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Riku Sayuj's Reviews > What the Buddha Taught
What the Buddha Taught
by
Invitation Complications
or
Who is the Best Spokesperson for a Religion?
Who can write about a religion best? An insider or an outsider? Obviously it takes a lifetime’s learning to understand the religion, just to get a ‘feel’ for it. It might even need a lifetime's ‘practice’, and it could very well be that the first innocent impulses can only be absorbed at a very young age — like a language, a religion is also a mode of expression.
Then surely the insider is the one best placed to introduce others to this sacred mystery?
Rahula has tried in this little book to address himself to the general reader interested in knowing what the Buddha ‘actually’ taught. This is done by adhering to a faithful and accurate presentation of the actual words used by the Buddha as they are to be found in the original Pali texts of the Tipitaka, universally accepted by scholars as the earliest extant records of the teachings of the Buddha. Almost all the material Rahula commands so effortlessly are taken directly from these originals. That way it must be admitted that only a scholar of his stature could have brought us so close to the original teachings.
However, Rahula’s book comes off as slightly evangelizing and despite all the cool wisdom as occasionally irritating in its complete confidence and conviction that Buddhism is the best in the world
A non-evangelical introduction/invitation should only be an invitation to come visit and appreciate the ancient house, not to come and reside. In that case, the real purpose of such a book would have to be to show the relevance of one religion to another, to the modern world and to show how its philosophy can make a difference to the visitor’s life even if he exits the next day not entirely convinced of the package deal. He/She should still be able to carry something away. What that something is has to be judged by the author. That is the only question in such an introductory/welcoming sermon. The rest can be kept for later, if the guest decides to stay awhile.
Now to return to our problem. Can an insider do this? After all, the insider is as much an alien to other religions as the visitor is to his own. So how can he write for the visitor? How can he inhabit his viewpoint and judge what would suit him best? Could it be that the one best placed to understand the house is not so well suited to understand the visitor?
So a Christian reader would need a christian author to interpret Buddhism for him? A 21st century reader would need a 21st century guide? Who else can understand the reader as well?
And in any case, since we are going down this road, who can understand both - the ancient house and the modern visitor?
I think the best compromise would be to allow the welcome sermon to be delivered by a scholar outside the tradition, but steeped in it. One who has stayed in the house long enough to feel at home there.
This is why every age needs to reinterpret its holy texts and greatest works. Every age and culture needs its own representatives to walk into those monuments, spend a while there and then walk out with a welcome sermon, which in turn would be relevant enough to his own culture’s or age’s readers. Only then would they take the trouble to go visit too. And maybe stay awhile.
by
Riku Sayuj's review
bookshelves: buddhism, india-philosophy, india, religion, myth-religion, companions, guides, history, history-of-thought, r-r-rs, reference, translated
Feb 27, 2015
bookshelves: buddhism, india-philosophy, india, religion, myth-religion, companions, guides, history, history-of-thought, r-r-rs, reference, translated
Reading for the 2nd time. Most recently started July 30, 2022.
Invitation Complications
or
Who is the Best Spokesperson for a Religion?
Who can write about a religion best? An insider or an outsider? Obviously it takes a lifetime’s learning to understand the religion, just to get a ‘feel’ for it. It might even need a lifetime's ‘practice’, and it could very well be that the first innocent impulses can only be absorbed at a very young age — like a language, a religion is also a mode of expression.
Then surely the insider is the one best placed to introduce others to this sacred mystery?
Rahula has tried in this little book to address himself to the general reader interested in knowing what the Buddha ‘actually’ taught. This is done by adhering to a faithful and accurate presentation of the actual words used by the Buddha as they are to be found in the original Pali texts of the Tipitaka, universally accepted by scholars as the earliest extant records of the teachings of the Buddha. Almost all the material Rahula commands so effortlessly are taken directly from these originals. That way it must be admitted that only a scholar of his stature could have brought us so close to the original teachings.
