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"The Buddha via the Bible" - How Western Biblical exegesis has distorted our Buddhist practice
http://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/CrossIndexed/Uncollected/MiscEssays/TheBuddhaViaTheBible.pdf
By Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Do note that the second part of the title of this discussion is actually my own summarisation, and not part of the original text. Basically, this essay is all about how the exegetical aspect of Romanticism has distorted Western Buddhists' understanding of the Pali Canon.
Therefore, I think this is an -extremely- pertinent essay to our practice. In my view, perhaps it's time we stopped being "Western" Buddhists altogether.
By Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Do note that the second part of the title of this discussion is actually my own summarisation, and not part of the original text. Basically, this essay is all about how the exegetical aspect of Romanticism has distorted Western Buddhists' understanding of the Pali Canon.
Therefore, I think this is an -extremely- pertinent essay to our practice. In my view, perhaps it's time we stopped being "Western" Buddhists altogether.
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Comments
TB (Thanissaro) said: John Cassian also argued for the richness of the Bible's language, stating that it could carry up to four levels of meaning: one literal or historical and three metaphorical.
DD: This does not apply to Buddhism. The Bible, from OT to NT is primarily a parable, although there are many direct teachings. Buddha did not teach in parables. Even subjects like rebirth, where two levels of truth apply, is a consistant teaching about karma. Rebirth is about the results of actions. Buddha taught rebirth like this (rather than meta-physically). As for the supramundane teachings; they are very direct & literal. TB makes many dubious translations on the supramundane level, such as the bizzare "five clinging aggregates". In reality, the mind clings to the aggregrates. The aggregates themselves do not cling. Well, only one aggregate does all of the clinging.
TB said: To read the Canon as poetry may yield new meanings unintended by the compilers, but that simply advances a process at work throughout Buddhist history. Some thinkers have explained this process as a form of vitalism, with Buddhism or the Dharma identified as the vital force.
DD: Disagree. The Buddha spoke about 'slandering the Tathagata'. We must be very careful here.
TB said: 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.
DD: Transcendence means to not suffer in relation to the world due to deliverance via wisdom. Whereas oneness or non-duality is unity via concentration. But transcendence does not negate 'unity'. To the contrary, deliverance via wisdom offers a superior unity than non-duality. When a theistic regards the world as God's creation under God's doing, there is a unity or harmony here. Similarly, when transcendence via wisdom is acheived, there is also a unity with the world because the world is understood. TB's notion of "transcendence" seems to be "other worldly" or the end of physical rebirths, like Nibbana after death rather than Nibbana here & now.
TB said: The Canon states clearly that there is only one path to nibbana (DN 16). Trying to find awakening in ways apart from the noble eightfold path is like trying to squeeze oil from gravel, or milking a cow by twisting its horn (MN 126). The Buddhas knowledge of the way to awakening is like that of an expert gatekeeper who knows, after encircling the walls of a city, that there‟s only one way into the city: the gate he guards (AN 10:95).
DD: Sure. However, TB seems to contradict himself with his "poetic" approach to the Cannon and his bizzaro translations, such as "the five clinging aggregates". If one believes the five aggregates "cling", this is not the simple path of the Buddha, who advised regarding the five aggregates as "I" or "mine" is clinging.
DD: To end, imo, this essay is rather intellectual. It is as though there is a competition between TB and Ajahn Sujato about who can write the longest most useless intellectual essay. Sorry to sound so critical. But in the end, I can only give my opinion that the distortions are in TB's often bizzare translations. Rather than being advice to others, TB's essay, to me, sounds like a personal confession.
Kind regards
DD
My own initial take on this essay is that TB does not fully grasp - and why should he? - the diversity of Christian and Jewish Biblical study, criticism and exegesis. Indeed, I doubt whether there is anyone, even among the most rarefied realms of theological academe, who could effectively delineate or encompass the whole field.
And this is precisely because the Bible and its ancillary documents is a far more diffuse and complex set of texts than the beautiful simplicity of so much fundamental Buddhist sutras. Here are none of the tropes and allegories of the Hindu or Judaeo-Christian canon.
In effect, the hermeneutics are different because they apply to different categories of text.
As for the difference over translation, I am in no position to judge. I can understand your argument, DD, and have no Pali to be able to judge. Translation is such a bitch - as any Biblical scholar will admit.
"As a result, the Romantic/Transcendentalist view has become an established paradigm in Western culture for viewing the relative status of psychology and religious texts.
Actually, no. The Romantic/Transcendentalist view holds sway only in the hallowed halls of academia. Western culture clings very firmly to the Literalist view of the Bible. Quite frankly, this shows a confusion between his own liberal culture and the majority of Western civilization. That he then goes on to criticize this imaginary Western mindset is puzzling for such an insightful man.
The Literalist view demands that the sacred writings, whether the Bible or Pali Canon, be historically and factually accurate and that not only the miracles and myths included in the writings be taken literally, but the writings themselves must be miraculously inspired and inerrant. Literalism means the original writings might have been first put on paper thousands of years ago, by a man who knew nothing of the world beyond his tiny part of it, wrote of events that happened well before his time, and had no idea of how natural laws worked...but miraculously, the sacred somehow used this man to transmit a perfect record both historically and theologically.
