Passionate Preaching

Amida

I often hear Christian preachers using very emotional appeals, like preaching we ought to live like Jesus and follow the Sermon on the Mount. I agree with them that one ought to follow the Sermon on the Mount, but I don't care for the appeal to my emotions with passionate preaching and music.

Does anyone know if the Buddha ever lifted his voice in passionate preaching? And what do you think about passionate preaching that appeals to emotion?

misecmisc1

Amida said:

I often hear Christian preachers using very emotional appeals, like preaching we ought to live like Jesus and follow the Sermon on the Mount. I agree with them that one ought to follow the Sermon on the Mount, but I don't care for the appeal to my emotions with passionate preaching and music.

Does anyone know if the Buddha ever lifted his voice in passionate preaching? And what do you think about passionate preaching that appeals to emotion?

@Amida: i think seeing your first paragraph the question should come - Does Buddhist preachers lift voice in passionate preaching like we should live like Buddha?

well, if someone says we should live like Jesus or Buddha, i think there is no harm in it - the problem arises from the perspective with which it is seen - if we see this thing as trying to bring good qualities of Jesus or Buddha in us, it is a good advice - but if we see this thing, as someone is trying to make you a Christian or Buddhist, then we take an offensive side to the above statement.

passionate preaching if brings good qualities and removes defilements in us, it is skillful. but if passionate preaching by distorting the teaching , brings the opposite, it is unskillful.

Catontheroof

Personally I believe that passionate preaching can increase the dualism in a person's mind. Most judeo-christian passionate preachings end up raising the concept of "us and them" the fight between good and evil, and such.

lobster

Passionate delusion is no substitute for skilful listening. Discriminative awareness the ability to hear independent of the means and method of delivery is what will make us well . . . Buddhism is not heard by many born in its cultural strongholds . . . it is up to us . . .

Jason

Amida said:

I often hear Christian preachers using very emotional appeals, like preaching we ought to live like Jesus and follow the Sermon on the Mount. I agree with them that one ought to follow the Sermon on the Mount, but I don't care for the appeal to my emotions with passionate preaching and music.

Does anyone know if the Buddha ever lifted his voice in passionate preaching? And what do you think about passionate preaching that appeals to emotion?

It's hard to say since everything we have that's reported to have come from the Buddha is in form of stylized texts in an ancient dialect; but it doesn't really appear so. The Buddha is depicted as always having a calm yet radiant demeanor, and he generally taught using a mixture of rational argument, logic, anecdotes, and similes. There's also a fair amount of humourous wit in the Suttas (especially utilizing wordplay), but nothing I'd consider to be 'passionate preaching' or 'appeals to emotion,' not that I think anything's inherent wrong with either in the right context.

Jeffrey

It is individual. One man doesn't like a gurus mannerisms. But someone else does like them. To each our own. One thing I hate is when people talk about gurus I like and say they are frauds as determined by not liking the way they speak. :grumble: That has been said about Gangaji and Krishnaurti since I have been here. And others.

federica

Amida said:

I often hear Christian preachers using very emotional appeals, like preaching we ought to live like Jesus and follow the Sermon on the Mount. I agree with them that one ought to follow the Sermon on the Mount, but I don't care for the appeal to my emotions with passionate preaching and music.

Does anyone know if the Buddha ever lifted his voice in passionate preaching? And what do you think about passionate preaching that appeals to emotion?

I have been in debates with 'Passionate preachers'... an awful lot of the time (but not always) this passion is driven not so much by their deep faith, but their desire to be right, and to steam-roller over opposite opinions, no matter what the logic of the argument might be.

I do not get involved now with this specific type of 'conflict'. In fact, I make every attempt to avoid any form of conflict whatsoever.
But I personally find that, when faced with an animated, agitated, passionate and emotional individual, I 'turn down' my responses to the calmest level possible.
It dissipates the argument, takes the wind out of their sails, and makes them look more like a ranting fool than anthing else I could respond with.

Happened recently.
It was not a Buddhist/religiously based thing at all - but the person didn't half look a right dick.

footiam

Amida said:

I often hear Christian preachers using very emotional appeals, like preaching we ought to live like Jesus and follow the Sermon on the Mount. I agree with them that one ought to follow the Sermon on the Mount, but I don't care for the appeal to my emotions with passionate preaching and music.

Does anyone know if the Buddha ever lifted his voice in passionate preaching? And what do you think about passionate preaching that appeals to emotion?

