Heraclitus
πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει.
Everything flows and nothing stays.
Everything flows and nothing stays.
Heraclitus quoted in Plato. Cratylus. 402a. Perseus Digital Library.
[translation Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations]
[translation Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations]
IT CAN SOMETIMES SEEM that Buddhists take the great insight of the Buddha to be that "everything changes". It can sometimes seem that "everything changes" is equated with paṭicca-samuppāda. While it is certainly true that everything changes, I think we Buddhists are often wrong in the way we present change. In particular we present this idea that everything changes are some kind of revelation from the exotic East, previously unknown to the mundane West. But the fact that everything changes is actually passé in the West, at least as old in our intellectual history as in Indian. So here I want to present a few quotes on the subject from pre-Buddhist Europe:
Nothing endures but change. Heraclitus (540 BC – 480 BC), from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers.
What can we take on trust in this uncertain life? Happiness, greatness, pride—nothing is secure, nothing keeps. Euripides, Hecuba.
Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 AD - 180 AD),
ὁ κόσμος ἀλλοίωσις, ὁ βίος ὑπόληψις. The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, V, 3.
I have never come across any credible suggestion that these Greek and Roman thinkers were influenced by Buddhism, and indeed Heraclitus most likely predates the Buddha. And yet some of these observations are indistinguishable from the phrases repeated by Buddhists as representing our most profound wisdom. I want to take this a little further by quoting a paragraph from David Sedley's stimulating commentary on Plato's Cratylus Dialogue—here he is actually talking about the Timaeus Dialogue:
According to the Timaeus, the sensible world is gignomenon, something which constantly 'becomes' but never 'is'. It is therefore not an object of knowledge, on the Platonic principle that the contents of knowledge should not, even in theory, admit of being falsified at a later date: items of knowledge are permanent possessions, not subject to revision; their objects must therefore be entities incapable of change, that is primarily at least, the Forms. The sensible world is, by contrast, the domain of opinion, doxa, which shares the instability of it's objects and which, even if true now, can be falsified at any time. [Plato's Cratylus, Cambridge University Press, 2003; p.101]
A similar kind of distinction is made in Buddhism. Our views (dṛṣṭi) about experience are expressed as opinions on the world, and on reality. But with insight and wisdom we begin to see that what we comment on is merely perception which is subject to change even when the object being perceived does not change. However it is possible to see experience just as it is (yathābhūta) and this kind of insight has certain characteristics which do not change. The knowledge gained is called prajñā. I would see this in terms of knowledge about the underlying dynamics and processes of perception - it has no object as such, hence it is without condition (asaṃskṛta). And I see no hint that Sedley is in any way familiar with, let alone influenced by, Buddhism in his reading of Plato. So it seems that Platonists also see the world as something which is always 'becoming' but never 'is'.
I think this is sufficient to establish that "everything changes" is not an observation unique to Buddhism. There are two possibilities. Either the statement tells us that the Greeks were on the same wavelength as the Buddha; or the statements are both equally banal. And I suggest it is the latter. I don't think that observation that everything changes is very profound; or that the Greeks were awakened in the Buddhists sense; or that "everything changes" is what the Buddha was on about.
Hopefully this opinion doesn't come as a surprise. I've written a number of times that I do not think that paṭicca-samuppāda was intended to be a theory of everything. This is argued at length in my commentary on the Kaccānagotta Sutta, and summarised in my blog post: A General Theory of Conditionality? The theory paṭicca-samuppāda was intended to explain the arising of experience, and guide us towards insights into why we suffer, with suffering distinguished from painful sensations. It might be argued that this is an attempt to discover 'the original Buddhism' which I myself have described as folly, and criticised others for. However I think there are good doctrinal and methodological reasons for adopting this approach and these are set out in many previous blog posts, and longer essays.
I've gathered many quotes from Westerners who, as far as I know, were not aware of or influenced by Buddhism.
All things change, nothing is extinguished. There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature; the ages themselves glide by in constant movement. Ovid (BC 43-AD 18) Roman poet.
In human life there is constant change of fortune; and it is unreasonable to expect an exemption from the common fate. Life itself decays, and all things are daily changing. Plutarch (46-120) Greek essayist, and biographer.
The circumstances of the world are continually changing, and the opinions of men change also; and as government is for the living, and not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it. That which may be thought right and found convenient in one age, may be thought wrong and found inconvenient in another. In such cases, who is to decide, the living, or the dead? Thomas Paine
Today is not yesterday: we ourselves change; how can our works and thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same? Change, indeed is painful; yet ever needful; and if memory have its force and worth, so also has hope. - Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) British historian and essayist.
Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men. Matthew Arnold, A Question.
Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, novelist and dramatist.
We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) British political writer.
Change is inevitable. Change is constant. Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) British politician and author.
We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. William Somerset Maugham
When you're finished changing, you're finished. Benjamin Franklin
"Everything changes". Amongst Buddhists "everything changes" has become a cliché. But, so what? Awareness of it should, and does affect the way we choose to live, however I do not think it was the radical insight seen by the Buddha. I have tried to show in my essay on the Kaccānagotta Sutta that the idea of that everything changes was, from the Buddha's point of view, demonstrably false. With only his bare senses and mind he couldn't have imagined that gem stones for example changed imperceptibly over millions of years: they simply did not change. However our experience of everything is always changing, even when presented with an apparently unchanging object, and here we are closer to the mark.
28 comments:
More interesting stuff, Jayarava. There is, I think, a distinction to be made between the insight of the Buddha - or what we can infer from the texts - and the broader views of change that are found within the traditions of Buddhism. I am persuaded (although perhaps not entirely, but perhaps only because I am a bit out of touch with reading on the subject) by your claim about paṭicca-samuppāda being, as presented by the Buddha, about experience. But this is not how it is presented within a great deal of the Buddhist tradition.
So my questions are these. Firstly, can this broader sense of change (banal though it may be?) nevertheless do useful work for us? Because it seems that both Western and Eastern Buddhists have seemed to have found this broader claim to be useful and/or interesting. And secondly, what are the limits of this usefulness? This second question may then relate to the other claims that are made - foreign perhaps to many of the sources you quote (Ovid etc.) - to a kind of insight that, as you put it 'has certain characteristics that do not change'.
Indeed: everything changes; whoever would have thought otherwise?
That sounds like a rhetorical question, but there is a significant answer. The answer is: the Greek Eleatics.
These included Parmenides and Zeno. (Zeno, famously, proved that nothing can move, via an infinite regress argument.) Although the idea that nothing changes now seems idiotic, it was highly influential at one time.
Interestingly, nothing-changes eternalism is closely coupled to All-Is-One monism, which remains catastrophically influential. Plato's few eternal Ideals, interposed between The One and the apparent world, are an attempt to reconcile Paramenides (nothing ever changes, All Is One) and empiricists such as Heraclitus and Democritus (everything constantly changes, reality is endlessly diverse).
Thomas McEvilley's brilliant (albeit problematic) The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies argues persuasively (to me at least) that these monist-eternalist Eleatic ideas, and their refutations, heavily influenced Buddhist philosophy. For instance, he points out extensive parallels between Sextus Empiricus and Nagarjuna that just cannot be coincidence.
Much of Buddhist philosophy consists of refutations of philosophical schools (Greek, Indian, Chinese, ...) that have been dead for nearly two millennia, and to whose main beliefs no one would now give a second thought.
What is annoying is the way modern Buddhists trot out these refutations as though they were somehow profound truths we need to admire and worship, even though (out of context) they no longer make any sense at all.
Hi Will
The idea that the Buddha was talking about experience is compelling on many levels (it makes sense, it feels right, and it is concordant with experience), and what's more it's rapidly gaining momentum amongst the scholarly community.
The suggestion that "everything changes" is banal was conscious hyperbole. Of course it is significant, but I think Buddhists need to realise that it wasn't what the Buddha was talking about - if the Pāli texts are any guide. Though once I started thinking this way it became clear that as a hermeneutic it resolves many of the apparent paradoxes of traditional Buddhism, particularly around the issue of 'reality', and 'existence/non-existence'.
There are one or two metaphors drawn from nature which illustrate the idea that experience is constantly changing, but so far as I can tell the metaphorical arrow always points in that direction.
I think some people find it useful to observe change in the world. But it kind of assumes that one is seeing something change independent of the mind, and that seems to be on the wrong track. Observing change requires some kind of reference point. Looking outside of our perceptual process allows us to forget that we supply the reference point. Looking at the mind, one more easily sees that the reference point - 'I' - is virtual not real. That seems to me to go to the heart of the matter. "I" - in the sense of my first person perspective - arises in dependence on conditions (specifically sense faculty and sense object). I think this is why Buddhism treats mental objects as simply another kind of object.
There is a general line of development away from dharma as experience, to dharma as reality in early Buddhist thinking. Noa Ronkin tracks this process to some extent in her book "Early Buddhist Metaphysics". I want to write more about this as I think it was a disaster for Buddhism, and because Ronkin is one of the more impenetrable authors I've come across recently!