So to almost every Christian, Noah really did save all the animals by building a big boat while God drowned the entire world. God really did raise a divine son from the dead. It's not metaphor, not myth, but literal truth. That is Western culture's stand on how to read sacred scripture. At least, their own sacred scriptures. The author of this piece makes the mistake of thinking people treat all religious writings the same. The entire problem can be summed in the statement, "Our scripture is literal and the revealed truth, of course, because our religion is the true religion. But those sutras about that foreign guy Buddha are myths because the belief is false."
And we have taken these assumptions with us in practicing Buddhism. We see our sacred writings as revealed truth, but now those other religious writings are myth and teach a false or imperfect message, so the writings are imperfect. In other words, Thanissaro Bhikkhu has nothing to worry about. Western Buddhists will follow the human desire for certainty and consider the Sutras as literal and inerrant, refusing to separate metaphor, myth and plain mistake from the Dharma.
Of course, an educated person will apply literary analysis to all writings, sacred or otherwise, in order to better understand the reality of what the original author is trying to say. To understand the message, we must understand the problems of translation between languages, the cultural assumptions of the people doing the writing, and even who is writing it and for what audience. That opens up the Dharma into a fascinating living journey of discovery, not just a list of Precepts and terms to be memorized.
So, perhaps what the sutras need is exactly what he criticizes.
One thing he says which is, I think, at the very heart of all these debates, is about authority. Despite rejecting the Biblical appeal to authority, it is precisely an authority ascribed to the Pali Canon which provides him with is conclusions. The authority card is forced by sleight of hand, just as in any other 'fundamentalist' argument.
Again, this might be true, but it's nothing new. Schools of Buddhism have criticized each other over the centuries. The conservative schools say the new schools are distorting what their scriptures say is the correct, time honored practice by their ancestors, and the new schools say they are simply translating the Dharma into a new language and cultural setting to keep it alive.
Tradition versus innovation. That's being human.
Duality is just thinking. Non-duality is the absence of that thinking. DD, I am not contradicting you, I am just pointing out that my teacher uses this term, non-duality, in a much different way than you are explaining.
The reason that noticing duality is just thinking is liberating is because you don't conceptualize a me (inside) that is battling a world (outside). This prevents such problems as anxiety - worry of lack of control of 'outer world'. And depression projecting the problem onto a flawed pride based self.
Any time you realize that some assumed thinking is just like an illusion (like not is) you let go of some grasping and prapancha. Non-dual realization is not enlightenment, but it is cutting through some entanglements of wrong views exposing the wall of doubt in trusting your own experience.
Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum
however, for 2 millenia there have being ppl that said this man... resurrected. This testimony can not be ignored by sangha... even if the bible is not Dharma. we may research this, and confirm the knowledge through tathagatagarbha (with whichever access we have to "it").
this means, after death... (and going to sudavasa vihara); he may have returned... an anågami, that returns.
either way, there's a lot of ignorance in any type of interReligious debate (in any debate for that matter)... and christianity is actually a roman religion (it could have being better to have gnostic christianism "win"... but, 'ism's are too weak to survive... the Dharma is "bullet-proof").
It's seems clear to me that he's referring to both. Again, I think you're misrepresenting Thanissaro's views here. I'm pretty familiar with both his translations and his original works, and as far as I can recall, he never presents the aggregates as things that cling, but he always refers to them as clingable phenomena on top of which we construct our sense of self in a process of 'I-making' and 'my-making' (e.g., MN 109). Ad hominem aside, it is a fairly intellectual essay; one that deals with how certain themes from European Romanticism and the American Transcendentalist movement have influenced the way we often approach Buddhism in the West (especially in academia, since much of this probably stems from what he learned while attending Oberlin College), and how it's important to examine some of the assumptions that we bring as we come to the Dhamma. Of course, the subject matter won't interest everyone, and probably doesn't apply to as many people as the author may think, but I don't think that in and of itself makes it useless.
Although TB and others see this reliance on personal judgment ('intuition': being taught from within) as being a result of the Enlightenment project, its roots are much earlier. The Protestant revolution is largely based on the premise that each believer is endowed with the 'grace' to read and understand Scripture. Although the Reformers, like Calvin and Knox, believed that this would lead to a consensus of the justified, the result was (as the Counter-Reformation understood) a fracturing of beliefs.
Precisely the same process appears to have operated within the Buddhisms. It is the inevitable result of freedom of thought: people just won't think the same things, damn them!
So why bring the Western reformation movement into it at all?
In addition, because he sees this approach as being a result of developments in Biblical criricism, he engages with the contemporary view that, as Jeffrey says: By and large, as a group, here on New Buddhist, the prevailing belief is that each person has the right, the duty and, ultimately, the ability to judge what 'fits' them. Authority comes from within. Time after time we have members saying that they have now found a particular style or school of Buddhism which they choose to adopt. The grounds on which this choice is made vary in detail but boil down to a personal commitment summarised by a form of words similar to the traditional Refuge statement, either/both publicly and/or privately (in corde).
