally at home when
it comes to Yoga and a practitioner of yoga passes through myriad
sensual stages including those of Kundalini.
Of
course the Hinayana and Mahayana faith had to give way to Vajrayana
in pockets and sexuality in all likelihood was a later introduction
into its fold, which in a way paved way for its exit from the Indian
peninsula.
Both
Bikshus and Bikshukis were known to lead a life of celibacy till the
advent of Brahmanism and an effort was always made by vested
interests to
"contradictions"
within Buddhism for the decline.
t
my mind, the absence of a force or militia to protect the interests
of the religion - the likes of 'The Knights of Templar' on one side
and too much inclination and adherence to the faith of Ahimsa were
instrumental for its weakening.
.........
82. P.
Madhu:
search
for a "pure buddism" matching with colonial contructs of
victorian morality will be a futile pursuit. it is not even factual
to relate tantras with brahminism