I can't say what the limits of usefulness of the experience hermeneutic are. But so far I am not aware of any. I think someone with a much more intensive practice might be in a better position to say. I try to stay in dialogue with people who meditate a lot. Perhaps something will emerge from these discussions. But in terms of theoretical limitations I don't see any. But the I'm not necessarily looking for limitations yet - I'm still re-reading all of Buddhism to see if my hermeneutic is even applicable. So far so good.
Hi David
Nāgarjuna is about 500 years after the period of Buddhist thought that interests me. I know very little about him except that the only text he cites by name in the Kārikā is the Kaccānagotta Sutta which I have translated and written a lengthy commentary on. He seems to have retained the essential point of that text, but to have had to negotiate the disaster created by the Abhidharma reification of dharmas. I lose interest before that period of reification, and after Nāgarjuna Buddhist philosophy just seems bonkers to me. Though I do enjoy reading Kūkai's 9th century thoughts on Tantra for some strange reason.
I plan to argue in future that the Abhidharma was an appalling mistake, and that we need to get back to dharmas being neither real nor unreal, but arising in dependence on contact between sense object and sense faculty. Poor old Nāgarjuna was not in a position to do that, and his śūnyatā fudge was a brilliant solution. But unnecessary if we are not sentimental about the Abhidharma. And I'm not.
I agree that refuting ideas that no one believes in is pointless. It amounts to intellectual masturbation.
The whole thing about people being either nihilists or eternalists seems to obscure the problem of people being affected by, say, Romanticism or Protestantism. We need to wake up and smell the coffee and stop assuming that the ancient Buddhist texts anticipated every development in the future.
Some of us have to start thinking about things afresh. Even if we get it wrong, at least we're thinking about it rather than carrying out some grisly intellectual necrophilia.
I'm very interested in the way that the Buddha was in dialogue with the people of his day. However I don't think we are yet clear about who those people were, or what they really thought. I've been surveying what Brahmins in the Canon look and sound like in religious terms - allowing for the pejorative and unfriendly nature of Buddhist writing about other religions. I don't think we've yet grasped who the Brahmins were at that time, or what they believed, or how they interacted with Buddhists. Working on a publishable article - thinking of offering it to the new Oxford Journal of Buddhist Studies. Watch this space!
BTW The way you describe Plato as a synthesiser reminds me of the dilemma Kant faced with Hume's denial of causality etc, vs Newton's highly successful empiricism.
Cheers
Jayarava
It's great to hear you denouncing Abhidharma. It never made any sense at all to me. I have sort of wondered whether I was missing something important and maybe there's some commentary that would reinterpret it in a way that makes sense. (That has happened with some Buddhist doctrines.) But it seemed unlikely enough that I haven't pursued it. A self-contained critique and dismissal could be a really useful thing.
Your work on figuring out what the Canon is reacting to is very interesting. I find that philosophical ideas generally make much better sense once you know that context. I hope you do publish this!
Excellent challenges to Buddhist aphroistic plabum. Oh how fast we try comfort ourselves with quick overreaching summaries of the world:
(1) Everything has a Cause
(2) Everything Changes (here are some funny pics -- scroll down to the one saying: "Change is inevitable, Deal with it!")
Two little questions:
It was fun reading Bhikkhu Bodhi and your translation of the Kaccānagotta Sutta side-by-side. Curious: What does the "gotta" in Kaccānagotta mean? In the second sentence, the name used is Kaccānagotta, then in the second paragraph it is truncated to "Kaccāna". For that matter, what does "Kaccāna" mean. I wonder if this dialogue was construed by the writer(s) of the Sutta and that they may have made up the name of the characters in this fiction to match the intended message(s).
You linked to a PDF of your "Is P_S a Theory of Everything?". Was that published somewhere? Amazing work -- I am curious if there will be a compilations of Jayarava's Bests in the future? Smile
Jayarava said in his comment: "Some of us have to start thinking about things afresh. Even if we get it wrong, at least we're thinking about it rather than carrying out some grisly intellectual necrophilia. "
That cracked me up! How true. A good criticism of traditionalism. And fascinating how those outside of Buddhism offer some of the best aid in these endevours (looking at your recommended reading): Gombrich, Metzinger, Damasio etc. It seems that transcending Buddhism is the best thing for Buddhism.
Hi Sabio
"gotta" is Sanskrit gotra (literally "cow-protector"). It refers to the clan names amongst Brahmins. So kaccānagotta means 'of the kaccāna clan'. Kaccāna (sometimes kaccāyana) in Sanskrit is Kātyāyana which means a descendent of Kati. Kati was the author of a number of important Vedic texts.
