Stephen Batchelor - A Critique of "Buddhism Without Beliefs"

[catmoon]

But how should a true Buddhist do?

If I ever see one, I'll ask him for you.

[Blue Garuda]

But how should a true Buddhist do?

If I ever see one, I'll ask him for you.

If you meet the true Buddhist on the road, kill your thought that this or that person in Samsara is a 'true Buddhist'.

Seriously, until we cease to have delusions, we will not know what a 'true Buddhist' is. All we can do is make 'best guess' decisions on the basis of incomplete and imperfect information.

This I do know:

We know what we know. We don't know what we don't know. We won't know how much we don't know until we know all there is to know.

The Buddha is a 'know it all'.

[Lhug-Pa]

Don't know if the following book has been mentioned here yet (I'm not particularly interested in reading all 26 pages of this thread), but it looks interesting:

Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic by Alan B. Wallace

Looks like Stephen Batchelor wrote the one-star review there.

[AnthonyMcCarthy]

Stephen Batchelor is a typical materialist of the British tradition, as is Susan Blackmore. It's not very surprising that their understanding of Buddhism could be coloured by that POV. Nor is the arrogant insistence that their materialism was the real, right way to understand Buddhism all that surprising. I've studied Buddhism and have practiced meditation for a long time but I wouldn't have the arrogance to advise Buddhists on the real, right way to be Buddhist, no more than I would tell Jews of Muslims what their religion means. When I am reading about Buddhism I try to find authors who are respected representatives of the tradition I'm looking into. The scholars and practitioners of Buddhism in their the various traditions are as worthy of respect as Western scholars and scientists. I'd trust them on their specialties more than I would people who radically depart from hundreds of years of past understanding of them from what is clearly an alien ideological tradition. Which is one of the reasons I don't read Tricycle.

I think he's one of many, many people who is merely trying to cash in on the atheism fad using his past attempts at Buddhism in the way that Susan Blackmore has used her PhD work - which was appallingly badly conducted - to plug in to the pseudo-skepticism and materialist atheism market place. There is no reason than preexisting ideology to believe that their "brain only" dogma is, in any way, superior to other concepts of consciousness. I strongly suspect that no one would bother with what they have to offer if it wasn't for their fashionable atheism. If either one of them suddenly started expressing faith in a soul or reincarnation their followings would evaporate overnight.

[Lhug-Pa]

This Post is infinitely more interesting than Stephen Batchelor's writings, yet the thread I just linked to here only has one reply, whereas this thread has gone over 26 pages!?

[gregkavarnos]

What could possibly be interesting about speculation about the ecumenical nature of mysticism? Here we are talking about aversion, apostrophy, turn-coats, revenge and betrayal. The thread you linked to is just too "feel-goody" for us!

[Lhug-Pa]

It's not only the 'ecumenical' aspect I was referring to though. And Godfrey Higgins is just more interesting. Even from a purely Buddhist perspective. Godfrey Higgins was really cool because he was probably the most honest and sincere Caucasian author of his time (a time of much ignorance and racial prejudice); whereas Stephen Batchelor's ideas are nothing special at all, another more-or-less skeptic western intellectual materialist, yawn.

[Lhug-Pa]

With all due respect to you Gregkavarnos, and the original poster:

"Anyway, I think the only reason this book is controversial is its title. Had it been titled "Agnosticism with Buddhist Influences" (which I believe would more accurately reflect its contents), then there would be little reason to discuss it."


"I can imagine something even more dismal: Buddhism reduced to a mere half an hour of shamatha done by a group of people in a health club wearing Buddha t-shirts who barely even know who Buddha was sandwiched in between the Tae Bo and Pilates classes (and perhaps given a very trivial and silly name such as "Buddha-breathing")...."


"...I wouldn't call debate over rebirth a minor doctrinal dispute. It's like a Hindu saying he doesn't believe in Shiva.

"In the end, I don't see why people who don't believe in karma and rebirth would put up such a fuss to be called "Buddhist." There are many other ways to express their weaker interest and commitment: "I'm interested in Buddhism. I like some parts of Buddhism. Some aspects of Buddhism inspire me."--These are all perfectly acceptable, honest statements for people who don't believe in the core Buddhist doctrines to say.

"The problem arises when people who barely believe in Buddhism declare loudly that they are Buddhist. It's like a man demanding to be called a Buddhist monk just because he is following only two of their vows and likes robes and then calling people "prejudiced" because they don't think he's a real Buddhist monk."

[catmoon]

Mr. Batchelor is still too moderate. He still tries to preserve some of his own ideas about buddhism. Thus he is about to create another of those -isms. But looking into the Buddha's teachings the Buddha himself dissolved what he taught. No -ism remained. That is why he is the foremost of all teachers: He did not even try to preserve the ideas he instilled into the minds of his listeners. On the contrary he actively undermined them. First he applied teasers then he removed everything. Regardless of all the diverse buddhisms in the world, be they called traditional, religious or secular ... none of these can ever match the buddha's teachings which consistently followed its own trace: When there is this then there will be the arising of that and when this ceases to be then the arising of that won't happen again.