TB suggests that this primacy of the personal understanding results from the European Enlightenment and is alien to a traditional Buddhist approach. I am not sure that he makes his case, which must depend on counter-evidence from cultures which deny this paradigm - if such, indeed, exist.
When you ask: I would add "why not notice that all belief systems undergo the same evolution through external authority to personal 'revelation', even Buddhism. TB is trying to hold back the flood, to dam it up in normative texts and textual commentary reinforced by ancestral agreement - dead, male ancestors, by and large.
So, there are two different threads here:
the first addresses the question as to whether Buddhist commentary in the West has been changed by prevailing Western approaches to literary criticism and biblical exegesis; and if such a change is deleterious.
The second, subtextual in the essay, is whether each one of us is sole judge of what is 'right' for us.
I have a fair amount to say about the interweaving of Western religion/philosophy (including Judaism/Christianity) and Buddhism since very early; Alexander of Macedon and Alexandria must be considered.
I can discuyss the question of personal intuition, too.
I can't, however, do both at once.
i suggest we all use Dharma instead of buddh'ism from now on... i took refugee in samskrita.
This passage isn't representative of what he thinks about the Canon, but of how certain teachers within the American Buddhism tradition approach the Pali Canon due to influences from the Romantics and the Transcendentalist movement. This is just one of, in his words, "at least eight specific ways in which Romantic/Transcendentalist principles inform statements that Western Buddhists have made about how to read the Pali Canon."
In other words, he's saying the opposite of what you think he his; and in your disagreement, you're actually agreeing with Thainssaro since he himself is critical of this idea. He's arguing for a pragmatic approach to the Canon, not a poetic or prophetic one. For example, immediately following this, he writes:
As for the rest, I see intuition and external teachings as complimentary tool to understanding, but I think that in regard to spiritual practices, intuition and teachings that are in line with observable results are more authoritative than either alone. Actually, he acknowledges that, albeit briefly, when he says:
If you say the pali to an average person on this site its like saying.
I am a gamugoiag from my realization of apijoigf aifjdoijfdf paiodjfpodsijf from my teacher thangpa grudpa who teaches pafidofj apofijdfp padfjip.
In other words, we, in Western Theravada, often adopt these concepts because we're more or less predisposed to accept them due to ideas and attitudes "toward the Bible that date back to the German Romantics and the American Transcendentalists" we've accepted as a culture, whether consciously or unconsciously, "through their influence on humanistic psychology, liberal spirituality, and the study of comparative religion."
To maintain that Western thought is still held captive to the 'Romantics' is highly debatable and takes no heed of more recent theological activity. We now live in a post-modern world and any meta-narrative, including one stemming from the Enlightenment, is simple 'old hat' - interesting perhaps but the debate has moved on.
But there are other concerns which need addressing. For instance;
"Therefore, the ideal reading of the Bible, as with the ideal reading of any text, required sensitive appreciation of its home culture so as to intuit deeper feelings from which a particular expression derived" (page 10)
fails to recognize, unlike Buddhist texts, that we actually do not have any original biblical texts. As a result, there can be 'no ideal reading' of the texts.
Second, to suggest that there is some 'ideal reading of the text' fails to appreciate the role of the biblical author. Similar to Buddhist teachers who orientate their teachings to their particular students, the authors of the biblical texts were addressing particular issues at particular points of time within a specific social context. In many cases, we simple do not what the situations were that the author was addressing. We can take a guess - but that is all. As a result, there is no universal 'ideal' reading of the texts.
When Thanissaro writes;
"Therefore, the ideal reading of the Bible, as with the ideal reading of any text, required sensitive appreciation of its home culture so as to intuit deeper feelings from which a particular expression derived" (page 13)
he makes a good point but I am left wonder if he considers his own role in the process.
But it is here;
"The Bible, in his eyes, was purely a poetic and prophetic document. The Romantics, to the extent that they still found inspiration in the Bible, agreed.
These are the immediate sources from which the Transcendentalists derived their thoughts on the Bible, and on religion in general" (page 14)
where I see the author failing to appreciate the problem he has constructed.
The biblical texts are neither poetry nor prophetic. Certainly there are parts which are to be treated asa poetic and prophetic but the main part of the texts are narrative - they are telling us something about some particular issue.
Yet the whole of Thanissaro's argument is one that is based on poetics and romantics. So it is understandable where he further writes;
"Even then, though, one should read them not for specific information about history, but for a more poetic sense of inspiration. The goal is not to figure out what the texts mean, but to use them as kindling for one‟s own creative impulse" ( page 16)
that he completely dismisses the biblical author as if he has nothing to do with the process.
I am left wondering if Westerners treat their respective Buddhist teachers in such a cavalier fashion. Is Thanissaro advocating that we 'kindle one's one creative impulse' when we read the Buddhist texts? If such is the case, and I am not necessarily opposed to that proposition, then it seems that he is, ironically, imposing his own interpretation on how those Buddhist texts should be received. Which seems to me to be a very American way of thinking.
Any mistakes I will gladly accept.