"Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
sphairos
Posts: 967
Joined: Mon Jun 21, 2010 4:37 am
Location: Munich, Germany

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by sphairos »

Pondera wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 8:01 am
SteRo wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 7:15 am:lol:
I guess a laugh is some kind of recognition.
Can you tell a lot about struggling with a Demon?
How good and wonderful are your days,
How true are your ways?
SteRo
Posts: 5950
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 10:27 am
Location: Εὐρώπη Eurṓpē

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by SteRo »

Pondera wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 8:01 am I hope you enjoyed that little story.
I surely have. Your story is more enjoyable than most of the other stories posted here. You should try writing stories, maybe in an online blog or something similar. Your writing style is entertaining and I guess it would activate the sense of [ironic] humor of many. :)
Cleared. αδόξαστος.
User avatar
Kim OHara
Posts: 5584
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:47 am
Location: North Queensland, Australia

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by Kim OHara »

Hi, everyone,
I need to explain that I began this post a couple of hours ago but was interrupted. By the time I returned to finish it, a few minutes ago, several of you had commented on what retro posted. I'm posting my own reply now without having read all of the new posts. With that caveat in mind, read on...
retrofuturist wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 3:24 pm Greetings Kim,
Kim OHara wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:04 am In fact, I'm going to suggest that every single Buddhist in the last two thousand years has had an incorrect view of the Dhamma.
retrofuturist wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:28 am So no arya in the past two millennia according to Kim O'Hara.
Kim OHara wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:04 am I didn't say that and I wouldn't say that.
Except you did. That's the logical consequence of your statement that "every single Buddhist in the last two thousand years has had an incorrect view of the Dhamma."... i.e. that none have even so much as achieved stream-entry.
Stop right there, please!
"that every single Buddhist in the last two thousand years has had an incorrect view of the Dhamma."is not logically equivalent to, "that none have even so much as achieved stream-entry."
As I said to Cappucino, I believe that "none of us has a full and correct understanding of the dharma (and there may not even be such a thing) but it's still immensely valuable to us even if we grasp it imperfectly." Valuable, in fact, up to and including Right View and stream entry - and perhaps beyond.
Your own view only makes any sense at all if you're looking at Right View in a strangely Christian fashion, i.e. that Right View descends upon the seeker like the Holy Ghost and elevates him (or her) to a New Level in an instant. Is that what you believe? If so, why??
As you should know, entering the stream with noble Right View sets one upon the inevitable path of Right Knowledge.
MN117 wrote:"Of those, right view is the forerunner. And how is right view the forerunner? In one of right view, right resolve comes into being. In one of right resolve, right speech comes into being. In one of right speech, right action... In one of right action, right livelihood... In one of right livelihood, right effort... In one of right effort, right mindfulness... In one of right mindfulness, right concentration... In one of right concentration, right knowledge... In one of right knowledge, right release comes into being. Thus the learner is endowed with eight factors, and the arahant with ten.
Sure - but it's all gradual, incremental. It is, in fact, called the Gradual Training, if I remember correctly (and I am sure you will correct me if my memory is at fault :tongue: ).
Plus there is the sutta Bodom kindly shared that you hoped would justify your perspective... (emphasis mine)
MN95 wrote:With the arising of conviction, he visits him & grows close to him. Growing close to him, he lends ear. Lending ear, he hears the Dhamma. Hearing the Dhamma, he remembers it. Remembering it, he penetrates the meaning of those dhammas. Penetrating the meaning, he comes to an agreement through pondering those dhammas. There being an agreement through pondering those dhammas, desire arises. With the arising of desire, he becomes willing. Willing, he contemplates [lit: weighs, compares]. Contemplating, he makes an exertion. Exerting himself, he both realizes the highest truth with his body and sees by penetrating it with discernment.

