Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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mikenz66
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Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by mikenz66 »

This is an interesting Buddhist Geeks interview of Rita Gross, a Professor of Comparative Religion :
"To Know One Religion is to Know None"
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/08/bg ... know-none/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
You can read or listen to the interview.

Here's a brief quote to consider:
In fact, you’ll be a much weaker practitioner if you have to be a fundamentalist because that’s a very brittle kind of point of view that gets defensive very easily and fractures very easily in the line of any kind of serious study or questioning. That’s when people start to lose their confidence in religious traditions is when they start to see that “no this couldn’t have been something the camcorder recorded.” But what the camcorder would have recorded isn’t as important as the meanings encoded in this text. That’s what counts.
While the main examples she gives are Mahayana ones, I think that this caution can also be applied to the central Pali texts. Did the "camcorder" really capture the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta or the Anapanasati Sutta?
And if people don’t understand the difference between imagery and empirical language, you can lose your confidence in the tradition very easily at that point. So I think it’s very important to be full up honest about what history shows us and then to say and “So what difference does that make to our religious practice.” I think it only strengthens a deep practice.
I liked this part (though some of it seems to have become garbled...):
The study of history can show how much the Buddhist tradition has changed over the years and in what ways. But it can also shows up that deep thread of continuity, from the very earliest text up to Dzogchen and Zen and Chan what they call the highest teaching, a tremendous continuity, which is something that I, has a bit of surprise to me to find that if you really go into those early texts almost everything that was later taught as advanced highest teachings is already there. It’s just that it was repackaged in new language with merely slightly different practices around it. So the study of history shows you both how much change has happened but how much there is a basic golden thread that seems to run through almost all of Buddhism. Egoless-ness, impermanence, compassion. It’s there wherever you look in Buddhism.
:anjali:
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Ben
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by Ben »

Thanks Mike.
That looks like an interesting article/podcast. I'll check it out when I get a chance to take a breath.
kind regards

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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alan
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by alan »

Yes, garbled is the right word.
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by kirk5a »

mikenz66 wrote:Egoless-ness, impermanence, compassion. It’s there wherever you look in Buddhism.
That's an interesting twist. My first response was - where's the DUKKHA? :smile: But then compassion implies suffering, so I guess that's fair.
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by tiltbillings »

alan wrote:Yes, garbled is the right word.
Not so much that her point is not clear.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by alan »

Was there a point? I must have missed it among the half-truths and jumbled associations.
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by tiltbillings »

alan wrote:Was there a point? I must have missed it among the half-truths and jumbled associations.
Rather than a one line dismissal (that says nothing of substance) of what was said, why don't you actually make an argument, showing that what she said were half truths and jumbled associations? It would make for a more interesting conversation rather than a one grump attack.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by alan »

That would open a can of worms.
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tiltbillings
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by tiltbillings »

alan wrote:That would open a can of worms.
ImageMaybe, but that is what this section is for, but there should be no reason that the issues raised by that passage cannot be reasonably talked about. A one line grump gives us nothing but a one line grump.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by alan »

Ok then. I think the attempt to build a continuity of belief between traditions overlooks very real differences. I don't think, as this article seems to claim, that there is a a continuation between the suttas and what you find in Zen or the Tibetan ideology. And I think that to pretend these differences don't exist is not reasonable. Some may get away with half-truths and jumbled associations if they are writing for an audience that wants to hear it.
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by mikenz66 »

Though it may seem slightly tangential to the topic (so please bear with me), one of the reasons I found this interview interesting was that I had a recent discussion with a friend who was having a bit of a crisis of faith after some study of Gregory Schopen's work.

