Thurman at NYTimes Magazine
Thanks to WH for pointing to this interview with Robert Thurman at NYTimes. It's fun, as usually, to read Thurman's observations on the Dalai Lama, China, and Buddhism in American culture -
Granted, it's become customary with institutionalization of Buddhism in most Eastern cultures - from Tibet to Japan - to consider open disclosure of accomplishment as something of a taboo. Others are supposed to do it for you, and they usually do, even when it's not the case and you've been appointed to an important position.
But it's simply not true that proclamation of awakening demonstrates the opposite. And it's unbeneficial to spread this sort of political correctness in these days when most Buddhists in the West of every tradition and ilk don't even consider enlightenment in their own lives as something really doable. That is almost categorically not beneficial.
...when I am annoyed with Dick Cheney, I meditate on how Dick Cheney was my mother in a previous life and nursed me at his breast.Nice image there. Then we have the inevitable E-question:
Do you consider yourself enlightened? Someone who goes around saying, “I’m enlightened,” is almost categorically not.That's exactly the kind of generalization and evasion we don't need these days. Gautama the Buddha went around and said he was awakened every single day, throughout his life. His awakened disciples, from Shariputra to Kashyapa to Maudgalyayana, even his aunt Pajapati Gotami, freely proclaimed their attainment to everyone who'd listen. Examples too numerous to list abound in the histories of every major Buddhist school from India to Japan. Robert Thurman's answer should have been (1) Yes; (2) No; (3) Sometimes; (4) Partially; (5) I'm on my way but haven't made much progress; or the tantric (6) Ask my wife!
Granted, it's become customary with institutionalization of Buddhism in most Eastern cultures - from Tibet to Japan - to consider open disclosure of accomplishment as something of a taboo. Others are supposed to do it for you, and they usually do, even when it's not the case and you've been appointed to an important position.
But it's simply not true that proclamation of awakening demonstrates the opposite. And it's unbeneficial to spread this sort of political correctness in these days when most Buddhists in the West of every tradition and ilk don't even consider enlightenment in their own lives as something really doable. That is almost categorically not beneficial.
Labels: buddha, buddhism, culture, enlightenment, thurman
5 Comments:
Hi Hokai,
I definitely agree with you on this. Political correctness will get us nowhere, and also it will do no good to hold enlightenment up as some unattainable or unspeakable thing. At the same time I would like to explore it a little more because it seems complicated.
For one thing, the ignorance/enlightenment paradigm is a pre-modern artifact, right? Where does the translation "enlightenment" come from? For some reason I have the idea that it comes from either Chinese or Japanese Buddhism. Is that right? Do you know when?
At any rate, it would seem to make less and less sense for a person to say "I am enlightened," even if they have a nondual state plateau, as they go up. Could Turquoise or Indigo say "Yes, I am enlightened"? Perhaps, just for practicalities sake, and I agree with you that shyness won't help, but maybe some other language is necessary, something that reflects AQAL perhaps.
The ignorance/enlightenment model leads to such ideas as omniscience or an overvaluing of state attainments, yes?
Best,
David
Yes, David, wakefulness and/or awakening is the better way to phrase it, though we know what is meant by enlightenment in this case. "Light" remains an important connotative element, though. The horizontal and vertical dimensions of wakefulness, as proposed in the integral matrice, is an additional difficulty to this. But even without it, in purely green-meme Buddhist terms of most Western Buddhist afficionados and practitioners, "becoming" enlightened should be approach within the context of actual possibilities, not of some la-la-land phantasmagoric, absolutely astonishing, utterly perfect and omniscient realization which is what Thurman prefers whenever he presents the "Superman" conception of buddhahood, based on a rather dogmatic interpretation of sutra and tantra. Only after this utter beyondness has been welcomed into our human limitation, only then will the details (whether AQAL or anything else) really matter. Until then, however, who cares? As it is, we can only hope for a better next life to really know how it is to be a buddha, and remain just Buddhists instead. Thanks for your comment.
Hi Hokai,
Thank you for your response.
Yes, I agree with you that wakefulness and/or awakening is better than "enlightenment" but that "light" remains an important connatative element. I also agree with the other things you said.
However, in fun and interest, I would like to point something out, which I am sure you are aware of. In your blog post you say:
“And it's unbeneficial to spread this sort of political correctness in these days when most Buddhists in the West of every tradition and ilk don't even consider enlightenment in their own lives as something really doable. That is almost categorically not beneficial.”
And then in your comment you say:
"Until then, however, who cares? As it is, we can only hope for a better next life to really know how it is to be a buddha, and remain just Buddhists instead."
So you see there is a discrepancy. :) Now probably you are just working some integral Shingon magic on me, but I thought I would point it out. I can see that not believing in the possibility of awakening could be harmful, and I can also see that getting attached to the concept of awakening could also be harmful, but perhaps you would like to elaborate.
Love,
David
Sorry for that piece of irony. I didn't mean that in a literal sense. As to "getting attached to the concept of awakening", it can only be harmful if that concept is such to negate the fact of our already wakeful nature. That wakeful nature is the FACT hidden by our confusion and neurosis. Now, the aim and purpose of Buddhist practice is - first of all - to realize that directly, and then to live from that. I wouldn't worry of being over-attached to awakening, concept or not. The problem is with models of awakening, sainthood, and buddhahood, used in many traditions that - along with being great examples of mythic exaggeration - practically make awakening not just "difficult to realize" (which it is, for most) but also increasingly difficult to believe in.
Check out what Vincent Horn wrote about this (and also the link in his post to the chapter on models by Daniel Ingram). It's good stuff.
Thanks a lot, Hokai. I will check out the links.
David
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