To this extent, Bhāradvāja, there is an awakening to the truth. To this extent one awakens to the truth. I describe this as an awakening to the truth.
Sure - but again it's all gradual, incremental.
... which has nothing to do with your "anyone who claims that his dhamma...", since no one who follows the above instruction would be stupid or conceited enough to think it was his own personal Dhamma. He knows he has heard it by ear (or in the case of Sutta reading, by eye) thanks to another, and he would be grateful. He would know it either as the Dhamma or the Buddhadhamma, and he would be blessed to know it.

So pick one - either they have, or they haven't (or you don't know, that's fine too). Just don't complain about being misrepresented and act all hard done by, when you yourself said it, and it's there in black and white for anyone with eyes to see. And if you don't understand the Sutta implications of your statements because you elect to follow a hodge-podge of teachings, many not taught by the actual Buddha, then that's on you - nobody else.

Metta,
Paul. :)
There are a lot of issues with that, particularly with the passage I bolded (which I think betrays an astonishing ignorance of human nature) but I will leave them be.

You're very good with quoting scripture, Paul.
:bow:
Not so good at making sense of it, unfortunately, and pretty hopeless at putting it in context.
Part of that context is the history of the texts which have come down to us, which we know to be incomplete, and filtered through several changes of language and forms of transmission, to say nothing of later additions. That is, we do not have - anywhere - the Buddha's words but a collection of texts compiled and reworked over several hundred years.
And if you rely exclusively on these texts, as you seem to, then I can - and will - quote your own words back to you: if you don't understand the Sutta implications of your statements because you elect to follow a hodge-podge of teachings, many not taught by the actual Buddha, then that's on you - nobody else.

:namaste:
Kim
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27848
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Kim,
Kim OHara wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:34 am Your own view only makes any sense at all if you're looking at Right View in a strangely Christian fashion, i.e. that Right View descends upon the seeker like the Holy Ghost and elevates him (or her) to a New Level in an instant. Is that what you believe? If so, why??
What is this fanciful mumbo-jumbo? :alien:

This bears no resemblance or relevance to anything. :shrug:

The process was explained in the suttas above (e.g. Ud 5.9, MN 9). :buddha1: :reading: :buddha1:
Kim OHara wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:34 am Not so good at making sense of it, unfortunately, and pretty hopeless at putting it in context.
No offense, but because I'm a follower of the Buddha of the Sutta Pitaka, and not whatever the hell you get up to, the context of your perspective is irrelevant to me and I'm not inclined to pretend otherwise. :)

I'm not sure what your problem is, but thanks for trying, I guess. :thumbsup:

Metta,
Paul. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
User avatar
Kim OHara
Posts: 5584
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:47 am
Location: North Queensland, Australia

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by Kim OHara »

retrofuturist wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:38 am Greetings Kim,
Kim OHara wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:34 am Your own view only makes any sense at all if you're looking at Right View in a strangely Christian fashion, i.e. that Right View descends upon the seeker like the Holy Ghost and elevates him (or her) to a New Level in an instant. Is that what you believe? If so, why??
What is this fanciful mumbo-jumbo? :alien:

This bears no resemblance or relevance to anything. :shrug:
No fanciful mumbo-jumbo, just setting the scene for two questions for you to answer.
Without the scan-setting and Christian allusions:
Do you believe in Right View arising in an instant?
If so, why??

:coffee:
Kim
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27848
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Kim,
Kim OHara wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:50 am Do you believe in Right View arising in an instant?
If so, why??
(Not inferring anything of the Abhidhammic variety through the use of the word "moment", but...) There is a moment when someone is a puthujjana, and then there is a moment when they are no longer a puthujjana and they are instead a sekha. There is no inbetween, and there is no reverting back to being a puthujjana. (There is an Abhidhammic explanation of this that does make recourse to specific cittas, but I'll leave that be, and just mention that it exists.)

If you would like to know more about "that moment" (i.e. what people were doing, and what was the foundation of their awakening) here is a collection of sutta accounts relating to it... The arising of the Dhamma-eye.