If there were recorders those days, then we would know but then, I would think he would not have done that, lifting his voice in passionate preaching. Passion is never an agenda in Buddhism. Equanimity is.

Nirvana

I've always thought that Buddha's Fire Sermon was passionate preaching. I'll argue that point out with anyone. It's an inspiring sermon.

http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/ebsut026.htm

Zero

I suppose passionate preaching demands your attention whereas the other seems more inclined to earning it.

Invincible_summer

Catontheroof said:

Personally I believe that passionate preaching can increase the dualism in a person's mind. Most judeo-christian passionate preachings end up raising the concept of "us and them" the fight between good and evil, and such.

Lots of suttas and sutras talk about "good" and "evil" and mention all sorts of things that could be argued to reinforce dualisms.

But that's why it's important to understand the difference between conventional reality and ultimate reality (Two-Truths Doctrine).

Florian

... yes, and also the way this doctrine relates to the three turnings of the wheel. Then there are no sutras that can be read as reinforcing dualism.

It definitely encourages dualism in me when I see those loud preachy types at work, browbeating their audience into submission. But it only really bothers seriously when there's a lot of money changing hands.

Jason

Florian said:

... yes, and also the way this doctrine relates to the three turnings of the wheel. Then there are no sutras that can be read as reinforcing dualism.

I think it all depends on what one means by 'dualism.' For example, there are a lot of dualistic concepts in Buddhism, such as the distinction between skillful and unskillful actions, and these sorts of distinctions are important/useful. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu responds against the argument, "To think of 'skillful' and 'unskillful' desires is dualistic and judgmental":

You don't want non-dualistic mechanics working on your car, or non-dualistic surgeons operating on your brain. You want people who can tell what's skillful from what's not. If you really value your happiness, you'll demand the same discernment in the person most responsible for it: yourself. ("Pushing the Limits")

In fact, from my own point of view, I'd go so far as to say that Buddhism isn't a strictly nondualist philosophy. There are schools that definitely take a more nodualist position, but I personally don't the idea of oneness or non-duality has as much of a place in Buddhism as many believe. The Buddha that's presented in the Pali Canon, for example, is all about making distinctions when appropriate and useful (e.g., Snp 3.12), and ultimately transcending ideas of oneness, duality, and plurality altogether. In one essay by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, for example, he argues that from the Buddhist point of view:

The idea that spiritual life is a search for unity depends on the assumption that the universe is an organic whole, and that the whole is essentially good. The Canon, however, consistently portrays the goal of the spiritual life as transcendence: The world—which is synonymous with the All (SN 35:23)—is a dangerous river over which one has to cross to safety on the other side. The state of oneness or non-duality is conditioned (AN 10:29): still immersed in the river, unsafe. In reaching nibbana, one is not returning to the source of things (MN 1), but reaching something never reached before (AN 5:77): a dimension beyond all space and time. And in attaining this dimension, one is not establishing a new identity, for all identities—even infinite ones (DN 15)—ultimately prevent that attainment, and so have to be dropped.

Just one perspective to take into consideration, at any rate.

Florian

Well, nondualism does not mean the abandoning discernment. It means recognising the conventional nature of distinctions and their metaphysical reduction. It doesn't make us any less capable of fixing a car, being a brain surgeon or distinguishing between skillful and unskillful means. To say that Buddhism is not nondualism is to say that Nagarjuna was terribly mistaken and to discard the Middle Way doctrine.

"...The Buddha that's presented in the Pali Canon, for example, is all about making distinctions when appropriate and useful (e.g., Snp 3.12), and ultimately transcending ideas of oneness, duality, and plurality altogether. "

Exactly. Distinctions are what make the world go round, and they are often appropriate and useful. The transcendence spoken of here, however, is nondualism. It's the only position for which we must abandon oneness, duality and plurality.

FoibleFull

I have never listened to the Buddha himself.
But I have listened to many Tibetan lamas, monks, nuns, geshes. None of them preach passionately.
They sit there and quietly, gently, tell you about Buddhism.
If one of the audience/class stands up and tells them that what they are saying is wrong, they look at them lovingly and gently say "I'll have to think about that", or "You may be right". I have never yet heard a Buddhist teacher try to convince another or try to push their teachings, let alone do so "passionately".

I think that it is very important to observe HOW these people, Buddhist practictioners for decades, carry themselves. I think there is much understanding to be gained merely from our own observation of them.

Florian

On the understanding thing I couldn't agree more.