The Far East and Buddhism

[nac]

In all honesty, I think Taoists and the Chinese in general might have gone on to do great things without the uncalled for incursion of Buddhist and Indian ideas into the Sinosphere. This is not so much an indictment of Buddhism as a recognition of the unfortunate fact that relatively few Chinese had ever clearly grasped the essence of Buddhist doctrine, especially as distinct from cultural prejudice. Whether through inept teachers or otherwise, Buddhist ideas flowed into the Chinese mentality more like new branches for free association than well-understood concepts with clearly defined boundaries. Worse, with Buddhism came the so-called Indian "sciences", better described as rank pseudoscience born of wild speculation and received wisdom of the commonest, most vulgar kind.

 

While there's truly nothing quite like Indian philosophy elsewhere on the planet, these "sciences", which thoroughly pervade Buddhist methods and symbolism, really did help throw Chinese intellectual traditions off track for millennia. Though it can be argued that Legalists and orthodox Confucians had already laid the groundwork for an age of superstition characterized by stagnant rites and a half-hearted suppression of free inquiry, I'm convinced that Indian theories such as Mount Sumeru holding the world together, which in fact percolated through the zeitgeist more readily than Buddhism proper, dealt a death blow to nascent Chinese protosciences that had as yet been exploring the world with innocent curiosity.

 

Also, whose bright idea was it to create a Sichuanesque theocratic state in Tibet with Buddhism in place of Taoism? Buddhism has nothing, NOTHING, to say about statecraft except de rigueur platitudes urging compassion and benevolence on the part of statesmen, and spreading the mythos of the dharma upholding, world-turning emperor shaped in the image of Ashoka. As compassion and clarity have little or nothing to do with the day-to-day realities of governing nations, the Tibetan theory of government strikes me as patently nonsensical from ground up.

 

All in all, both China and India would've been better off if Taoism had come to us instead of the other way around, and also if Buddhism hadn't been persecuted out of the subcontinent through the tactics of dishonest atavists like Kumarila. So on behalf of Buddhists, Buddhism and the Buddha himself, I apologize as pompously and annoyingly as humanly possible while cynically calling my position "humble" in order to secure a high ground for dialectic purposes. Savor it while you can, since this is the closest you'll probably get to a confirmed Buddhist conceding a point of any importance.

[Aaron]

In all honesty, I think Taoists and the Chinese in general might have gone on to do great things without the uncalled for incursion of Buddhist and Indian ideas into the Sinosphere. This is not so much an indictment of Buddhism as a recognition of the unfortunate fact that relatively few Chinese had ever clearly grasped the essence of Buddhist doctrine, especially as distinct from cultural prejudice. Whether through inept teachers or otherwise, Buddhist ideas flowed into the Chinese mentality more like new branches for free association than well-understood concepts with clearly defined boundaries. Worse, with Buddhism came the so-called Indian "sciences", better described as rank pseudoscience born of wild speculation and received wisdom of the commonest, most vulgar kind.

 

While there's truly nothing quite like Indian philosophy elsewhere on the planet, these "sciences", which thoroughly pervade Buddhist methods and symbolism, really did help throw Chinese intellectual traditions off track for millennia. Though it can be argued that Legalists and orthodox Confucians had already laid the groundwork for an age of superstition characterized by stagnant rites and a half-hearted suppression of free inquiry, I'm convinced that Indian theories such as Mount Sumeru holding the world together, which in fact percolated through the zeitgeist more readily than Buddhism proper, dealt a death blow to nascent Chinese protosciences that had as yet been exploring the world with innocent curiosity.

 

Also, whose bright idea was it to create a Sichuanesque theocratic state in Tibet with Buddhism in place of Taoism? Buddhism has nothing, NOTHING, to say about statecraft except de rigueur platitudes urging compassion and benevolence on the part of statesmen, and spreading the mythos of the dharma upholding, world-turning emperor shaped in the image of Ashoka. As compassion and clarity have little or nothing to do with the day-to-day realities of governing nations, the Tibetan theory of government strikes me as patently nonsensical from ground up.

 

All in all, both China and India would've been better off if Taoism had come to us instead of the other way around, and also if Buddhism hadn't been persecuted out of the subcontinent through the tactics of dishonest atavists like Kumarila. So on behalf of Buddhists, Buddhism and the Buddha himself, I apologize as pompously and annoyingly as humanly possible while cynically calling my position "humble" in order to secure a high ground for dialectic purposes. Savor it while you can, since this is the closest you'll probably get to a confirmed Buddhist conceding a point of any importance.