This awakening necessarily, by virtue of what it entails, permanently destroys the three lowest fetters...

1. identity view*
2. doubt in Buddha*
3. belief in the efficacy of rites and rituals

* - hence the comment you referred to above as "an astonishing ignorance of human nature", because you were unsurprisingly thinking in terms of puthujjana nature, rather than the nature of the noble.

If the subject genuinely interests you, Thanisarro Bhikkhu pulled together an excellent collection of Sutta references in his collection Into The Stream.

Metta,
Paul. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19942
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by mikenz66 »

retrofuturist wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 6:43 am We are blessed that the path has been laid out, and all that we need to do is know it and establish ourselves in Right View.
Of course, this is exactly what most people here are in the process of doing.

Now, it might be possible to go back to basics and figure out how to translate and interpret the teachings from scratch, with no outside help. But I have not come across anyone who has done that. As far as I can tell, most people's understandings are influenced by translations and interpretations of others.

Clearly, there are a variety of opinions on details of translation and interpretation, presumably because most (if not all) of those offering opinion are, so far, awakened. How, then, should one proceed in deciding which opinions to pay attention to?

The Buddha gave some advice on who to pay attention to. Unfortunately, it is no easy to implement in conversations on the internet:
“Here, Bhāradvāja, a bhikkhu may be living in dependence on some village or town. Then a householder or a householder’s son goes to him and investigates him in regard to three kinds of states: in regard to states based on greed, in regard to states based on hate, and in regard to states based on delusion: ‘Are there in this venerable one any states based on greed such that, with his mind obsessed by those states, while not knowing he might say, “I know,” or while not seeing he might say, “I see,” or he might urge others to act in a way that would lead to their harm and suffering for a long time?’ As he investigates him he comes to know: ‘There are no such states based on greed in this venerable one. The bodily behaviour and the verbal behaviour of this venerable one are not those of one affected by greed. And the Dhamma that this venerable one teaches is profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise. This Dhamma cannot easily be taught by one affected by greed.’
...
https://suttacentral.net/mn95/en/bodhi
See also MN47, which talks about testing the Buddha himself: https://suttacentral.net/mn47/.

Far from advocating that "everyone is the same", or "all views are equally valid", I would advocate carefully checking the behaviour, and other attributes, of anyone that one might be thinking of taking advice from.


:heart:
Mike
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27848
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Mike,
mikenz66 wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 8:39 pm Now, it might be possible to go back to basics and figure out how to translate and interpret the teachings from scratch, with no outside help. But I have not come across anyone who has done that.
It does not need to be quite as extreme and isolated as this. You clearly have not understood, since in your post above you're still running around looking for reasons to believe or not believe certain other people, rather than turning straight to the Buddha himself.

Step back from doing that for a moment and consider if instead of there being a proliferation of traditions, each with their own set of accepted doctrine, "the tradition" was simply to do one's utmost to understand and apply the Buddha's teaching, like it would have been prior to the advent of differentiable traditions.

Within that tradition, there might well be different understandings of what that was exactly (as there is in any group of people larger than one) but so long as the Suttas exist and there remained the basic method of "doing one's utmost to understand and apply the Buddha's teaching", no private interpretation of those works would ever be elevated to be equal (as Theravada did with the Abhidhamma) or higher (as Mahayana did with their sutras), than the Buddha's teaching itself.

I would suggest there are indeed people who have followed such an approach, and I'll put my hand up to it myself, so we're not as non-existent as you might imagine. (Others are welcome to do so too). Invariably these people will be from the Theravada tradition and they will often be identified through their lack of interest in Theravada's own add-ons. Names you would know include venerables Nanananda, Thanissaro, Nanavira, Buddhadasa etc. EBT practitioners would be included too, if they follow this basic approach (and haven't placed private doctrines of social activism or Vinaya re-engineering as equal to or higher than the Dhammavinaya, of course 8-) ).