However, Rahula’s book comes off as slightly evangelizing and despite all the cool wisdom as occasionally irritating in its complete confidence and conviction that Buddhism is the best in the world
A non-evangelical introduction/invitation should only be an invitation to come visit and appreciate the ancient house, not to come and reside. In that case, the real purpose of such a book would have to be to show the relevance of one religion to another, to the modern world and to show how its philosophy can make a difference to the visitor’s life even if he exits the next day not entirely convinced of the package deal. He/She should still be able to carry something away. What that something is has to be judged by the author. That is the only question in such an introductory/welcoming sermon. The rest can be kept for later, if the guest decides to stay awhile.
Now to return to our problem. Can an insider do this? After all, the insider is as much an alien to other religions as the visitor is to his own. So how can he write for the visitor? How can he inhabit his viewpoint and judge what would suit him best? Could it be that the one best placed to understand the house is not so well suited to understand the visitor?
So a Christian reader would need a christian author to interpret Buddhism for him? A 21st century reader would need a 21st century guide? Who else can understand the reader as well?
And in any case, since we are going down this road, who can understand both - the ancient house and the modern visitor?
I think the best compromise would be to allow the welcome sermon to be delivered by a scholar outside the tradition, but steeped in it. One who has stayed in the house long enough to feel at home there.
This is why every age needs to reinterpret its holy texts and greatest works. Every age and culture needs its own representatives to walk into those monuments, spend a while there and then walk out with a welcome sermon, which in turn would be relevant enough to his own culture’s or age’s readers. Only then would they take the trouble to go visit too. And maybe stay awhile.
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Reading Progress
February 27, 2015
–
Started Reading
February 27, 2015
– Shelved
February 27, 2015
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79.47%
"Is this a valid statement?
Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of a Soul, or Atman."
page
120
Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of a Soul, or Atman."
February 28, 2015
– Shelved as:
buddhism
February 28, 2015
– Shelved as:
india-philosophy
February 28, 2015
– Shelved as:
india
February 28, 2015
– Shelved as:
religion
February 28, 2015
– Shelved as:
myth-religion
February 28, 2015
– Shelved as:
companions
February 28, 2015
– Shelved as:
guides
February 28, 2015
– Shelved as:
history
February 28, 2015
– Shelved as:
history-of-thought
February 28, 2015
– Shelved as:
r-r-rs
February 28, 2015
– Shelved as:
reference
February 28, 2015
– Shelved as:
translated
February 28, 2015
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Finished Reading
July 30, 2022
–
Started Reading
Comments Showing 1-8 of 8 (8 new)
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A non-evangelical introduction/invitation should only be an invitation to come visit and appreciate the ancient house, not to come and reside.I like that - also the idea that every age needs to reinterpret its holy texts and greatest works
Sookie wrote: "Neither an insider nor a visitor can achieve this. It should be a scholar who studies, reinterprets and provides relevance. As you said, they have to stay inside long enough to understand the mecha..."Indeed!
About Yoga, I am not sure if the yoga-visitors ever pick up the core philosophy of Yoga as Union... it had to be divested of its religious aspects to be made ready for export. :)
What sort of classical sciences would you suggest?
Fionnuala wrote: "A non-evangelical introduction/invitation should only be an invitation to come visit and appreciate the ancient house, not to come and reside.I like that - also the idea that every age needs to r..."
Thanks, Fi! I don't want the author to be convincing me about the perfection of his religion. Rahula is a very wise teacher and quite likely he is right about Buddhism, but I prefer third-party accreditation for my consumer choices. ;)
Riku: I am sure you have read Origin of species, yeah?Here are couple more:
a. A Chemical history of a candle - It reads itself like a Victorian romance. So much so I fell in love with Chemistry and it became my main area of interest in Engg.
b. On the revolutions of heavenly spheres - Copernicus said - you aren't the center of universe. Everyone else lost it that day. Pretty heavy on the science side but still a beautiful read.
