Buddhist Philosophy, Known or Unknown?
20 February 2014 [link youtube]
Is Buddhist philosophy something we can know (the same way that we know the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, etc.) or is there some kind of special exception to the rules involved? (Organized religions always seem to make themselves an exception to the rules, hm?)
Circa six minutes into the tape, "...[in modern Buddhism,] anyone who reads the text is a threat to the authority of the monk in charge. It's a lot more convenient to organize your religion around silence [and] subservience to authority [than to allow] asking questions [and] debating the philosophy."
Want to know more about the textual basis of Buddhist Philosophy, and what's known (vs. unknown) today? Here's an article that's half as long as it looks, presented in both Chinese and English: http://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.tw/2014/03/canon-and-reason-complete-chinese.html
Youtube Automatic Transcription
[i.e.,] "frequently-asked-questions",
I get is, said?" thought, what his philosophy was, and went. Buddhism, questions that they think they already know as if they're going to trap me in some kind and then they're shocked that, no, I just and it's just a fact, and they could have So, here's a big one: do we know what the record of what the Buddha said, and taught or, is it some mystery, lost in the passage Guess what? The answer is, yes, we do know. thought, and how Aristotle thought, and how in ancient China thought. And we know it because It's not surprising at all that Buddhism survived, Buddhism is one of the most influential philosophies and it happens to be a philosophy that was of people that the most important thing they could do monks so they could copy out the texts by in public performances. kind of patronage backing you... When you've got that kind of money supporting at all that it survives the centuries. philosophy of Lucretius. was, or the name is just slightly familiar Radio, or some kind of pretentious source Lucretius was one of the most influential Did his philosophy survive? Yes. Is anyone surprised, is anyone impressed, it through the centuries? a different religion, a different philosophy tried to destroy the texts written down about were left. philosophy of Lucretius? Christianity. Yeah, sometimes we're surprised, we're impressed era, because, in the centuries in-between, and armies behind them, tried to destroy it. Lucretius is still here, you can get him out has been translated into English a lot better translated. have worked on Lucretius, as opposed to how just in the last few hundred years. obstacle in its history in the last few centuries? There was another religion and another philosophy Buddhism and destroy all of the texts, and and it was pretty successful in a little country another area to the north of India that's Do you know where I'm going with this? very, very successful in destroying Buddhism, You can look further east to a country like who go to visit the ruins of Buddhist civilization (guess what?) today, the vast majority of who are there immigrated more recently from The indigenous tradition of the religion has Ah, but maybe I'm not addressing the real Why do people find it so surprising when I the philosophy of the Buddha is written down. do the same kind of work I did, you can read There's no excuse for being balefully ignorant in the history of the world. to tell a lot of lies about this. Mulsims are straightforward about what their one group of people hates the other. of excuses for why everybody's got time... [roaring (Air-force jets passing overhead.) everybody's got time for a long list of rituals studying the philosophy of the Buddha. Zen Buddhist monk (in the Korean tradition me to Korean Zen, you guys don't study the philosophy, you don't "You just perform these rituals, day after and again." fence from badly-garbled Sanskrit into garbled And, you know, from a Zen perspective, from traditions, the authority of the monk in charge. religion around silence, subservience to authority, philosophy. this guy called, 'The Buddha'?" "Shouldn't we be reading what he actually Oh, [there is] a list of excuses ready to are more than 40,000 sutras recording the all." read all 40,000, so why even bother trying Other [excuses] are, "Oh, no, no, the real of time, so, you know, there's really no point." do this meditation practice, just drink this Buddhists [have] a lot of interest in drinking in] reading the philosophy. [offered as an excuse]. re-capture the essence of the original Buddha's but through rituals and drinking tea, the money from those donations, and, mysteriously, nobody gets back to the maybe we could all afford to change tactics However, another big comparison is to something very well recorded, and yet Christians are getting familiar with the earliest writings be a big hang-up for them, so... there's more But Buddhism came out of a cultural background very different from Jesus-ism, whatever you and, y'know, that was different partly because already a culture obsessed with the idea that every day. of a mayor, a chieftan, he wouldn't rely on no, no, no, the law of the county or the kingdom, verses to be memorized and recited, you have a text memorized, you can call it You can seem very authoritative, you can seem In Europe, we don't have a tradition like king to have the laws memorized, and ready-to-mind But it's humanly possible, I mean, the number of Hamlet is amazing, memorize, Hamlet