The translation works of others outside of this basic approach to the Dhamma can of course be incredibly helpful, although it is advantageous to know their worldview in advance so that one can more easily recognise biases which may creep into their translations, and not be swept away by them. Similarly, knowledge of Pali is of course helpful, but likewise, one should also be mindful that the Pali Text Society etc. tends to have its own puthujjanistic transmigration worldview too, which influenced their renderings and can inadvertently lead people in such a direction.

Metta,
Paul. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
User avatar
Pondera
Posts: 3072
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2011 10:02 pm

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by Pondera »

sphairos wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 9:26 am
Pondera wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 8:01 am
SteRo wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 7:15 am:lol:
I guess a laugh is some kind of recognition.
Can you tell a lot about struggling with a Demon?
Yes. When I get some time, I’ll post a thread in the personal experience section.
Like the three marks of conditioned existence, this world in itself is filthy, hostile, and crowded
User avatar
Kim OHara
Posts: 5584
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:47 am
Location: North Queensland, Australia

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by Kim OHara »

retrofuturist wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:56 am Greetings Kim,
Kim OHara wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:50 am Do you believe in Right View arising in an instant?
If so, why??
(Not inferring anything of the Abhidhammic variety through the use of the word "moment", but...) There is a moment when someone is a puthujjana, and then there is a moment when they are no longer a puthujjana and they are instead a sekha. There is no inbetween, and there is no reverting back to being a puthujjana. (There is an Abhidhammic explanation of this that does make recourse to specific cittas, but I'll leave that be, and just mention that it exists.)

If you would like to know more about "that moment" (i.e. what people were doing, and what was the foundation of their awakening) here is a collection of sutta accounts relating to it... The arising of the Dhamma-eye.

This awakening necessarily, by virtue of what it entails, permanently destroys the three lowest fetters...

1. identity view*
2. doubt in Buddha*
3. belief in the efficacy of rites and rituals

* - hence the comment you referred to above as "an astonishing ignorance of human nature", because you were unsurprisingly thinking in terms of puthujjana nature, rather than the nature of the noble.

If the subject genuinely interests you, Thanisarro Bhikkhu pulled together an excellent collection of Sutta references in his collection Into The Stream.

Metta,
Paul. :)
Thanks, Paul, for a genuine - and good - answer to my questions.
I may, however, return some other time to "the comment you referred to above as "an astonishing ignorance of human nature"," because your "thinking in terms of puthujjana nature, rather than the nature of the noble," doesn't cover all possibilities.

:namaste:
Kim
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19942
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by mikenz66 »

retrofuturist wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 9:45 pm I would suggest there are indeed people who have followed such an approach, and I'll put my hand up to it myself, so we're not as non-existent as you might imagine.
Well, personally, I do my best to understand the suttas, just as you do.

But, as you know, some of your interpretations are different from mine. As are parts of the interpretations of the people you mention (Nanananda, Thanissaro, Nanavira, Buddhadasa).

I would not be so presumptuous as to say that I am completely right and you are completely wrong. Unless you are awakened, it is certain that there are deficiencies in your understanding, as there are in mine.

:heart:
Mike
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27848
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Mike,

:thumbsup:

Metta,
Paul. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19942
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by mikenz66 »

sphairos wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 1:57 pm Basically, what this author says is that ven. Anālayo mischaracterized the "secular Buddhism".

https://secularbuddhistnetwork.org/what ... raditions/
...
OK, I did manage to get through Analayo's book, and also Batchelor's After Buddhism. The first thing I'd say is that Kevin Knox's comment on the review linked above is worth reading:
While I’m an admirer of this journal and of much secular Buddhist writing I don’t think it does Anālayo’s critique justice. ...
I found Batchelor's book quite hard going and overly complex for my taste, but it's probably worth reading to see where some lay teachers are coming from when they talk about "reactivity" rather than "craving" in the second Noble Truth.