I have previously mentioned that Gautama is also a Brahmin gotra name, and one of considerable prestige in the Brahmin world: What was the Buddha's Name?.
You will have got my take on the sutta be reading my commentary. However it would be possible to argue that since Kaccāna is a Brahmin that he might have believed something about existence and non-existence. What we find in the early Upaniṣads is speculation on whether the world came into being from nothing or something. It would fashionable to argue that Kaccāna represents one or other these views, or perhaps wanted to ask the Buddha's opinion on both of them. But this would be going beyond the data and into the realms of speculation.
While looking things up for this I discovered a translation of the Chinese version of the Kātyāyana Sūtra.
It's a while since I looked at Bodhi's translation. Once I get interested in a text and feel I understand the Pāli, I tend to lose in other people's translations.
My Essay on the Kaccānagotta Sutta has not been published. I was told by an academic friend that it would be unlikely to meet the standards of an academic journal. I plan to put it in a book with other essays on Dependent Arising and publish it myself. Meanwhile it's on the web, and circulating amongst members of my Order.
Hi again Sabio
I'm not suggesting that we need to transcend Buddhism, I'm not even sure what that would mean.
My main point these days is that we need to think more clearly about the context and history of Buddhist ideas. I believe this will help to iron out evolved differences and contradictions by identifying the principles underlying the Buddhist program: i.e. indifference to metaphysics.
My reading is that we should leave metaphysics people with more time than sense, physics to physicists, and ourselves get on with the business of understanding how we create misery through our abreactions to pleasure.
In other words, unlike Glenn Wallis et al, I am not saying we need to get rid of Buddhism. I'm advocating a back to basics approach, and part of this is identifying where our ideas come from. We need to look critically at our traditions. I'm much more free to do this in the Triratna Order than any traditional Buddhist is, since we were founded as a distinct break from tradition in the first place. So I can be a Buddhist, in a Buddhist Order, and pursue this inquiry quite comfortably.
I think this inability to see any alternative between individualism and being a slave to group norms is one of the great weaknesses of people advocating so-called secular Buddhism. C.f. my essay on sobornost.
It is true that I tend not to read Buddhist authors talking *about* Buddhism so much these days, but I hope to become a bridge to help Buddhists connect with the kind of critical thinking amongst academics that I highlight. Non-Buddhists don't have a vested interest in maintaining orthodoxy in Buddhism, so they have been very helpful to us.
For practice, I think it is better to go to people rather than books, and I am lucky to have a number of friends and colleagues I can turn to for mentoring in this area. I would far rather talk to a meditator than read a book on meditation!
@ Jayarava
When you said,
"So kaccānagotta means 'of the kaccāna clan'."
Did you mean to write:
So kaccānagotta means 'kaccana of the gotta clan'.
Or
'gotta of the kaccāna clan'.
Sabio
Sorry if that wasn't clear: I am translating gotra as 'clan'. It's not exact, but you get the idea.
Our man is a member of the Kātyāyana Clan, and we don't know his personal name. This happens a lot with Brahmins.
The name Kātyāyanagotra (Pāli Kaccānagotta) is therefore a bāhuvrīhi compound meaning "he who's gotra is Kātyāyana."
Got it now?
I think this inability to see any alternative between individualism and being a slave to group norms is one of the great weaknesses of people advocating so-called secular Buddhism.
Interesting—this was exactly my reaction to the recent comment thread on Glenn Wallis's Flinching piece, in which you both participated.
I may be misinterpreting him, but it seems that he's trying to throw off all prior thought, to start afresh from first principles. This is a natural response to disillusionment, but it's actually impossible. It's the modernist, individualist pipe-dream—to find new foundations that are transcendently valid.
But we are always, inevitably, enmeshed in intellectual traditions which are, actually, our only resources for making sense. We can (and should) challenge aspects of tradition, but there is no place to stand that would allow us to start over from scratch. Attempts to do that always only wind up recycling some existing idea without recognizing that's what they're doing.
More generally, we should be constantly skeptical of culture and society, but we also have to constantly honor them as indispensable. We can't return to a state of nature and construct a new order. Likewise, we can't do anything useful with Buddhism unless we have some sort of relationship to the Three Jewels.
(It would probably be more proper to post this over on Glenn's blog, but I am not sure I want to dive into the conversation there.)
Hi David
Yes. I'm quite ambivalent about Glenn, if only because I don't understand half the things he says and because I'm really not sure what his agenda is. (which I have said on his blog).