Some might recall that Schopen uses archeological and other studies and has a catchy presentation called "The Buddha as Astute Businessman, Economist, Lawyer" where he discusses the accumulation of wealth by ancient monasteries.
http://www.international.ucla.edu/artic ... tid=106061" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

However, as Ven Sujato points out here:
"The Ironic Assumptions of Gregory Schopen"
http://sujato.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/ ... y-schopen/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
But while it is obviously true, I would also contend that it is truly obvious. All the activities that Schopen depicts may be plainly seen in the activities of the majority of the ordained Sangha in all traditions in the present day. Schopen merely points out that these conditions also obtained in the Middle Period of Indian Buddhism as well. While this may come as a surprise to academics with little contact with Buddhism in the real world, and constitutes an important critique of the fallacy of equating Buddhism with the idealized portrait in the sacred texts, it will come as no surprise for those of us who encounter Buddhism in the world every day.
What's the connection with Rita Gross? To me it's the building up of unrealistic expectations or views. Both "The Sangha are all perfect" and "The suttas are something a camcorder could have recorded" are views that can render the holder extremely fragile. For that reason, I think that they are worthy of careful consideration.

[The Mayahana vs. Theravada issue that Alan is concerned about is, to me, quite a different, though not necessarily unimportant, issue.]

:anjali:
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by mpcahn »

To know several religions is to be a religious dilettante, picking pieces that fit with your views and leave those that challenge them. Look at Ken Wilber or Eckhart Tolle; They both tried to make a unified theory of religion but succeeded in only making a Wilber Mixed Religion and a Tolle mixed religion, both stopping at the infinite consciousness and falling asleep on the road. Buddhism based on the Pali Cannon differs from other religions because its stated aim is merely to END SUFFERING, and that's what it does. Not to be one with god, not to become a Bodhisattva and become a Buddha in some distant time, not to appease the flying spaghetti monster, just to end suffering.
is the mind us? Is it ours? Slash on down! Whatever is going to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. We feel no regrets. We want only the truth. (Ajahn Maha Boowa)
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by tiltbillings »

alan wrote:Ok then. I think the attempt to build a continuity of belief between traditions overlooks very real differences. I don't think, as this article seems to claim, that there is a a continuation between the suttas and what you find in Zen or the Tibetan ideology. And I think that to pretend these differences don't exist is not reasonable. Some may get away with half-truths and jumbled associations if they are writing for an audience that wants to hear it.
So, there is no continuty of any sort between the following statement and what could be found in the suttas?

To find your real self, you must lose yourself. I tell my student that they must put aside thoughts about their own birth and death if they are to get anywhere. Mediators who are full of thoughts about themselves, thoughts about improving their health, or of gaining limitless freedom, will attain neither wisdom not freedom. The self derives from the three poisons - desire, aggression and delusion. Practicing Ch'an, you can gradually eliminate these three poisons. As the poisons are eliminated, you acquire wisdom and dissolve the false concept of self, so that your true self-nature is revealed. At that point, you discover that self-nature is selflessness. Having reached this stage, you know what is meant by living Buddhism and true self-nature.

While the self ultimately needs to be dissolved, in the meantime, we need this self to help us reach selflessness. To think of being selfless from the very beginning, without having gone through the path of practice, is called "wild fox Ch'an." Just as a baby must crawl before it can walk, you must begin with your ordinary self before finding self-nature. From there you proceed by stages of practice to wisdom. Therefore you should understand why we must start the practice with our ordinary, selfish self. It is not to be despised; it is your vehicle to selflessness.

Ch'an Master Sheng-yen
GETTING THE BUDDHA MIND
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by mikenz66 »

mpcahn wrote:To know several religions is to be a religious dilettante, picking pieces that fit with your views and leave those that challenge them. Look at Ken Wilber or Eckhart Tolle; ...
I'm certainly not advocating that. I prefer to mostly stick to one thing. However, as Tilt has so expertly pointed out, I don't think it's useful to assume that only Theravada (or some small subset of Theravada) has it right, and everyone else has it wrong.

:anjali:
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Re: Rita Gross : To Know One Religion is to Know None

Post by tiltbillings »

mpcahn wrote:To know several religions is to be a religious dilettante, picking pieces that fit with your views and leave those that challenge them.
To know several religion does not make one a dilettante; rather, what makes one a dilettente would be something a bit different from carefully studying and understanding a differing religion. If you do not know what theists say about their god, then you are really in position to say anything about it.

Understanding other religions is not a matter of buying into the perennial philosophy point of view.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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