Reading Buddhist books: a search for context

The modern academic style of writing as regards Buddhism, it seems to me, is often more of a search for Buddhism’s authentic context.  Lacking a context there can be no meaningful unpacking of Buddhism that brings, so to speak, a light to darkness. 

In this search for context, it is easy to stray into the world of opinions which, granted, are more than impressions but still fall under the category of being suppositions.  But Buddhism’s context should not be that hard to find; not has difficult as, for example, Christianity.

When people ask me if there are any helpful Buddhist books that I should read, I am often frustrated to reply because I know the beginner’s mind in addition to knowing that Buddhism’s context is not easy to see in many of today’s books.  But let us pretend that there is a rather remarkable book that you can buy on Amazon that lays out Buddhism giving the beginner its proper context.  In other words, it gets straight to the point.

Buddhism is the teaching of Siddhārtha Gautama who awakened to the essence or substance of the universe which includes all of its galaxies, all the way to thought and its essence.  His awakening, itself, can be best described as a sudden intuition or the same, immediate cognizance of essence that goes beyond reasoning and inferring.  This essence is totally uncomposed or the same, unconditioned.  It has neither shape nor is it thinkable.  Nevertheless, it is completely real and vital.  With proper effort are, personally, able to realize it by intuition.

But these words from this fictitious book can easily turn into a stumbling block:  an impediment to our understanding of Buddhism’s context, especially, when we enter, so to speak, the temple of Buddhism with too many wrong assumptions about Buddhism which don’t amount to a hill of beans but, nevertheless, are clung to like a child holding onto their baby blanket. 

Now comes an important question.  How are these wrong assumptions about Buddhism removed?  I guarantee you that it is not without difficulty.  Adding to this, we have to do most of the removing on our own with very little help from a teacher whose only real job is to admonish us, from time to time, showing us what should be avoided; reminding us also that our world, including even our thoughts, is only a configuration of this essence and that we must intuit this essence, directly, not just believe it or accept it on faith.

I know this also sounds easy and just common sense, but then if you are a teacher how do you deal with those who believe that Siddhartha denied the ātman (he didn’t) or the ātman transmigrates from one life to the next (consciousness, not ātman, is the transmigrant)?  What about all the confusion with emptiness or śūnyatā, which Western Buddhists turn into some kind of absolute negation without positive implication?  This doesn't even touch on what meditation is all about which I hasten to inject, is not about sitting.

Many times the Buddhist books, including books about Zen a person reads and believes are important, only help to reinforce their wrong beliefs about Buddhism and Zen.  We have never once in our lives intuited what thoughts are composed from.  This is a very alien idea for us.  In fact, we turn our thoughts into our last bastion of hope even engaging in logomachy.  See what thoughts are made from, transcending them — are you kidding?

Comments

[Jung]

The presence of wisdom and stupidity on the very same page.

A posting sage and a commenting icchantika, both sharing the space and time they are interdependently linked to, where the infinite dynamics of the wondrous jewel is proven by both, rendering both their views on equal basis, leaving theirs, and our consciousness to differentiate at will and level of our gnosis, or agnosis, of its profound nature.

Fascinating, to say the least.

[dave b]

when I say Jain texts should be included in the study of Buddhism, I mean only the metaphysics, not the stupid extreme ahimsa nonsense

[dave b]

> Buddhism is the teaching of Siddhārtha Gautama who

Hard stop. This is the beginning of all the problems in Buddhism. Trying it to the teachings of one man, which gives rise to counterfeiting of suttas attributed to him rather than people honestly writing their wrong opinions under their own name; which gives rise to the idea that truth is merely a historical inquiry as to what some specific person really did or did not say.

By this definition of Buddhism, a Jain text like the Ishtopadesha cannot be considered part of Buddhism, because it does not lie and claim to have been written by Sidhartha Gotama. But had its author lied and attributed it to Sidhartha Gotama (as say the author of the Lotus Sutra did) then it could be considered part of Buddhism by this definition. This is a huge problem.

Maybe Buddhism should be defined more like this:

> The religion of trying to become a Buddha. To properly understand it one should study all the various subsects that use the term "Buddha," including not just those commonly called "Buddhist" but also the Jain sects and their texts.

This would greatly solve the no-soul debate since the Jains unquestionably believe in a soul.

Secondly, in your definition that says Gotama

> awakened to the essence or substance of the universe which includes all of its galaxies, all the way to thought and its essence.

Rather than pretend any of these characters, Buddha or Mahavira or anyone else was omniscient and awakened to knowing everything, why not just consider them to have awakened to the idea that we are in a cycle of reincarnation, that that is bad and we want out, and that there is a particular path to get out.

So we might define it as:

> The religion of trying to become a Buddha, meaning to escape from a cycle of reincarnation which is presumed to exist and to be bad. To properly understand it one should study all the various subsects that use the term "Buddha," including not just those commonly called "Buddhist" but also the Jain sects and their texts, and look at all of their different explanations of what the path to the exit of the cycle of reincarnation is and what the metaphysics governing the cycle are.

This would broaden the study of Buddhism, allow for looking at Jain and even Hindu texts on the subject instead of only texts forged in the name of Sidhartha Gotama, and perhaps for more actual discussion of which parts of the path truly are necessary and which are not. Furthermore, if we include the acceptance of reincarnation as the thing Buddhism seeks to have the individual saved form in the very definition then we can put an end to all the asshats who want to waste all their time questioning if there is any reincarnation calling themselves Buddhists.

[O]

Would be great if you could start a series of post reviewing books. You can then highlight for us the good parts, and critic the bad parts, especially those you think are advancing missunderstandings.