aren't particularly intelligent, or, y'know, they're chosen for the role for So, ordinary people can memorize a lot of again. well, let's not fault them. This was a central, reciting the Vedas, with reciting law, with tradition. so did ancient Jainism. Jainism, again, volumes recited, memorized, performed. Right? when that's backed up with meticulous, hand-made again. Lucretius was a philosopher, he didn't have copying out his writing by hand and memorizing He didn't have millions of people who believed transcendental act, to try to keep his words but Buddhism did. Buddhism had the weight day 1. still exists. more surprising that we have any texts left do. We have texts from ancient China. The of preserving text. conquered by Islam, because Buddhism spread Islam. in Indonesia, if the Muslims had conquered Buddhism would have disappeared from this taught. yup, you can read what the Buddha really said... it shouldn't be surprising, it shouldn't be and, yeah, in fragments, it survived in Tibet survived in China in a very garbled form, it together [from Chinese sources], yeah, armies, history. Of course the texts exist. is offering you the most pathetic excuse for and it is his job to be a custodian of these it is his job to represent this philosophy, and to practice the philosophy. If you're a Buddhist monk, you should step minimum here. skepticism is, "Well, you got this thing called "There are a lot of pages, and it's very heavy." Y'know, "How much of this is the recorded Well, look, man, go to the library, and look big, it's really heavy. with Plato, how do we really know what Plato Y'know, there's more than one version, there in wording, Guess what? So is Shakespeare. Hamlet? It was a lot of work for somebody, You can go through, you can compare different differences in wording, different versions, But, for 99.9% of people, those issues are 99.9% of people see Hamlet, read Plato, hear not digging into the text in that kind of I have! I've written some essays, you can of these more detailed issues of "How did comparative reading of different sources, Man... are five people going to read that essay? interest to dig into that issue. the same with Shakespeare or Plato: almost So, don't pretend that those issues, those the details of the text, are a valid excuse They're not a valid excuse for the average and they're definitely not an excuse for a who has a kind of professional obligation name is in the name of the religion. We're still fighting World War Two here. It So, you look at a text, for example, like You have multiple versions of the text that and already in the ancient period, there was of the text. in the different versions, and then we get offering, uh, an interpretation or an explanation Also built into that example is the idea that and recite this kind of religious poetry. obsessed with memorizing and reciting the by the founder of the religion, the guy we and, y'know, any concerns you might have, what existed 2,500 years ago, and I'd encourage you, if you've got the brains, apply it to any other ancient text, not going to give you the answers to the questions The questions that most people are interested details. exist isn't an excuse for your own ignorance. philological details, but, I mean, like, maybe
I get is, said?" thought, what his philosophy was, and went. Buddhism, questions that they think they already know as if they're going to trap me in some kind and then they're shocked that, no, I just and it's just a fact, and they could have So, here's a big one: do we know what the record of what the Buddha said, and taught or, is it some mystery, lost in the passage Guess what? The answer is, yes, we do know. thought, and how Aristotle thought, and how in ancient China thought. And we know it because It's not surprising at all that Buddhism survived, Buddhism is one of the most influential philosophies and it happens to be a philosophy that was of people that the most important thing they could do monks so they could copy out the texts by in public performances. kind of patronage backing you... When you've got that kind of money supporting at all that it survives the centuries. philosophy of Lucretius. was, or the name is just slightly familiar Radio, or some kind of pretentious source Lucretius was one of the most influential Did his philosophy survive? Yes. Is anyone surprised, is anyone impressed, it through the centuries? a different religion, a different philosophy tried to destroy the texts written down about were left. philosophy of Lucretius? Christianity. Yeah, sometimes we're surprised, we're impressed era, because, in the centuries in-between, and armies behind them, tried to destroy it. Lucretius is still here, you can get him out has been translated into English a lot better translated. have worked on Lucretius, as opposed to how just in the last few hundred years. obstacle in its history in the last few centuries? There was another religion and another philosophy Buddhism and destroy all of the texts, and and it was pretty successful in a little country another area to the north of India that's Do you know where I'm going with this? very, very successful in destroying Buddhism, You can look further east to a country like who go to visit the ruins of Buddhist civilization (guess what?) today, the vast majority of who are there immigrated more recently from The indigenous tradition of the religion has Ah, but maybe I'm not addressing the real Why do people find it so surprising when I