• About me
  • About this blog
  • Comment rules
  • Other writings

Love of All Wisdom

~ Philosophy through multiple traditions

Love of All Wisdom

Category Archives: Modernized Buddhism

Eliminating and interpreting as Buddhists

22 Sunday May 2022

Posted by Amod Lele in Early and Theravāda, Hermeneutics, M.T.S.R., Modernized Buddhism, Monasticism, Play, Pleasure

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

gender, Justin Whitaker, Pali suttas, Rudolf Bultmann

I want to turn now to what I think are the really interesting questions raised by Justin Whitaker’s latest post on the Sigālovāda Sutta. These are questions of hermeneutics, of method in interpretation. As noted, the previous post was exegetical: I think everything I say there could have been endorsed by a historically oriented religion scholar with no stake in Buddhist tradition. But Justin and I are not that: we are Buddhist theologians, who consider ourselves Buddhists and seek to apply the tradition to our lives. So I now want to take the previous post’s ideas into that wider theological context.

Continue reading →

Of perpetually vulnerable subjects

10 Sunday Apr 2022

Posted by Amod Lele in Early and Theravāda, Economics, Meditation, Mindfulness, Modernized Buddhism, Politics

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

20th century, Aśvaghoṣa, Glenn Wallis, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Margaret Thatcher, Rick Repetti, Ronald Reagan, Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha)

The scattershot application of “neoliberalism” is at its worst when the term gets applied to mindfulness meditation. We saw before how Ron Purser described mindfulness meditation as “neoliberal”. What is that supposed to mean? Modern meditation is frequently described as “neoliberal” in the Handbook of Mindfulness, which Purser coedited, and especially the closing essay by Glenn Wallis (which responds to a thoughtful defence of mindfulness by Rick Repetti in the same volume). Wallis’s piece is a good illustration of how a concept with some legitimate and meaningful uses can get bandied around so casually that it becomes completely specious. Here is Wallis:

You don’t have to look too closely to see that Mindfulness’s most recent progenitors are, of course, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. As I mentioned earlier, Mindfulness has the same DNA and was raised on the same values that undergirds today’s neoliberal, consumer capitalist social structure (acceptance, resilience, self-help, etc.). So, of course Jon Kabat-Zinn [the creator of secularized and medicalized mindfulness meditation] cozies up to corporate CEOs and American military generals. (Wallis 499)

Continue reading →

The goods of lay life

13 Sunday Feb 2022

Posted by Amod Lele in Attachment and Craving, Early and Theravāda, External Goods, Family, Flourishing, Foundations of Ethics, Modernized Buddhism, Monasticism, Pleasure

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

Justin Whitaker, Pali suttas, puruṣārthas, Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha)

I return today to my correspondence with Justin Whitaker on the Sigālovāda Sutta, taking off from his response to my previous post. The question at issue between us, I think, is what constitutes a good Buddhist life for a layperson or householder, a non-monk. We can get more specific by asking: should the layperson’s life be one that aspires to emulate the monk’s? I don’t think that it should, and I continue to suspect that Justin doesn’t either.

Continue reading →

There are bad Buddhists and false Buddhist claims

07 Sunday Nov 2021

Posted by Amod Lele in Anger, Early and Theravāda, M.T.S.R., Modernized Buddhism, Morality, Politics

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Burma/Myanmar, David Loy, Engaged Buddhism, Evan Thompson, Hebrew Bible, Ian Stevenson, Paul Fuller, Sallie King, Victor Temprano, Wirathu

Paul Fuller’s thoughtful and well researched new introduction to Engaged Buddhism cites my Disengaged Buddhism article together with an article I hadn’t heard of before, Victor Temprano’s 2013 “Defining engaged Buddhism” (Buddhist Studies Review 30.2). (Fuller has very kind words for both Temprano and myself.) I proceeded to read Temprano’s article and was quite struck by it – and by the fact that Fuller had listed our two articles together, as making complementary critiques. Fuller’s putting our two articles together is striking to me because, while Temprano and I do both make a critique of Western engaged Buddhist scholars like Sallie King and David Loy, we do so for entirely different reasons – reasons that are actually opposed to one another. And indeed, I think my differences from Temprano are larger than my differences from King and Loy.

