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Article from urbandharma about Buddhist schools.
jll
Veteran
I saw this on urbandharma. What do you think?
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Comments
I've read a number of articles about this topic, and my most basic conclusion is that if the term offends people, then it shouldn't be used. Otherwise, in the same vein, you believe that the Washington Redskins is an appropriate name for a football team...and on and on and on.
I'm with him ^^^
I'm thinking that's a damn long link when this one will do just as well...
I'll bear the offence in mind at the same time people take offence at the word fuck, shit and other expletives deleted.
It depends on context, inference and intention.
I personally dislike to see profanities in print on a Buddhist forum.
I find them utterly unnecessary, and they say as much about the person using them, on said forum, as it does about those who are offended by them.
However, under certain circumstances, I have been known to use the odd occasional one myself, "IRL"....
If my cussing ever offended anyone here...I sincerely apologize, and it won't happen again. I should be more sensitive to others instead of defending what it doesn't mean/say/represent about me.
I'm not just referring to you Aunt Fede...other's in a previous cussing thread expressed discomfort. I have to walk my talk.
Is ignorance an excuse for using an offensive term?
For example, in Australia the word "wog" is thrown around fairly loosely. People of Italian / Greek etc. background are called this and, while I wouldn't say it to someone I didn't know, I can use it with people I know and they have no issue with it.
However, I said it in front of an English friend of mine while living in London and he glared at me and said "Don't ever say that word again!"
Interesting article. I see it differently but that is because my teacher and Trungpa agree on how this is described, so that is most of my experience in it, so I've never thought of it in the terms the article talks about.
I have taken notes on Trungpa's book about Hinayana so I'll put my notes here, they go along with what my teacher has said, too.
Hinayana is considered the path of individual salvation, and often translated as a lesser way/vehicle. But really the translation comes to mean closer to pragmatic. Hinayana courses through all of Buddhism, and you cannot have Mahayana without it. It is where all the basics that we often talk about here, come from. We cannot want to help and save others until we have helped and saved ourselves, basically. Hinayana is the learning your numbers and learning to add them together of the math word. You cannot do long division, calculus and algebra without it. Just as you cannot "do" mahayana without hinayana. Mahayana has hinayna built within it, so if past mahayanists thought they were poo-pooing on hinayana, it seems to me from this side that they were wrong.
Anyhow, just offering a different point of view.
I'm not saying the term should be continued to be used if it truly offends people, I just find the ways I've personally heard it used to be unoffensive. I'm reading through Trungpa's 3 volume set, which are split into hinayana, mahyana, and vajrayana. I'm part way through the second volume, but I learned A LOT from the first one, and I think many Buddhists would as well. Not all, of course, but many, especially newer ones. I took more than 80 pages of notes and I refer back to them often. So, for me, Hinayana doesn't hold a negative tone, and I have found that reading about it more has greatly increased my understanding of the things my teacher teaches, and things I read here. I always found it kind of odd that it was separated out anyhow, because I've never seen or heard of people referring to themselves only as Hinayana Buddhists. But I also suspect that for a lot of people, that has to do with ego because they don't want to be perceived as selfish so they jump into mahayana because they think it's better.
btw I don't mean to suggest that because I've experienced it otherwise, that that doesn't mean the word is offensive. It dawned on me that I might sound that way. Not at all. The other day I had a disagreement with someone who thinks we need to "take back" the word retard because no one has the right to be offended by a mere word. :banghead:
Also, I lived in ND where they are STILL going through a name change problem with the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux. Huge marketing thing for the school and they do not want to let it go despite tribes taking it to court and winning.
On the flip side, I find this interesting:
As Buddhists, we are generally working on trying not to be offended. If someone says something mean, we try to understand where they are coming from, to see their suffering, and so on. Basically coming from a point of view that if we are offended, it's at least partially our fault. But then we work really hard at making sure to never offend anyone. I just find that interesting. Not saying it's not worth trying to use right speech and not to offend people on purpose. Just that I run into it in life sometimes where I find myself thinking "well, geez, I wasn't trying to be offensive and if you took it that way maybe it's your problem."
This "Hinayana" article reminds me of a forum post a classmate did last session (Arizona State University has two academic "sessions" per quarter, a full-time student needs to at least take two classes per session, for a total of 4) about Political Correctness.
Of course, for those who commented, opinions were varied. I will simply say that Political Correctness, as I interpret it, isn't about controlling what people say, nor is it elitist - its about talking in a way that is respectful, or trying to be respectful.
I'm currently working on lowering my swearing - I can live without it, but bad habits tend to linger. Though sometimes, I do feel certain words can express the pain of dropping a hammer on one's own foot.
One day at a time though, right?
I find it fun to make up new words, yelling them still takes the edge off but then you make people laugh around you out of the absurdity of it. Plus, if my kids repeat it, people will just be confused instead of offended, lol. I keep a few of the funny ones from Johnny Dangerously for that reason, too. Like Fargging Iceholes! But I don't say those around the 5 year old, because he repeats everything. I mostly keep it to a minimum, I just feel less reason to yell obscenities than I used to.