When I started getting involved in the Triratna Movement we talked a lot about identifying and overcoming our "conditioning". There was an informal practice called "Therapeutic Blasphemy" - one deliberately blasphemes in order to get something out of one's system. It can be a relief to curse God and find that not only are there no dire consequences, but that one is happier (or at least less miserable) as a result. Maybe this is part of what drives secular Buddhists? It's therapeutic blasphemy against Buddhist orthodoxy.
Having never been part of a traditional Buddhist movement, or even had much to do with organised Christianity, I'm relatively free of hangups about religion. I don't have a personal relationship with Buddhist orthodoxy, except through ancient history. Having never been an academic I am relatively free of those hangups as well.
What I say is not really perceived as radical by my peers - interesting, thought-provoking perhaps, but not radical. This is because we've all already committed ourselves to a non-traditional form of Buddhism. Criticising tradition is our team sport. Sangharakshita was breaking with and criticising tradition, and pursuing an ecumenical Buddhism before I was even born! It used to make him very unpopular - several vendettas survived the death of their authors (Maurice Walsh for one!). Now it's fashionable. Go figure.
That said we don't want or need to reinvent the wheel even though we may redesign the chariot and resurface the road!
I'd say we are emeshed in cultural traditions and/or systems of values that are not only (or even) intellectual. The search for transcendent values, intellectual paradigms, forms of language, experiences etc goes on after 10,000 years. No luck yet, eh.
I understand that personal happiness is best sought in the service of something greater than myself. I aim to serve the Triratna Order. I don't see how the individualistic streak in secular Buddhist circles is a good thing. As Dylan said "you gotta serve somebody." Who or What do they serve? If anyone says "Truth" I shall be sick.
One of Sangharakshita's great contributions IMHO is his identifying the nature of our relationship with the three jewels (or three precious gifts as I prefer to translate triratna). It is only in going for refuge to the three precious gifts that is common to all forms of Buddhism, and what makes us a Buddhist. This is far from prescriptive, as it can take many forms. What I have in common with other Buddhists is going for refuge, and the details of practice and opinion are very much secondary to this. I able to see more or less all forms of Buddhist practice as essentially valid. But there is a line, and as you say it is in the nature of our relationship to the three precious gifts.
Cheers
Jayarava
@ Jayarava
Gotcha about "gotta" -- thank you. That cleared it up.
I loved the etymology story of gotra in you "What was the Buddha's name" post concerning the cows coming home. Thanks.
It seems that the signal in the text, then, was such that to the reader it said, "Then a Brahmin approached the Blessed One ...."
Something that is missing both in your and Bodhi's translation. The English reader would need footnotes to get that, possibly, important connotation that is obvious in the text.
Concerning "transcending Buddhism", I was using that in a Koan-like sense. Yeah, I know, whatever that means. I was using it as a phrase to inspire an attitude, but we differ, due to our investments, in how far we may wish influences to go.
But I did not understand the first part of this paragraph you wrote:
"My reading is that we should leave metaphysics people with more time than sense, physics to physicists, and ourselves get on with the business of understanding how we create misery through our abreactions to pleasure."
Hi Sabio
Yes, but don't forget that the Buddha also had a Brahmin clan name. This tells us that names are unreliable guides to social class in the Pāli texts.
I'm no closer to understanding what you meant by transcending Buddhism.
I mean that metaphysical speculations are a waste of time: indulged in by people with time to waste, and lacking judgement about how to use their time.
New post in 5 minutes!
Thanx, Jayarava, gottcha.
Hello Jayarava and meaningness,
Just a couple points of clarification.
I am not interested in getting "rid of Buddhism;" I am interested in destroying it. Think Heidegger's Destruktion:
"When tradition thus becomes master, it does so in such a way that what it 'transmits' is made so inaccessible, proximally and for the most part, that it rather becomes concealed. Tradition takes what has come down to us and delivers it over to self-evidence; it blocks our access to those primordial 'sources' from which the categories and concepts handed down to us have been in part quite genuinely drawn. Indeed it makes us forget that they have had such an origin, and makes us suppose that the necessity of going back to these sources is something which we need not even understand."
I mean as destruction: unblocking tradition's obstruction to access to its (auto-posited) primordial sources.
To meaningness, who wrote, "I may be misinterpreting him, but it seems that he's trying to throw off all prior thought, to start afresh from first principles. This is a natural response to disillusionment, but it's actually impossible. It's the modernist, individualist pipe-dream—to find new foundations that are transcendently valid."
You could not have misunderstood me any more thoroughly than you have, if this comment is any indication. To take all of that time and care in articulating my perspective and to have a reader get it completely ass backwards--just fucking amazing.
