Thinking and reading...
I am reading a book, How The Swans Came to the Lake, a narrative history of Buddhism in America, and I have become fascinated. This book begins at the awakening of Shakyamuni Buddha, and has so far proceeded all the way to Emerson. I’ve enjoyed it immensely (including the discovery that the Roman Catholic church has two saints, Jehoseph and Barlaam, which are actually the words "bodhisattva" and "Buddha" atrociously Latinized through the Arabic. It’s encouraging to think that in the heart of Christianity the Buddha has been lying in wait, under cover of sainthood, for about 500 years). However, it is affecting my tendency towards egalitarian and unitarian thinking. I studied Comparative Religion at university, and worked up something of a theoretical foundation for my understanding of the world’s faiths. Mostly, I thought that all religions have basic unities, and that the important responsibility of a religions scholar (as opposed to a "religious" scholar) was to illustrate those unities, thereby promoting understanding between diverse groups. That is still, to my mind, important, but I’m not certain that I can do so any longer, the reason being that I am becoming more and more convinced of Buddhism’s (and, to a similar extent, Taoism’s) moral and intellectual superiority to other religions. I suspect that this opinion of mine is not too shocking to those who know me (as I usually describe myself as a C’han Buddhist), but I find it a little startling. As a comparativist, it has always been my position that the "superiority" of one faith over another is purely subjective, but I’m beginning to think that objective quality is at least partially assessable. Buddhism (henceforth when I speak of "Buddhism" one can include "Taoism" as implied) has never resulted in a crusade, has never inspired an oppressive regime (oppressive regimes tended to burn down the monasteries first), and is one of the few world religions absent of the concept of "guilt," which I consider the most destructive force ever placed on humanity. That, to me, means something, and something significant.
Of course, there have always been problems with the idea that all opinions are purely subjective. Ethics, for instance, is rendered difficult cum impossible without very, very basic assumptions that all humanity can agree on (an example from my ethics prof at IUP: "Raping innocent 1-year olds is wrong." Which shows how far one has to go to get a universal). So in certain areas of philosophy the idea of the objective is very important. But now it has crept into my thinking as a religions scholar, which is a little more troubling. I suppose that, while this pattern in my thinking will harm, perhaps, my abilities as a scholar, it may well enhance my performance as an actual Buddhist and human being. As long as I maintain my essential respect for all religions (which isn’t really that hard: there’s some fantastic stuff in all of them, with the possible exception of the CoS, which is at least [to me] hilarious), I think I can still be a good person and an effective student of the great spiritual traditions. It’s odd that I’ve always thought it acceptable for other people to have a personal religious preference, but when I have developed one fully it unnerves me a bit (probably because I tend to use firmly-held beliefs to beat myself up with, rather than to enhance my existence. An after-effect of an evangelical upbringing, and one I will hopefully continue to avoid).
Having reviewed this entry, I am reminded of what my Mother says to me whenever I say I won’t see a movie because of its implied racism/sexism/what-have-you: "You think too much." I’m not sure it’s possible to think too much, but if it is, I might be right on the line...
Of course, there have always been problems with the idea that all opinions are purely subjective. Ethics, for instance, is rendered difficult cum impossible without very, very basic assumptions that all humanity can agree on (an example from my ethics prof at IUP: "Raping innocent 1-year olds is wrong." Which shows how far one has to go to get a universal). So in certain areas of philosophy the idea of the objective is very important. But now it has crept into my thinking as a religions scholar, which is a little more troubling. I suppose that, while this pattern in my thinking will harm, perhaps, my abilities as a scholar, it may well enhance my performance as an actual Buddhist and human being. As long as I maintain my essential respect for all religions (which isn’t really that hard: there’s some fantastic stuff in all of them, with the possible exception of the CoS, which is at least [to me] hilarious), I think I can still be a good person and an effective student of the great spiritual traditions. It’s odd that I’ve always thought it acceptable for other people to have a personal religious preference, but when I have developed one fully it unnerves me a bit (probably because I tend to use firmly-held beliefs to beat myself up with, rather than to enhance my existence. An after-effect of an evangelical upbringing, and one I will hopefully continue to avoid).
Having reviewed this entry, I am reminded of what my Mother says to me whenever I say I won’t see a movie because of its implied racism/sexism/what-have-you: "You think too much." I’m not sure it’s possible to think too much, but if it is, I might be right on the line...