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Love of All Wisdom

~ Philosophy through multiple traditions

Love of All Wisdom

Tag Archives: Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra

The bodhisattva complex

01 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Amod Lele in Anger, Attachment and Craving, External Goods, Friends, Health, Mahāyāna, Psychology, Self, Supernatural, Unconscious Mind

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

chastened intellectualism, Ken Wilber, passive aggression, Śāntideva, Sigmund Freud, Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra

There is a destructive pattern of behaviour I’ve observed too often which, in an amateur psychological diagnosis, I have come to call the bodhisattva complex. I thought of this term as a friend of mine – a young medical resident – described the behaviours she observed among her fellow medical residents and doctors, who think nothing of working 24- or even 48-hour shifts in order to help people in their care. One wonders: what kind of patient wants to be treated by a man or woman who hasn’t slept in 48 hours?

When I refer to the bodhisattva complex, I do not mean that actual bodhisattvas – ideal Mahāyāna Buddhist beings – are psychologically unhealthy. Some might make that argument (Martha Nussbaum has done so, more or less), but I would not at all. Rather, the bodhisattva complex refers to something which I think is far more common than actual bodhisattvas: you suffer it if you believe you are a bodhisattva, but aren’t. Continue reading →

Buddhists and “Hindus” against traditional family values

16 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by Amod Lele in Christianity, Early and Theravāda, East Asia, Family, Jainism, Mahāyāna, Monasticism, Social Science, South Asia

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

ascent/descent, dharmaśāstra, Dōgen, intimacy/integrity, Jan Nattier, Jātakas, Jesus, Joel Kotkin, New Testament, Pali suttas, Patrick Deneen, Patrick Olivelle, Śāntideva, Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha), Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra, vinaya

A while ago I wrote about how Indian traditions upset conventional assumptions about family and community being essential to premodern tradition and culture. There, I was responding to a piece by Patrick Deneen, which drew only on Western traditions. As a result, Deneen’s piece had a narrowness of focus, but within that focus it was able to attain some accuracy. Not so for a recent report by urban geographer Joel Kotkin, entitled The Rise of Post-Familialism. Continue reading →

“You’re no Buddhist!”

10 Thursday Sep 2009

Posted by Amod Lele in M.T.S.R., Mahāyāna, Modernized Buddhism

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Absolutely Fabulous, authenticity, Dick Cheney, drugs, fundamentalism, identity, Kyle (blogger), Marcus (blogger), Śāntideva, Scott Mitchell, Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra

Justin Whitaker’s blog pointed me to some interesting recent discussions of what it means to be a Buddhist, among Buddhist bloggers mostly of the Yavanayāna persuasion. Blogger Marcus (no last name provided) threw down a strongly worded gauntlet last week: “The fact is, if you are serious about Buddhism, you don’t drink. The Buddha’s words couldn’t be clearer.”

I have at least two objections to Marcus’s claim about alcohol. First, we fail at our chosen life goals all the time; we may be serious about following Buddhism, believe that therefore we shouldn’t drink, and still drink anyway. That may make us bad at Buddhism, but it doesn’t make us unserious. Second, matters are often not so cut and dried. It would be hard to say that Śāntideva was not serious about Buddhism – he became a lifelong monk and tried hard to live according to the words of the Buddha as he understood them. But he actually advocates (following the Mahāyāna Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra, which at least claims to be the word of the Buddha) that one give alcohol to alcohol drinkers, as a way of winning their trust. (I discuss this point briefly the fourth chapter of my dissertation, and am writing an article on it in more detail.)

On the specific matter of alcohol, I tend to disagree with Marcus. But the discussion among Buddhist bloggers centred around bigger issues, where I think Marcus was quite right. Kyle of The Reformed Buddhist (who also appears to go without a last name) made a number of objections to Marcus, some of which I think are valid, some not so. But at the core of his reaction seems to be his first sentence: “Sigh the whole you’re no Buddhist thing again.” [emphases his] He seems in this post to take offence to the idea that someone could declare someone else to not be a Buddhist, or not be a serious Buddhist. In this he would seem to be agreeing with a slightly earlier post by Scott Mitchell of The Buddha Is My DJ. Mitchell opposes the claim made by some Buddhists (presumably including Marcus?) that their Buddhism is better or (or more “authentic”) than others’: “feel free to define yourself and your Buddhist practice. But stop doing it as a means to differentiate yourself from some “other” kind of Buddhist.”

Here I’ve got issues. Continue reading →

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