Continue reading →

Is the problem in our heads?

18 Sunday Apr 2021

Posted by Amod Lele in Anger, Attachment and Craving, Modernized Buddhism, Politics, Psychology

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Disengaged Buddhism, Engaged Buddhism, Pali suttas, Ron Purser, Sallie King

A key idea that I’ve stressed from the Disengaged Buddhists is that the causes of suffering are primarily mental – especially the “three poisons” or “unwholesome roots” of craving (rāga), aversion or hostility (dveṣa/dosa) and delusion (moha) – and that therefore changes in material conditions of life will do relatively little to solve them. Engaged Buddhists reject this latter idea, since they take changing the material conditions as essential. What has struck me recently, though, is that they reject the idea in ways that are different, and sometimes even opposite – each of which still, surprisingly to me in some ways, seems to accept that rāga, dveṣa and moha are indeed where the key problems of human existence lie. I see this point especially in comparing the different views expressed by Ron Purser and Sallie King. Continue reading →

Bultmann for Buddhists

15 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by Amod Lele in Early and Theravāda, Faith, German Tradition, Hermeneutics, Karma, M.T.S.R., Metaphysics, Modernized Buddhism, Protestantism, Psychology, Supernatural

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Evan Thompson, existentialism, modernity, New Testament, Pali suttas, rebirth, Rudolf Bultmann, Walter Kaufmann

The world picture of the Buddhist Pali Canon is a mythical world picture. The world is made up of 31 planes of existence, divided into a formless realm, a fine material realm and a sensory realm. In the formless realm dwell purely mental beings; in the fine material realm dwell most of the devas (gods, angels). Some devas also inhabit the higher planes of the sensory realm; we humans live in the middle planes; and in the lower planes we find the hungry ghosts (pretas) and hell dwellers. Life is a cosmic cycle of death and rebirth between these planes, with movement upward and downward determined by the good or bad nature of one’s actions within each plane. The results of these actions affect not only the circumstances of our new birth, but also our actions and mental states in the new life, which reflect the previous ones. All of this takes place on a cyclical time scale of endless recurrence, of decline followed by renewal and more decline: once upon a time human beings lived for 80 000 years, and their lack of virtue slowly reduced this, so that now their lifespan is merely a hundred, and it will eventually decline to ten.

All of this is mythological talk, and the individual motifs may be traced to the contemporary mythology of Jainism and the Upaniṣads. Insofar as it is mythological talk it is incredible to men and women today because for them the mythical world picture is a thing of the past. Therefore, contemporary Buddhist proclamation is faced with the question of whether, when it invites faith from men and women, it expects them to acknowledge this mythical world picture of the past. If this is impossible, it then has to face the question whether the Pali Canon’s proclamation has a truth that is independent of the mythical world picture, in which case it would be the task of Buddhist theology to demythologize the Buddhist proclamation.

The words above are not mine. I have pulled these two paragraphs directly from the beginning of New Testament and Mythology, by the 20th-century German Protestant theologian Rudolf Bultmann, and simply replaced what is specifically Christian with Buddhist concepts. But I think Bultmann’s argument stands just as well when it is transposed into a Buddhist key.

Continue reading →

Is the eudaimonist proposition true?

27 Sunday Sep 2020

Posted by Amod Lele in Death, Epicureanism, External Goods, Flourishing, Foundations of Ethics, Karma, Mahāyāna, Modernized Buddhism, Morality, Philosophy of Science, Pleasure, Stoicism, Supernatural

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Charles Goodman, Dalai Lama XIV, Evan Thompson, hell, Immanuel Kant, rebirth, Śāntideva

Evan Thompson’s critique of my eudaimonistic and probabilistic approach to karma has two prongs: that it is not really karma, and that it doesn’t work on its own terms. I addressed the first criticism last time. Now I’d like to turn to the second, which I personally find to be the more interesting and important of the two.