 

Hello Nac,

 

The same argument can be said for Christianity and Islam. Europe and the Middle East both went through Golden Ages that eventually were wiped out by religious fundamentalism. Now with that said, in Buddhist countries you were as likely to have your hand chopped off for stealing as you were in any other country, so lets not fool ourselves their either. Religion's purpose is to ensure that people have a defined goal that distracts them from those things that remind us of our base nature and cause us to act out in soceity. It's called redirection of attention. Now the only way this really works is if people have faith, since very little of what religions have to offer can actually be proven to exist, even in debate, so if someone comes along and starts to claim that they can disprove it using another method, then of course people are going to try and stop that from happening any way they can.

 

Religion is the dark shadow of our existence, it just masquerades as the light. It's only when you can cast away religion that real spirituality can flourish and science and the arts can be practiced as they were intended.

 

Aaron

[Vajrahridaya]

Interesting, and well said, but it's not very Buddhist, nor Taoist to gripe about what has already happened. I also don't think it's all as negative as it's been stated here. As a seeker of the truth won't be fooled by metaphors taken literally by a pliable majority, and go for the gist or the marrow of a particular body of teaching and toss the gristle.

 

What I'd like to see is a positive integration and sharing of ideas. Why not? We can all learn from each other and take the positive and leave the negative. This is an age of cross culturalism. It can be a very good thing.

[nac]

Twinner: I'd like to agree with you on anything at all, but what you are saying makes zero sense in this context. As for chopping off hands, you actually think punishments in ancient Chinese states used to be lenient? The "Buddhist" states you're talking about basically upheld the same standard of legal systems their neighbors did. Plus, I just argued against the very possibility of a theologically orthodox Buddhist state, to which you responded with "Yeah, religion sucks, and Buddhism is a religion, therefore Buddhism sucks because Buddhist states were not radically different from their neighbors, and were in a condition I've equated to my mental image of medieval Europe that's ostensibly pieced together from negative comments spread by ideologues, hence historically uninformed." WTF?

Edited June 26, 2011 by nac

[nac]

Vajrahridaya: That, of course, goes without saying.

[steve]

Savor it while you can, since this is the closest you'll probably get to a confirmed Buddhist conceding a point of any importance.

 

Very well thought out and argued point overall.

Thanks for that, and the chuckle!

[Aaron]

Twinner: I'd like to agree with you on anything at all, but what you are saying makes zero sense in this context. As for chopping off hands, you actually think punishments in ancient Chinese states used to be lenient? The "Buddhist" states you're talking about basically upheld the same standard of legal systems their neighbors did. Plus, I just argued against the very possibility of a theologically orthodox Buddhist state, to which you responded with "Yeah, religion sucks, and Buddhism is a religion, therefore Buddhism sucks because Buddhist states were not radically different from their neighbors, and were in a condition I've equated to my mental image of medieval Europe that's ostensibly pieced together from negative comments spread by ideologues, hence historically uninformed." WTF?

 

Hello NAC,

 

Let me clarify what I was trying to say. When a country is governed by religion the nation goes to <bleep>. Religious oligarchies (and theocracies) historically have always been oppressive, because it is a nation that is founded for true believers. If you're not a true believer, then it's not your nation. So when I say that China and Nepal and Tibet and Thailand and Vietnam and... well the list goes on, weren't any worse, then it's simply because they had fewer freedoms because of the religious ideology that governed their nations beliefs. There is no need to concede anything, because it doesn't change anything.

 

Taoism isn't any better than any other religion, because it still proscribes a course of action that not everyone might agree with. Enforced fairness and equality is still oppression. If you want real fairness and equality then the trick is to let people live the way they choose, don't enforce your own ideals and religious views on others, don't assume that you know better or someone else knows better and rather just mind your own business and let others do the same.

 

In a perfect country there would be no government at all, rather people could be whom they wanted to be. You would not have to live according to laws unless you chose to live according to those laws. So no one could tell you who you should have sex with or what was natural and good and what wasn't, you could decide for yourself. No one would have to take a pledge of allegiance or agree that the emperor, king, or whoever was in charge was divinely ordained, rather they could go about doing their own business.

 

My point is that religion and government don't go together. If I would agree to anything it is simply that the world would've probably been better off if Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, and numerous other "enlightened" souls never graced the planet with their insights, or their followers at least had the decency to let others choose whether or not they wanted to be saved.

 

Aaron

Edited June 27, 2011 by Twinner