Thank you for sharing this open and truly refreshing talk. The best to you !
@BarbarraBay7 жыл бұрын
@30:40 oh dear. the truths are absolute truths however they do not state anywhere that "life is suffering". the 1st truth summarises all suffering as attachment to the five aggregates. 31:55 the truths do not describe the "nature of reality" or "existence". they only describe or diagnose the true nature of the arising of suffering & its cessation. @32:55 suffering is to be comprehended but not "embraced". Suffering is to be stopped. As for the path, it is certainly "moralistic" rather than amoral.
@BarbarraBay7 жыл бұрын
28:28 shows the limited experience & exposure Stephen has to Buddhism. Similar to his citing of Gombrich as a rare scholar, he then cites Nanavira, another often confused Western seeker. The four tasks have been discussed extensively by many monks such as Ajahn Sumedho (western monk). Stephen refuses to mention famous monks that have already explained the core Dhamma in a "secular" or "non-superstitious" way. Stephen is not doing anything novel. Worse, he is not presenting a "here & now" Buddhism but, instead, wrong understanding about here & now Buddhism.
@truth83073 жыл бұрын
I don't trust this Butchelor after hearing several of his talks and knowing his history and his Bodhi College website. He don't really believe the Buddha's teachings or know much about Buddhism. The Buddha's teachings are never filled with "might, maybe or perhaps". The Buddha's teachings are all clear and specific. Butchelor even misquoted the 4 Noble Truths as 4 tasks. He is just trying to make money using Buddhism, I discovered it from his Bodhi College website after registeration for a bogus course.
@BarbarraBay7 жыл бұрын
@25:47 SN 55.24 & 25 do not portray Sarakani as the "local drunk". Nor say Sarakani spent most of his life as a stream-enterer. They merely say Sarakani drank alcohol (but does not state how often) but further say Sarakani had not only attained stream-entry prior to/at the time of his death but had fulfilled the training (i.e. probably given up alcohol) prior to his death. Obviously, sensing his impending death, Sarakani had realisation that resulted in the abandoning of craving, clinging & self-view.
@BarbarraBay7 жыл бұрын
Steam-entry is enlightenment. Unwavering faith/trust in the Dhamma can only arise from enlightenment. The Nakhasikha Sutta states the stream-enterer has extinguished the majority of (but not all) suffering. The end of MN 22 clearly distinguishes the stream-enterer from the dhamma-follower & faith follower. Stephen is wrongly making out the stream-enterer is a faith-follower.
@MiddlewaysocietyOrgMWS8 жыл бұрын
Thanks to Susan and Barry for producing this podcast, and I’m also grateful for Stephen’s encouraging words about the society towards the end. I haven’t yet had chance to read Stephen’s book, which is being issued much later in the UK than the US, but I did want to comment on Stephen’s arguments at the beginning about the need to ground his approach in Buddhist texts. Obviously I disagree with him on this point. As he argues it here, at least, Stephen seems to be relying on a set of false dichotomies between full reliance on one tradition, on the one hand, and a failure to acknowledge the role of tradition, on the other. He talks about Western individualism and the idea of ‘floating free’ of tradition as a ‘monad’, but freeing oneself from allegiance to tradition in no way requires that one adopts this opposing set of negative dogmas about tradition. We are obviously socially and historically situated beings, and a failure to recognise how much we are influenced by traditions would involve a repression of an important aspect of the conditions shaping us. Personally, I try to acknowledge my debt to traditions, including the Buddhist tradition, and also acknowledge the degree of inspiration I can get from traditional sources. But such an acknowledgement can be clearly separated from committing oneself to a particular tradition - which is what I have personally ceased to do since resigning from the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2008. I think Stephen is failing to acknowledge some of the negative effects, or at least dangers, of remaining committed to a particular tradition, and particularly of trying to justify one’s position in terms of a particular traditional set of texts, whilst trying to practise the Middle Way. One such danger is, ironically, a failure to acknowledge one’s debt to tradition - in this case, to traditions other than Buddhist tradition. Time and again in the Triratna Buddhist context I have come across very useful ideas and practices that are basically applications of Western psychology dressed up as Buddhism. It is insisted that this is ‘the Dharma’, but the tradition that formed it, historically speaking, is often scientific and psychological. At the same time science is often identified with ‘materialism’ so that it can be distanced, and its critical investigation of Buddhist claims not engaged with. This is just an example of how easily the scientific tradition to which we are so indebted can be sidelined - and the same can be said of western traditions of democracy, liberalism and toleration. without which Buddhism would not even be available in the West. Personally I was also brought up in a Christian household, and my cultural traditions are more deeply Christian rather than Buddhist. My experience of trying to be a Buddhist was often one of deracination: for example, my relationship to the symbolism of Buddhist art, even after studying it and trying visualisation practices, is very superficial compared to my intuitive relationship with Western Christian art. Usually I find that allegiance to one tradition involves to some degree denying one’s conditioning by other traditions - and the state of modernity, whether we like it or not, is that of multiple traditions. To appeal to a particular text that is given a particular status because of its role in tradition (rather than just because of its content) also seems to involve at least an implicit absolutisation of tradition, which constantly undermines the practice of the Middle Way itself. Western Buddhists tend to deny that they give the Pali Canon or other texts absolute status: but simply by giving one source so much attention solely on the basis of its authority they often neglect other sources, and set themselves up for confirmation bias. The effect of this is a repression of other sources, and a tendency to see the justification of the text in absolute rather than incremental terms. They are apparently determined to find the doctrines in the traditional texts, and thus often