Let us start with the word “probabilistic”, which I use in a non-technical way. My eudaimonism is a probabilistic claim (as opposed to a deterministic claim) in the same sense that “brushing your teeth will prevent cavities” or “running into the middle of a busy street will get you run over by a car” are probabilistic claims. That is, we assert that these causal correlations are likely, not certain. In the case of the busy street, I’m not sure we have a detailed statistical model of how likely you are to get run over by a car, but I don’t think we need one. Everyday observation is sufficient to determine that. In the case of virtue and happiness, I’ve mentioned a couple of ways that Śāntideva says one leads to the other, in this life; there is a lot more to say about it, and I intend to say it in my book – not with a statistical model, but again I don’t think that’s necessary. This is what I mean by “probabilistic”. I’m not wedded to that specific word: so far “probabilistic” has seemed the most appropriate word to express the concept in question and I haven’t been convinced that it isn’t, but I wouldn’t mind expressing the concept just described with a different term if a better one is available.

If I read Thompson’s objections on that point correctly, though, I don’t think they are about a statistical model or its absence. Rather, his bigger concern is this: Continue reading →

When does karma stop being karma?

20 Sunday Sep 2020

Posted by Amod Lele in Biology, Early and Theravāda, Greek and Roman Tradition, Jainism, Karma, Metaphysics, Modernized Buddhism

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Evan Thompson, Pali suttas, rebirth, Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha)

Evan Thompson has made his last statement in our correspondence. Before I make mine, a personal note: our series of responses to date has become increasingly confrontational in tone, in a way I imagine our readers have noticed. Thompson and I have spoken about that tone in private and we agreed that it is not where either of us had hoped or intended for this conversation to go. I hope to end this series on a note of gentler and friendlier disagreement, one that invites both of us and our readers to new avenues of inquiry that the dialogue has opened up. For one thing, from the beginning, I have appreciated Thompson’s willingness to take Buddhist thought seriously by acknowledging where he finds it inadequate; this is a valuable and refreshing contrast to the kind of kid-glove treatment that it is too often given in religious studies. I think that this aspect of Thompson’s approach is very helpful for advancing contemporary discussions of Buddhist thought, and I think I should have led my opening review post with my appreciation of his work on that point.

Now to recap the state of our debate. Thompson, in his June reply, had stood his ground on the claim that karma is fundamentally about why bad things happen to good people. My ensuing July-August round of posts addressed in detail why I think he is wrong about this. While I think it was important to go into those details, I think I didn’t spend enough time on the big-picture questions that motivated them, which remain important to both Thompson and myself. So, while I didn’t think the wordplay in his June title was accurate, I think the current one was. That is, I did, to some extent at least, “lose the thread”. I am happy that the final exchange can now take us back to those larger questions.

Continue reading →

A book on how virtue helps us flourish

16 Sunday Aug 2020

Posted by Amod Lele in Anger, External Goods, Flourishing, Foundations of Ethics, Mahāyāna, Modernized Buddhism, Patient Endurance, Serenity, Virtue

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

Bernard Williams, Evan Thompson, justice, Martha Nussbaum, obligation, Parimal Patil, Śāntideva

I’d like to now envision the book I am working on. This post is something like a proposal for the book, both to clarify my thoughts on it and (more importantly) to hear yours. As I write it I keep in mind the wise advice of my dissertation advisor, Parimal Patil, that fundamentally a dissertation proposal is telling a lie. You don’t actually know what the final result is going to be, or you would have already written it; the act of researching it will necessarily make it something different from the proposal. You just don’t know how it will be different. With that in mind, let me attempt to say some more, in a nutshell, about what the book will be.