Back to Jayarava, who says, "I don't understand half the things he says," and "not sure what his agenda is."
Could I be any clearer about agenda (destruction, etc.)? About difficulty: What I say renders Buddhism uninterpretable to itself. And one of my premises is that non-Buddhism cannot possibly make sense to someone who is beholden to buddhistic decision. "Being Buddhist" requires a hyper-reflexivity that hides conceptual grammar (much like fluency in a language hides linguistic grammar).
Glenn
Hmm. I'm sympathetic to destruction. But we've had more than a hundred years of Buddhist modernism, including explicit anti-traditionalism, already. For instance, the Japanese New Buddhism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was about "abolishing Buddhism and destroying Shakyamuni" (in their own words). Those guys were smart and philosophically sophisticated. They did the job.
Maybe there's more details to work out, more hidden assumptions to uncover, more history to unravel. I do some of that work. But maybe the destruction has been done about thoroughly enough by now.
There's a real danger of the tar-baby effect: fighting tradition just gets you more stuck to it. Modernism defines itself by contrast with tradition, and so is forced into its mirror-image.
For me, the interesting question is what happens when we reject both tradition and modernism.
If we aren't trying to annihilate tradition, we can wander through its ruins, appreciating its alien statuary, and collecting its clever steampunk machinery to put to our current non-traditional uses.
Hi Glenn,
More jargon laden writing that I have no reference points for, and simply don't understand (half the time). I'm not in the least surprised that people misunderstand what you write. What surprises me is that you expect to be understood!
Just one example from your incomprehensible last sentence: what the fuck is "hyper-reflexivity"?
Regards
Jayarava
PS Don't berate my readers, that's my job. ;-)
Jayarava,
I know the points raised about speculative non-Buddhism are peripheral, to say the lease, to your post, please permit me a few more words. First to meaningness:
meaningness, I would be willing to wager a fortune that you have not read me carefully, if at all. My project has nothing in common whatsoever with the “Buddhist modernist” project, with “fighting tradition,” with “defining” myself “in contrast with tradition,” in “rejecting” or “annihilating” Buddhism, or figuring out Buddhism’s “non-traditional uses.” When you say that the work of destruction has been done “about thoroughly enough by now,” I can only scratch my head and grunt. At this point, I have a hunch that in addition to your not having read me carefully enough to venture comment, you and I have utterly different understandings of the terms “Buddhist modernism” and “destruction.” About the former, I suspect you are getting your notions from McMahan. But I am getting mine from Heinz Bechert, with whom I worked for three years (I edited and translated some of his material on Buddhist modernism). Have you read Bechert? Does Mcmahan mention that Bechert coined the term and articulated the meaning of “Buddhist modernism”? About destruction, well, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the sense that those Japanese scholars you mention intended it. For me, Heidegger is a good place to start.
Jayarava, one community’s “jargon” is another’s technical language or, indeed, koine. I am all but certain that the people misunderstand me because they haven’t taken the time and made the effort necessary to do so. (I see you dealing with this issue all the time in responding to comments to your posts.) And of course I expect to be understand—but not by Buddhists, for they are blinded by the decisional cognitive and affective apparatus.
The term "hyper-reflexivity" relates to decision. It has to do with the Buddhist’s habitual reaching for Buddhist concepts, models, explanations, etc., of mind, life, the person, and so on. The gloss on language should have made it clear that I see a parallel between conceptual “grammar” and linguistic grammar. I don’t see what’s so difficult about it. But I will start spelling it out more on the blog.
peace,
Glenn
Hi Glenn
Yes. I understand what a jargon is, I've been familiar with a number of them over time; and what I mainly do is explain and critique Buddhist jargon terms and the ideas they attempt to sum up.
You are right that I have not taken the time to explore your jargon - in fact I would hardly know where to begin. I suspect even an undergraduate degree in philosophy would scarcely prepare me.
Are you a fan of Frank Zappa by any chance? FZ would often perform very difficult and challenging music from outside the rock/pop genre, but he had this idea that as long as you gave people something familiar to latch onto you could take them with you. He called this idea "conceptual continuity". So in the middle of a Stravinsky-esque poly-rhythmic highly chromatic piece would be a theme reminiscent of 50's doowop, or a texture taken from a sci-fi B movie, or a lyric phrase from an earlier work. As long as there was a glimmer of recognition, his fans would follow.
