[MD] Thoughts on Nihilism

[Matt Kundert]

> I know the passage, but the Vedic tradition as it was being 
> taught when he was studying in India may  be very different 
> than Buddhism.  I do not remember him mentioning 
> nihilism in those passages.  The concern seemed to have 
> more to do with irrationality of what was being presented.

A term does not have to be used by a person for another 
person to usefully apply that term.

> Matt seemed to have dismantled his statement, so it is not 
> an issue.  Personally, I do not find Buddhism nihilistic, but 
> I am not a Buddhist. nor a Buddhist scholar.  

Did I?  Hunh.  Well, at any rate, recurring to the "personal 
sense" is about right, because it isn't about the correct 
appreciation of what Buddhist scholars are currently 
explicating the true meaning of Buddhism as (just as our 
appreciation of how Platonism has screwed up the West 
doesn't often have to do with what Platonic scholars are 
currently explicating as the true meaning of Plato's texts, 
nor what theologians are doing for Christ), but rather a 
broad-brush cost-benefit analysis of certain tacts taken 
on really abstract questions.  I think Steve offered a pretty 
good cost-benefit analysis of a common denominator that 
holds for a lot of what has gone under the mantle of 
Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Platonism, 
Existentialism, and Enlightenment secularism, though part 
of the success of that analysis banks on the fact that it is 
after _extraneous_ pieces of traditions, not what is 
essential to them.  (Even Platonism.)  It wouldn't be 
surprising for a person who is already non-nihilisitic in the 
sense Steve uses the term to _not_ sense nihilism in the 
traditions they positively appreciate.  (Though it would be 
surprising, given Steve's use of the term, if we were all of 
the time perfectly non-nihilistic.)

Matt
 		 	   		  
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