Continue reading →

Theodicy is not the core of karma

02 Sunday Aug 2020

Posted by Amod Lele in Flourishing, Foundations of Ethics, Hermeneutics, Karma, M.T.S.R., Mahāyāna, Modernized Buddhism, Supernatural

≈ Comments Off on Theodicy is not the core of karma

Tags

Evan Thompson, Gananath Obeyesekere, rebirth, Śāntideva, theodicy, Upaniṣads

I will close out this latest round of replies to Evan Thompson with a recap: It is simply not the case that karma “is fundamentally about” why bad things happen to good people (or vice versa). To try to portray karma in that way, it seems to me, requires more cherry-picking and selective quoting of sources than does portraying it as a form of eudaimonism. Obeyesekere’s study of the concept’s origins, which Thompson originally cited as his source, shows that its formation is in something quite different. The passages that Thompson quotes from Śāntideva do nothing to establish that karma for him is about why bad things happen to good people. The sociological studies that he now cites do not even claim to establish any such thing, and their evidence does not imply it either – so they would not establish this claim even if they had been studies of Buddhists, which they are not. Going by Thompson’s own sources – historical, philosophical and sociological – we see absolutely no reason to believe that the question of theodicy is or ever was at “the beating heart” of the karma concept, for Buddhists or anybody else. Actual anthropological studies of karma beliefs in context establish its core as something very different, just as Obeyesekere’s study itself does.

Why then does Thompson continue to insist that bad things happening to good people and vice versa – the core problem of Christian theodicy – is also the core problem of traditional Buddhist karma, when it has turned out multiple times that even his own sources provide no reason to believe this claim? Thompson himself is clearly deeply bothered by the fact that bad things happen to good people, which he calls “shocking and disturbing”, a “cosmic affront to our human sense of fairness”. It is hardly unreasonable to be bothered by this fact in this way, and Thompson is entitled to be so. What is not acceptable is to then reread this preoccupation back onto traditional Buddhist sources.

Continue reading →
← Older posts

Welcome to Love of All Wisdom.

I invite you to leave comments on my blog, even - or especially - if I have no idea who you are. Philosophy is a conversation, and I invite you to join it with me; I welcome all comers (provided they follow a few basic rules). I typically make a new post every other Sunday. If you'd like to be notified when a new post is posted, you can get email notifications whenever I add something new via the link further down in this sidebar. You can also follow this blog on Facebook or Twitter. Or if you use RSS, you can get updates through the RSS feed.

Recent Comments

  • Amod Lele on Tenets of a new movement
  • Seth Zuihō Segall on Tenets of a new movement
  • Amod Lele on Tenets of a new movement
  • Nathan on Tenets of a new movement
  • Amod Lele on Tenets of a new movement

Subscribe by Email

Post Tags

20th century academia Alasdair MacIntyre Aristotle ascent/descent Augustine autobiography Buddhaghosa Canada conferences Confucius conservatism Disengaged Buddhism Engaged Buddhism Evan Thompson Four Noble Truths Friedrich Nietzsche G.W.F. Hegel gender Hebrew Bible identity Immanuel Kant intimacy/integrity justice Karl Marx Ken Wilber Martha Nussbaum Mencius modernity Pali suttas pedagogy Plato qualitative individualism race rebirth religion Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha) T.R. (Thill) Raghunath technology theodicy Thomas Kuhn United States utilitarianism Śaṅkara Śāntideva