What happens when I read your stuff is that I can't see what the jargon means (and no hyper-reflexivity is still not clear to me) and I don't have a sense of why it might be important for me to know. I don't think you provide conceptual continuity for me, so I assume that you are not talking to me - it's just a conversation going on in public over my head that I eavesdrop on. Given other things you've said, and you relentless use of jargon, I assume that you are not that interested in talking to me - though here you are... I'll come back to this point.
If in order to understand you I have to read and understand Wittgenstein or Heidegger from scratch then you're going to have to give me a powerful motivation to do so, because everything I've heard so far tells me it would be a waste of my time, and my time is pretty limited.
I understand the desire to communicate without dumbing down. I don't always expect to be understood either - because I don't set out to write a popular Buddhist blog, but to record and analyse my own thoughts. I'm sure that my raves are often confusing for people. My best chance for being understood is to chose an interesting subject to shed more light on, or to make my obscure point in a way that motivates people to learn. I certainly don't want to be completely ignored or misunderstood - but I do want a conversation on my terms. I think you are similar in this, yes?
Now you say "I expect to be understand—but not by Buddhists..." [sic] but there you are getting splenic ("fucking amazing") because two Buddhists (Me and David) are saying/demonstrating that they do not understand, and here you are again trying to clarify things to the same two Buddhists. Your behaviour is at odds with your statement of belief. Yes?
I have to say that it doesn't bother me that much that I don't understand you. Once I realised that I'm not your intended audience I just relaxed about it. But I would insist that the main reason I don't understand you is not because I am a Buddhist; it is because of the jargon.
Peace
Jayarava
This interaction between Glenn, Jayarava and David has been fascinating! I thoroughly enjoy each of you and feel completely different personalities behind each of your words. Your writings all effect me differently but I can't put it in words.
Perhaps it is the sign of a weak mind. But I liken it to when I read two different economic writers who I know hold somewhat contrary views -- I can walk away from reading both feeling like I agree with much of their directions though I know they personally don't get along well on paper at all.
Here is my little, lay comment:
To me, each of your weaknesses is also the source and expression of our brilliant strengths:
Glenn -- it is his obscure language.
Jayarava -- it is his cutting analysis.
David -- it is his grandiose generalities.
Since I have so much to gain from all of you, I try to see through my mind's pronouncement of the negativity.
And...
Sabio -- it is his persistent inquisitiveness!
@ Jayarava
I'm laughing out of control !! Well said, mate. You put a huge smile on my face. Thank you.
Hi, Glenn,
Your project seems to be similar enough to mine that I would like to understand it better. I've read a fair chunk of your site, and found it interesting and sometimes enjoyable, but also frustrating.
I have read everything of Heidegger's and Foucault's that was available in English translation as of 1990, plus a goodly portion of Derrida, and a smattering of miscellaneous French and American critical theorists. With that, I can understand 70-80% of what you are saying. Another 20-30% passes me by.
Are you deliberately creating an technical idiolect? Or is that 20-30% drawn from another academic discourse that I'm unaware of? Or is my knowledge of critical theory jargon woesomely out of date?
Who are you writing for? If not for Buddhists, who else would care? If for Buddhists—there are probably very few who have read the sources you assume familiarity with, and thus few will understand you.
The fact that some of us are willing to struggle with your writing, despite that, indicates that your subject and view are inherently interesting. I'd encourage you to try to make it accessible.
Heavy-duty academic jargon is my natural language too. The drafts for my Buddhist writing are often in an impenetrable mixture of Tibetan terms, critical theory cant, and math/science/engineering metaphors. Relative clauses pile four levels deep. Bits of dead German philosophers are smeared over everything.
I think of my audience as sincere, reasonably intelligent Buddhists who have done maybe two years of college. So before publishing, I try to re-write everything to make it interesting and intelligible for them. That means no semicolons, few words with more than two syllables, no Heidegger, and as many silly jokes and pop-culture references as I can stuff in.
That's a hell of a lot of work. It slows me down hugely. Why bother?
Because I hope my ideas will actually be useful to many people. I could publish in critical theory journals—but why? No one reads that stuff who doesn't have to, and it's forgotten as soon as the ink dries.
Yes, McMahan is a major influence for me. I don't know Heinz Bechert's work. I've just done a quick Google, and I couldn't find anything substantial in English. (I don't read German.) Can you recommend a starting point? Thanks!
David
First of all, I second Jayarava on Sabio.
Sabio has called my writing "idiopathic jargon." I prefer to call it thrombocytopenic, but, hey, that's just me.
Question: do Buddhists own #@!!*& dictionaries?!!!!!!