seem blind to ways in which the texts may be actually promoting the opposite. There is plenty of stuff in the Pali Canon that seems to be just dogma - e.g. concerning karma and rebirth. In the end one can only come back to one’s practical reasons for being inspired or instructed by a particular text, and I don’t see how one can practise the Middle Way in other ways whilst not applying it to one’s sources of information. Overwhelmingly, also, I think the use of traditional texts is a matter of how one chooses to dispose one’s energy. I see enormous amounts of energy being devoted by Stephen and other Buddhists to defending one view of the texts rather than another. This is the ‘scholarly quagmire’ that I have often commented on in the past: once a scholarly interpretation becomes invested with value, it easily becomes an end in itself. This also becomes a source of division and unnecessary conflict, and I ended up rather regretting my own recent attempt to engage in that territory by promoting Christopher Beckwith’s work, because it tended to produce polarised discussions. At the same time the people who invest their energies in scholarly debates about texts are often failing to investigate and interpret newer material that is of much more practical relevance. Such material is now proliferating. Stephen seems to be a case in point. He indirectly mentions provisionality in the interview, for example, but does not tell us anything more about what he thinks it means, how it relates to psychology, or what practical issues we may encounter in trying to put it into action. He supports the avoidance of metaphysics, but I’ve yet to hear his account of exactly what he thinks metaphysics is and how we go about avoiding it. I hope these things will be in his book, but somehow I doubt that they will be given anything like the space they deserve. Robert M Ellis, chair of the Middle Way Society
@lnbartstudio27138 жыл бұрын
+The Middle Way Society
@truthseeker77593 жыл бұрын
@@lnbartstudio2713 Yes, I concur. I myself think Steven has to create his own "Batchelorism", without any borrowed concepts from Buddhist teachings. I would have thought he has already created his own dogma by now as he has been preaching his version to Buddhist communities in the west. Yet it seems he still linger around the Old Fashioned Buddha Dhamma, whatever that may be. I myself come from strict Christian evangelical household. Started my questioning in my early teens and by 19 I have left, all on theological reasons. Found solace in the Dhamma, and does not mean I am right. Further I do not call myself as a Buddhist either, yes I have seen the practices in the so called Buddhist countries and societies and distance myself from them. Metta to all [not the Batchelorism]
@BarbarraBay7 жыл бұрын
Christianity is a religion composed in metaphorical language. It cannot be compared to original Pali Buddhism, which was spoken in straightforward literal language. The key to comprehending the Pali suttas is the language & terms used.
@truth83073 жыл бұрын
They are different. Buddhism is meant to be understood, practised and experienced. Christianity is simply blind faith and belief but of course found to be illogical and fake since some of the Bible's mythologies are directly copied from Hinduism.
@truth83073 жыл бұрын
I don't trust this Butchelor after hearing several of his talks and knowing his history and his Bodhi College website. He don't really believe the Buddha's teachings or know much about Buddhism. The Buddha's teachings are never filled with "might, maybe or perhaps". The Buddha's teachings are all clear and specific. Butchelor even misquoted the 4 Noble Truths as 4 tasks. He is just trying to make money using Buddhism, I discovered it from his Bodhi College website after registeration for a bogus course.
@BuddhaBlurbs8 жыл бұрын
Although i'm a big fan of Stephen Batchelor , to call him a Buddhist scholar is untenable..
@MiddlewaysocietyOrgMWS8 жыл бұрын
+Lobsang Nyima That sounds like a pretty narrow-minded comment. He's a Buddhist, and he studies and writes overwhelmingly about Buddhist tradition, referring to Buddhist sources - which makes him a Buddhist scholar. Presumably you have some narrower partisan definition of 'Buddhist scholar' in mind?
@BuddhaBlurbs8 жыл бұрын
First off he's not a Buddhist ..He has rejected some of the foundation teachings of Buddhism .. Second he long ago dropped out of monastic training early.. When he quit his studies he was studying what 13yr olds debate about in Gelug monasteries .. His "theories" if you could call them that would be laughed at on the debate ground he would look like an imbecile ... Still as a voice for secularists who like mediation , can't keep strict morality , or handle or have the disposition to formally become a Buddhist he is a good figure to rally around ..
@MiddlewaysocietyOrgMWS8 жыл бұрын
+Lobsang Nyima 'Buddhism' is a contested term about which there are many views, not just the one you have been instructed in, in whatever school you belong to. If your idea of 'Buddhism' involves traditional authority as your apparently sole basis of judgement, and this inspires you only to make patronising comments about people who are practising with great integrity and thinking for themselves, then you can keep your 'Buddhism'. In the Middle Way Society we don't claim to be Buddhist in order to avoid these kinds of foolish attitudes, and though individual Buddhists are welcome to join us it would be on the understanding that they put the Middle Way before appeals to tradition. We're only interested in what is helpful in universal terms. The Buddha's teachings offer many insights, but I don't think restrictive and prejudiced views of who is or isn't a 'Buddhist' are amongst them.
@BuddhaBlurbs8 жыл бұрын
in Shakyamuni's time there were clear cut distinctions between Buddhist practitioners and non Buddhist -practitioners i.e . people who held wrong views.. To state that you don't accept karma and reincarnation is to reject one of the central Buddhist beliefs , not to mention not having refuge in the Three Jewels , which he clearly doesn't have .. Then you're not a Buddhist this a Pan Buddhist belief and not only a Mahayana , or MuaSarvastivadan thing .. I mean no one is gonna behead you like the Muslims going around proclaiming your a Buddhist when your not , they'll just laugh at you..I'd like to see him write a book about how Mohamed is not the prophet of Allah... See what his life expectancy is .. Buddhism is an easy religion to both denigrate , and profit from because there's not consequences ..
@picoverde8 жыл бұрын
+Lobsang Nyima May I ask in what way are you a big fan of Stephen Batchelor?