[MD] Asma Preface

[MarshaV]

John,

Ohhhhh, okay.  From these quotes, the book is looking better.  I really
don't know much about Buddhism as a religion, and the little I know of the
philosophy makes me a no-nothing.  


Marsha
 





-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of John Carl
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:24 AM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Asma Preface

Ok Marsha,
Fair enough.  It was one snippet, out of context.

But his preface was titled, "On Buddhism and Academics".  How could I
resist?

As to authority... its a tricky concept in Buddhism, eh?  Teaching the
Philosophy of Buddhism at the doctorate level is probably about as good as
it gets, authority-wise.

I'll "give him one more shot" with the beginning of his essay.  It caught my
attention with its Pirsigian attack on Anthropology.

"On the one hand, the popularity of Eastern ideas has done much to actually
obscure Eastern ideas by watering them down or forcing a Procrustean fit
with Western values.   On the other hand, the academic study of religious
cultures has, since the days of Emile Durkhiem,, focused entirely on
observable rituals and left the internal beliefs and philosophies of
religious traditions out of the picture altogether.  For one thing, those
internal beliefs were not "observable" and thus fell outside the domain of
positivist science.  Furthermore, social science deemed that the most
important thing about religion was it power to create social cohesion
through us-them group mechanisms.  This is undoubtedly an important
function, but not the whole picture.

After the founding fathers of sociology built the frame of inquiry, God fell
out of the picture of religion entirely.  The problem is that internal
religious beliefs are neither objects nor behaviors, and so , because of a
methodological problem, the very essence of religion has disappeared from
the study of religious cultures.

And don't hold your breath for the contemporary humanities to come to the
rescue and return gods to their central place in the study of cultures.
 Alas, they are too busy trying to deconstruct the representational
discourses that gather together difference of the fissures and marginalia of
the horizon of being such that the "other" is met with, in  its "othering
capacity", in order to manifest the hegemonic post-structuralist,
postcolonial logo-phallo-centricism.

And I guess they can just get back to us when that's all settled."


"Buddhism is one of those religions that has an elaborate philosophical
tradition.  And unlike Christianity wherein church doctors like Aquinas
muddied the waters a thousand years after the simple message of Jesus, the
logical arguments of Buddhism come straight fromt the Buddha's mouth.
 Unfortunately, I have met many social scientists studying Buddhism in the
field who have never studied any textual Buddhism."

The opposite of "armchair anthropologists" eh?

"Years ago, Anthropology was all philosophy and no observation, but now it
is all observation and no philosophy.  My goal in this  book is to steer the
middle way."




On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 10:44 PM, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:

>
> John,
>
> What makes Stephen Asma an authority on American Buddhism?  I do not find
> these few paragraphs of generalization and opinion valuable.  Offer Asma
> another shot.
>
>
> Marsha
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
> [mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of John Carl
> Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 9:05 PM
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: [MD] Asma Preface
>
> >From the Preface to, Gods Drink Whiskey, by Stephen Asma
>
> "Consequently, Eastern ideas in the West float about like little
> self-esteem
> life-preservers-- clung to by desperately disintegrating personalities.
>  American Buddhists frequently go no further than, "This is what Buddhism
> means to *me*."  Never detecting the narcissism in this approach and never
> bothering to try and understand Buddhism on its own terms.
> The result is that mainstream sensible Americans have a skewed perception
> of
> Buddhism because the local ambassadors of these ideas are notoriously
> spooky.  Buddhism has become just one more self-improvement gimmick among
> the designer-water-drinking set.  Perhaps this was inevitable when the
form
> of Buddhism that entered America during the counter-culture years was Zen.
>  Zen, which I also love, is the hyper-puritan descendant of Buddhism--the
> neurotic cousin that's always disinfecting the furniture and showering off
> the impurities.  It's so vigilant about eliminating dogma and anything
> outside of pristine meditation practice that it no longer bears any
> resemblance to Buddhism (except for its connection to the "mindfulness
> discussion in the Buddha's Mahasatipatthana Sutta).
>
> This is not really a criticism of Zen.  But my humble observation is that
> American dharma has evolved into its rather narcissistic form because Zen
> introduced Buddhism as a simple concentration practice and nothing more.
>  Americans adopted the meditation idea, but left behind the austere
> discipline of Zen and the cultural context.  This neutered Zen.  Buddhism
> has no baggage whatsoever, so Americans felt that they could drape it over
> whatever beliefs they already enjoyed.  That seems like a virtue at first
> ("Look, I'm a Christina AND a Buddhist") but it lulled Americans into
> thinking that Buddhism is the Silly Putty of Religions -- infinitely
> malleable and conveniently fashionable.  Buddhism becomes another
> accessory.
>  Living in Southeast Asia, however, rids you of this confusion very
> quickly.
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