Yes, David,I am attempting to create an idiolect. I will start explaining my terms on the blog. Unlike you and Jayarava, I am finished taking care to spell things out. I did that in earlier books and articles. Basta! Genug! By the way, if I may toot my own horn just once: I am one of the clearest, most jargon-free, most concise—and did I mention clearest—writers that any of you will ever encounter. It’s all right on the surface. So, I am superficial, too.
Who are my readers? As I say on the blog, I am hoping to reach six other people. That is enough to create a critical mass of work. For the sort of thing I have in mind, you can visit one of my reader’s new blog: http://derunbuddhist.wordpress.com.
These comments by Rainer (you might have to scroll down a bit) nail a good deal of what I am up to: http://www.existentialbuddhist.com/2011/09/about-speculative-non-buddhism/
I have no interest in Wittgenstein or Heidegger or philosophy or Buddhism or academia or critical theory or intellectual discourse. What is it then? Well, for anyone who cares to listen, the answer is in the Zappanistan feedback.
Jayarava, re: “clarifying things to Buddhists,” I am thinking about disappearing from the net. But for now, just a chime here and there when I get bored. Nothing more really. I work with Buddhists. I am among Buddhists of many varieties (Zen, Thai forest, Won, Goenka-vipassanis, and others) virtually every day of my life. I’m not sure why I mention that; but it is a strange feature of my life and work. It’s my habit, I guess, to try to clarify my view to Buddhists. Tomorrow, in fact, I have to meet with the head of a massive international Buddhist order and explain to him the trends toward secularization among Buddhists in the West.
David, Heinz Bechert’s good stuff is all in German. His work on Buddhist modernism—in which he created the very concept and terminology and performed the necessary sociological analysis (mainly in Southeast Asia)—is in a three-volume work titled: Buddhismus, Staat und Gesellschaft in den Ländern des Theravāda-Buddhismus. It is a masterpiece. I used to consider translating a condensed version of it; but that ship has gone over the horizon. Doesn’t McMahan discuss Bechert?
peace, my friends,
Glenn
First of all, I second Jayarava on Sabio.
Sabio has called my writing "idiopathic jargon." I prefer to call it thrombocytopenic, but, hey, that's just me.
Question: do Buddhists own #@!!*& dictionaries?!!!!!!
Yes, David,I am attempting to create an idiolect. I will start explaining my terms on the blog. Unlike you and Jayarava, I am finished taking care to spell things out. I did that in earlier books and articles. Basta! Genug! By the way, if I may toot my own horn just once: I am one of the clearest, most jargon-free, most concise—and did I mention clearest—writers that any of you will ever encounter. It’s all right on the surface. So, I am superficial, too.
Who are my readers? As I say on the blog, I am hoping to reach six other people. That is enough to create a critical mass of work. For the sort of thing I have in mind, you can visit one of my reader’s new blog: http://derunbuddhist.wordpress.com.
These comments by Rainer (you might have to scroll down a bit) nail a good deal of what I am up to: http://www.existentialbuddhist.com/2011/09/about-speculative-non-buddhism/
I have no interest in Wittgenstein or Heidegger or philosophy or Buddhism or academia or critical theory or intellectual discourse. What is it then? Well, for anyone who cares to listen, the answer is in the Zappanistan feedback.
Jayarava, re: “clarifying things to Buddhists,” I am thinking about disappearing from the net. But for now, just a chime here and there when I get bored. Nothing more really. I work with Buddhists. I am among Buddhists of many varieties (Zen, Thai forest, Won, Goenka-vipassanis, and others) virtually every day of my life. I’m not sure why I mention that; but it is a strange feature of my life and work. It’s my habit, I guess, to try to clarify my view to Buddhists. Tomorrow, in fact, I have to meet with the head of a massive international Buddhist order and explain to him the trends toward secularization among Buddhists in the West.
David, Heinz Bechert’s good stuff is all in German. His work on Buddhist modernism—in which he created the very concept and terminology and performed the necessary sociological analysis (mainly in Southeast Asia)—is in a three-volume work titled: Buddhismus, Staat und Gesellschaft in den Laendern des Theravada-Buddhismus. It is a masterpiece. I used to consider translating a condensed version of it; but that ship has gone over the horizon. Doesn’t McMahan discuss Bechert?
peace, my friends,
Glenn
Well, I look forward to reading more if you don't disappear. I'm not sure I will be one of your six, but I'm not sure I won't, either.
A glossary would be helpful.
McMahan has a one-paragraph summary of Bechert, in his introduction, acknowledging his precedence and summarizing his themes. He doesn't mention him again. (Probably he doesn't read German...)
Best wishes,
David
Post a Comment