Categories

  • African Thought (12)
  • Applied Phil (272)
    • Death (36)
    • Family (41)
    • Food (17)
    • Friends (14)
    • Health (23)
    • Place (25)
    • Play (12)
    • Politics (153)
    • Sex (20)
    • Work (37)
  • Asian Thought (393)
    • Buddhism (283)
      • Early and Theravāda (119)
      • Mahāyāna (116)
      • Modernized Buddhism (83)
    • East Asia (82)
      • Confucianism (52)
      • Daoism (13)
      • Shinto (1)
    • South Asia (128)
      • Bhakti Poets (3)
      • Cārvāka-Lokāyata (5)
      • Epics (15)
      • Jainism (23)
      • Modern Hinduism (35)
      • Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika (6)
      • Sāṃkhya-Yoga (14)
      • Vedānta (35)
      • Vedas and Mīmāṃsā (7)
  • Blog Admin (26)
  • Indigenous American Thought (3)
  • Method (235)
    • M.T.S.R. (132)
    • Metaphilosophy (157)
  • Practical Philosophy (350)
    • Action (11)
    • Aesthetics (41)
    • Emotion (151)
      • Anger (31)
      • Attachment and Craving (26)
      • Compassion (5)
      • Despair (3)
      • Disgust (3)
      • Faith (19)
      • Fear (7)
      • Grief (5)
      • Happiness (46)
      • Hope (15)
      • Pleasure (32)
      • Shame and Guilt (6)
    • External Goods (48)
    • Flourishing (82)
    • Foundations of Ethics (105)
    • Karma (42)
    • Morality (62)
    • Virtue (146)
      • Courage (5)
      • Generosity (12)
      • Gentleness (5)
      • Gratitude (10)
      • Honesty (13)
      • Humility (22)
      • Leadership (4)
      • Mindfulness (14)
      • Patient Endurance (28)
      • Self-Discipline (8)
      • Serenity (27)
      • Zest (6)
  • Practice (115)
    • Karmic Redirection (5)
    • Meditation (31)
    • Monasticism (42)
    • Physical Exercise (3)
    • Prayer (14)
    • Reading and Recitation (12)
    • Rites (19)
    • Therapy (10)
  • Theoretical Philosophy (327)
    • Consciousness (14)
    • Epistemology (105)
      • Certainty and Doubt (14)
      • Prejudices and "Intuitions" (27)
    • Free Will (17)
    • God (62)
    • Hermeneutics (55)
    • Human Nature (29)
    • Logic (28)
      • Dialectic (16)
    • Metaphysics (90)
    • Philosophy of Language (18)
    • Self (63)
    • Supernatural (48)
    • Truth (59)
    • Unconscious Mind (14)
  • Western Thought (416)
    • Analytic Tradition (90)
    • Christianity (137)
      • Early Factions (8)
      • Protestantism (21)
      • Roman Catholicism (46)
    • French Tradition (47)
    • German Tradition (84)
    • Greek and Roman Tradition (110)
      • Epicureanism (24)
      • Neoplatonism (2)
      • Pre-Socratics (6)
      • Skepticism (2)
      • Sophists (7)
      • Stoicism (18)
    • Islam (37)
      • Mu'tazila (2)
      • Salafi (3)
      • Sufism (9)
    • Judaism (33)
    • Natural Science (86)
      • Biology (22)
      • Philosophy of Science (47)
    • Social Science (145)
      • Economics (31)
      • Psychology (59)

Recent Posts

  • Tenets of a new movement
  • Doing what you love when the money won’t follow
  • Eliminating and interpreting as Buddhists
  • Does the Sigālovāda Sutta prohibit attending the theatre?
  • Of mental health and medical models

Popular posts

  • One and a half noble truths?
  • Wishing George W. Bush well
  • Do Speculative Realists want us to be Chinese?
  • Why I am not a right-winger
  • On faith in tooth relics

Basic concepts

  • Ascent and Descent
  • Intimacy and integrity
  • Ascent-descent and intimacy-integrity together
  • Perennial questions?
  • Virtuous and vicious means
  • Dialectical and demonstrative argument
  • Chastened intellectualism and practice
  • Yavanayāna Buddhism: what it is
  • Why worry about contradictions?
  • The first philosophy blogger

Personal favourites

  • Can philosophy be a way of life? Pierre Hadot (1922-2010)
  • James Doull and the history of ethical motivation
  • Praying to something you don't believe in
  • What does postmodernism perform?
  • Why I'm getting married

Archives

Search this site

All posts, pages and metadata copyright 2020 Amod Lele. Comments copyright 2020 their comment authors. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (BY-NC-SA) licence.

Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Chateau by Ignacio Ricci.