These two are personal favorites of mine. And then there is Galileo, Aristotle, Newton, Darwin etc.
I think you raise an interesting issue. This sort of literature used to be known as apologetics, but it's gone sadly out of fashion these days. It increasingly seems as though christians write only for christians, atheists for atheists and so on. But the skilled apologist makes their beliefs appealing even to nonbelievers.Of course, there is then always the complaint that by warping their beliefs into an understandable shape, they are deviating from the one true dogma. Is Idries Shah a true representative of sufi islam? Is everything Chesterton says about catholicism representative of the views of the ecumenical councils? But I think that misses the point, which is that people seduced by apologists can go on to find more rigorous, more orthodox teachings elsewhere (the best apologists tease the reader with hints of further depths, rather than reassuring them that this little intro contains everything that needs to be known). C.S. Lewis, for instance, may have 'had his intellect baptised' by Chesterton, but he ended up an Anglican rather than a Catholic.
Which I guess ties in to the old debate (currently in vogue again in Catholicism, as it happens) between a big church and a pure church. big church people like apologists, because they bring in converts, and serious intellectual converts at that. But pure church people are suspicious of them, as they sound innovative and exotic and encourage critical thinking rather than rote obediance. Unfortunately in the West it seems like our major faiths (including non-faith) are all in a purity phase at the moment, with little interest in reaching across boundaries.
I would in passing just flag up something, though - I'd emphasise those quotation marks around what the Buddha ''actually'' taught! This is an old debate in many belief systems: is the 'real' teaching of the master only the teaching recorded in text? Or did the master pass teachings down orally to his students, who passed them down to their students, and so on, creating a body of tradition that accurately reflects the intentions of the master? So 'hidden teachings' ideas crop up in Buddhism, and in Christianity (i.e. the whole of Catholicism and Orthodoxy, who accept oral teaching passed through tradition, vs Protestantism, which is more insistent on text), and perhaps most famously, in Platonism (the skeptical Academics vs the mystical Middle Platonists, Neoplatonists, Hermetics, Chaldaeans, Gnostics, etc) (with the added complication there that some of the 'traditions' of Jesus probably started out as alleged 'secret doctrines' of Plato...).
From the modern perspective it seems obvious that the text is definitive - it's far less subject to distortion. But the problem with that is that older cultures were often much less reliant on the texts and more on oral traditions and on personal mentor/disciple relationships, with actual texts often only forming headline advertisements, or incidental byproducts of the teaching process (eg. Aristotle's Ethics, which was recorded only in the form of lecture notes written up by his students). So it's entirely possible that Plato/Buddha/Jesus/etc DID say things that are recorded only through tradition and later notes by students...
A long-winded way of saying that maybe I would have said 'what the Buddha is best known to have said'...
Wastrel wrote: "I think you raise an interesting issue. This sort of literature used to be known as apologetics, but it's gone sadly out of fashion these days. It increasingly seems as though christians write only..."Thanks for drawing this out so nicely! You have understood and talked of the implications much better than I could have.
Re: Big church vs Pure Church. --
I really like this idea. By this interpretation, even if an insider might not be the best advocate for a religion, it is important for the religion (house in my analogy) itself that they do try to reach out and introduce others to their religion. Because to go Pure would be a worse fate.
And a Pure church would also be more reluctant to entertain third-party scholars to come and hold forth about them... (reminds me of Wendy Doniger!).
So having a few insiders willing to speak openly, if eagerly, about the house is a good indicator of the health of the house!
Am I correct in my assessment?
Sookie wrote: "Riku: I am sure you have read Origin of species, yeah?Here are couple more:
a. A Chemical history of a candle - It reads itself like a Victorian romance. So much so I fell in love with Chemistry ..."
What a wonderful selection! Thank you so much. And yes, I have had long acquaintance with Darwin. :)
A Good example for this would be Yoga I suppose :)
From Kant to Buddha eh? How about some classical sciences as a change in pace? :)