I did find some of it helpful, but those are not really different from what many non-secular teachers would say. For example:
If one believes ... that craving is the origin of suffering—then your practice will be motivated by the intention to overcome craving in order to eliminate suffering. The practice will be the logical consequence of your belief. But if your experience of birth, sickness, aging, and death raises fundamental questions about your existence, then your practice will be driven by the urgent need to come to terms with those questions, irrespective of any theory about where birth, sickness, aging, and death originate. Such a practice is concerned with finding an authentic and autonomous response to the questions that life poses rather than confirming any doctrinal article of faith.
I don't really like the word "authentic", but I did like "your practice will be driven by the urgent need to come to terms with those questions...", which echoes the Buddha's word about The Noble Search:
"Bhikkhus, before my enlightenment, while I was still only an unenlightened Bodhisatta, I too, being myself subject to birth, sought what was also subject to birth; being myself subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, I sought what was also subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement. Then I considered thus: ‘Why, being myself subject to birth, do I seek what is also subject to birth? Why, being myself subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, do I seek what is also subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement? ...
https://suttacentral.net/mn26/en/bodhi
And I was happy to read:
A secular approach to Buddhism could unwittingly encourage the tendency to regard meditation as simply a method for solving problems. By instrumentalizing mindfulness, for example, one could end up rejecting any sense of sublimity, mystery, awe, When Western Buddhists seek to defend their belief in rebirth, they cite traditional arguments found in the works of commentators such as Dharmakīrti, but they also look to the empirical evidence of researchers who have studied cases of young children who claim to remember a previous existence. Having grown up embedded in secular modernity, such converts intuitively appeal to the authority of scientific research even while, in other contexts, criticizing it as materialistic and reductive.or wonder from the practice. This tendency is reinforced when meditation is presented as a “science of the mind,” when people are routinely wired up to fMRI scans to take detailed readings of brain function while meditating, and government-sponsored studies are conducted on volunteers over long periods in order to understand the “effectiveness” of meditation.
And:
When Western Buddhists seek to defend their belief in rebirth, they cite traditional arguments found in the works of commentators such as Dharmakīrti, but they also look to the empirical evidence of researchers who have studied cases of young children who claim to remember a previous existence. Having grown up embedded in secular modernity, such converts intuitively appeal to the authority of scientific research even while, in other contexts, criticizing it as materialistic and reductive.
However, as Analayo, and the comment by Kevin Knox mentioned above argue, Batchelor seems to aim rather low:
Far from being a “hatchet job,” Anālayo’s pointed criticisms are a long-overdue corrective to Batchelor’s wildly-popular and transparently self-serving watering down of the Dhamma. Most if not all of the key points made in this chapter have been made by scholars for years but in academic journals and online sites like suttacentral that aren’t typically requented by lay practitioners. So many prominent Western vipassana teachers and students have found Batchelor’s views deeply resonant and consolatory precisely because they support using Buddhism purely for the purpose of having a smoother ride through samsara that Anālayo’s pointed prose comes as a salutary shock – a scholarly version of the four heavenly messengers, if you will.
:heart:
Mike
SteRo
Posts: 5950
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 10:27 am
Location: Εὐρώπη Eurṓpē

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by SteRo »

"Secular buddhism" is an oxymoron like "square of the circle". The inventors of "secular buddhism" just cannot drop certain thinking habits acquired when formerly following buddhism. And of course there is the admiration of a following which is easier acquired when using the label "buddhism" because of the popularity of "buddhism". "Secular buddhism" is like an incantation "Considering buddhism let the wanted be true but let the unwanted be untrue [false]." Both, the wanted and the unwanted, are the same. :sage:
Cleared. αδόξαστος.
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19942
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: "Secular Buddhists" answer to ven. Anālayo's ‘Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions’

Post by mikenz66 »