the philosophy of the Buddha is written down. do the same kind of work I did, you can read There's no excuse for being balefully ignorant in the history of the world. to tell a lot of lies about this. Mulsims are straightforward about what their one group of people hates the other. of excuses for why everybody's got time... [roaring (Air-force jets passing overhead.) everybody's got time for a long list of rituals studying the philosophy of the Buddha. Zen Buddhist monk (in the Korean tradition me to Korean Zen, you guys don't study the philosophy, you don't "You just perform these rituals, day after and again." fence from badly-garbled Sanskrit into garbled And, you know, from a Zen perspective, from traditions, the authority of the monk in charge. religion around silence, subservience to authority, philosophy. this guy called, 'The Buddha'?" "Shouldn't we be reading what he actually Oh, [there is] a list of excuses ready to are more than 40,000 sutras recording the all." read all 40,000, so why even bother trying Other [excuses] are, "Oh, no, no, the real of time, so, you know, there's really no point." do this meditation practice, just drink this Buddhists [have] a lot of interest in drinking in] reading the philosophy. [offered as an excuse]. re-capture the essence of the original Buddha's but through rituals and drinking tea, the money from those donations, and, mysteriously, nobody gets back to the maybe we could all afford to change tactics However, another big comparison is to something very well recorded, and yet Christians are getting familiar with the earliest writings be a big hang-up for them, so... there's more But Buddhism came out of a cultural background very different from Jesus-ism, whatever you and, y'know, that was different partly because already a culture obsessed with the idea that every day. of a mayor, a chieftan, he wouldn't rely on no, no, no, the law of the county or the kingdom, verses to be memorized and recited, you have a text memorized, you can call it You can seem very authoritative, you can seem In Europe, we don't have a tradition like king to have the laws memorized, and ready-to-mind But it's humanly possible, I mean, the number of Hamlet is amazing, memorize, Hamlet aren't particularly intelligent, or, y'know, they're chosen for the role for So, ordinary people can memorize a lot of again. well, let's not fault them. This was a central, reciting the Vedas, with reciting law, with tradition. so did ancient Jainism. Jainism, again, volumes recited, memorized, performed. Right? when that's backed up with meticulous, hand-made again. Lucretius was a philosopher, he didn't have copying out his writing by hand and memorizing He didn't have millions of people who believed transcendental act, to try to keep his words but Buddhism did. Buddhism had the weight day 1. still exists. more surprising that we have any texts left do. We have texts from ancient China. The of preserving text. conquered by Islam, because Buddhism spread Islam. in Indonesia, if the Muslims had conquered Buddhism would have disappeared from this taught. yup, you can read what the Buddha really said... it shouldn't be surprising, it shouldn't be and, yeah, in fragments, it survived in Tibet survived in China in a very garbled form, it together [from Chinese sources], yeah, armies, history. Of course the texts exist. is offering you the most pathetic excuse for and it is his job to be a custodian of these it is his job to represent this philosophy, and to practice the philosophy. If you're a Buddhist monk, you should step minimum here. skepticism is, "Well, you got this thing called "There are a lot of pages, and it's very heavy." Y'know, "How much of this is the recorded Well, look, man, go to the library, and look big, it's really heavy. with Plato, how do we really know what Plato Y'know, there's more than one version, there in wording, Guess what? So is Shakespeare. Hamlet? It was a lot of work for somebody, You can go through, you can compare different differences in wording, different versions, But, for 99.9% of people, those issues are 99.9% of people see Hamlet, read Plato, hear not digging into the text in that kind of I have! I've written some essays, you can of these more detailed issues of "How did comparative reading of different sources, Man... are five people going to read that essay? interest to dig into that issue. the same with Shakespeare or Plato: almost So, don't pretend that those issues, those the details of the text, are a valid excuse They're not a valid excuse for the average and they're definitely not an excuse for a who has a kind of professional obligation name is in the name of the religion. We're still fighting World War Two here. It So, you look at a text, for example, like You have multiple versions of the text that and already in the ancient period, there was of the text. in the different versions, and then we get offering, uh, an interpretation or an explanation Also built into that example is the idea that and recite this kind of religious poetry. obsessed with memorizing and reciting the by the founder of the religion, the guy we and, y'know, any concerns you might have, what existed 2,500 years ago, and I'd encourage you, if you've got the brains, apply it to any other ancient text, not going to give you the answers to the questions The questions that most people are interested details. exist isn't an excuse for your own ignorance. philological details, but, I mean, like, maybe