Here's another review.
https://dhivanthomasjones.wordpress.com ... -polemics/
To go straight to the keystone of Batchelor’s secular Buddhism, his re-intepretation of the Four Noble Truths as ‘tasks’ rather than truths is based on a mistaken, even tendentious, reading of a scholarly article by K.R. Norman (Superiority Conceit, pp.130–1). Batchelor re-interprets the first truth, of dukkha or unsatisfactoriness as an existential encounter with illness, ageing and death that invites one to fully “embrace life”. As Anālayo comments, in his laconic way, “anyone is of course free to adopt the idea of embracing life as a personal philosophy of life. The issue is only that such a celebrating of the mystery of being alive does not correspond to the implications of the four noble truths in early Buddhist thought and hence cannot be considered an accurate reflection of this core element of the teachings” (pp.128–9). Anālayo’s point is that the Buddha’s teaching of the truth of dukkha is that this world is an imperfect situation, in which illness, ageing and death are unwelcome yet inevitable. It is on the basis of an appreciation of this imperfect situation that the Buddha’s teaching of the way to Awakening should be understood. Anālayo goes on to point out that Batchelor’s interpretation of the first truth appears to be based on his own religious or mystical experience, and that he appears to go on to interpret a range of Buddhist teachings in line with his own ideas and experiences (p.133). Anālayo then discusses Batchelor’s general method for interpreting the meaning of early Buddhism, pointing out that it is based on personal preferences rather than any defensible principle of scholarship.
The author of the review also interviewed Batchelor last year:
It's clear from such interviews that Batchelor is quite selective in his reading of the Canon.

I opined earlier that I would have liked a specific discussion by Analayo of the possible conceit of an EBT approach. I think he addresses this obliquely when he discusses, for example, Theravada, where he is careful to stress that he is pointing out differences, not necessarily dismissing different approaches:
IN THIS CHAPTER I study a form of superiority conceit found among some Theravāda Buddhists. This takes the form of assuming that membership in the Theravāda tradition automatically implies being the true heir to the Buddha’s original teachings. In order to show that this notion lacks a foundation, I examine in some detail the Path of Purification, the Visuddhimagga, a key manual of the path compiled by Buddhaghosa in the fifth century. Even though the nature of my exploration in this chapter necessitates that I focus on several aspects of this work that involve some departure from early Buddhist thought, pointing these out is not meant to imply a wholesale rejection. Buddhaghosa’s masterpiece remains a central reference for anyone cultivating Theravāda meditation practice. My point is only that this work offers a distinctly Theravāda perspective, which at times differs from the early Buddhist position.
Since Analayo's approach is to critique actual writings, rather than speak in generalities, I can see that it would be difficult to critique a "possible conceit of an EBT approach". In critiquing Secular Buddhism he specifically critiques some of Batchelor's books, rather than a "movement":
MY LAST AREA of exploration in this book is Secular Buddhism, which at times comes with the conceit of superiority over other Buddhist traditions. Just as in the last chapter I focused on Buddhaghosa and his work at exemplifying trends in Theravāda exegesis, in the present chapter I focus on Stephen Batchelor as the foundational proponent of Secular Buddhism. In both cases such focus is simply an expedient for exploring the respective topic and does not imply that these two authors are the sole advocators of the ideas studied. Another similarity is that in both cases the main thrust of my exploration is to try to ascertain to what extent certain ideas reflect early Buddhist thought, given that both Buddhaghosa and Stephen Batchelor operate from the implicit or explicit position of accurately representing the teachings of the historical Buddha. In both cases, I take up only selected points without any pretense at providing a comprehensive coverage of their respective works.
However, I would point out that Batchelor claims to be teasing out what he sees as the original teachings ("After Buddhism"):
I am skeptical of the authority and charisma of priests and seek a direct relationship with the dharma through my own study of the original texts.
Not only does this state of affairs contradict and distort what appears to be the Buddha’s original intent, ...
So Analayo's critiques do contain some hints of how to avoid possible pitfalls of an EBT approach. In particular, being selective about which suttas one pays attention to merely based on one's preferences.

:heart:
Mike
Post Reply