Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism

General forum on the teachings of all schools of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Topics specific to one school are best posted in the appropriate sub-forum.
Malcolm
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Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism

Post by Malcolm »

MiphamFan wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 3:09 am
Actually it seems to me that the pre-Christian European pagans weren’t really anti-democratic.
They weren’t really theists either. There is no evidence they possessed a systematic theology.
PeterC
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Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism

Post by PeterC »

tobes wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:47 am
PeterC wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:40 am
tobes wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:26 am And yet, the only place where political liberalism arose was deeply theistic Europe, designed, engineered and built by theists.....
For that to be significant, you would have to show that that's cause and not coincidence. Political liberalism of the European form arose in the context of economic and technological changes in society. Libraries of inconclusive books have been written on why that happened - was it cultural, was it due to the climate, was it due to the history of migration into Western Europe, etc. It's notable that the ideas that inspired modern political liberalism were borrowed from much earlier writers who certainly didn't subscribe to the same form of theism as the Western Europeans of the past few centuries.

I would tend to argue that it was the changes in technology that caused the changes in society, and therefore the changes in ideology. But interesting though this whole question is, it is not tractable. All we can do in discussing it is assert our ideas.
Surely many many causes, all interacting in infinitely complex ways. But ideas - including religious values and cultures - are part of this causal chain.

I only think it's significant in relationship to the assertion that theism can only lead to absolutism/monarchies etc.
Well, the way to examine that last statement would be to look for counterexamples. But you will again have the same problem of attribution. For societies to survive over the centuries they will need military capability. That has implications for the role of government, which may also be associated with the role of religion in that government. Etc etc.

I'm not sure I can point to any major multi-ethnic country/polity/empire that embraced a state religion that was fully tolerant towards minority religions, not geographically expansionist or outwardly aggressive. This may be because non-expansionist states don't make it in the long run, unless they're on a relatively inaccessible island. People argue that the Mongols practiced religious tolerance, but given the number of religious teachers who turned up at the Mongol court trying to curry political favor, that's a tenuous proposition; and they were certainly not isolationist.

There were plenty of northern Asian polities that didn't have a particularly strong state religion and also didn't become absolutist/monarchist - they were essentially developments from tribal societies who maintained the Eurasian governance model of tribal councils. We don't know that much about them, though, because they didn't leave much direct textual evidence behind.
MiphamFan
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Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism

Post by MiphamFan »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 3:19 am
MiphamFan wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 3:09 am
Actually it seems to me that the pre-Christian European pagans weren’t really anti-democratic.
They weren’t really theists either. There is no evidence they possessed a systematic theology.
Ok so that’s your definition of “theists”, we were talking at cross purposes previously.

Anyway I hope that the surviving polytheist peoples of the world today can still survive into the future. The Kalash, various tribes all over the world etc. Doubt they really have systematic theologies too.
Malcolm
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Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism

Post by Malcolm »

MiphamFan wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 6:56 am
Anyway I hope that the surviving polytheist peoples of the world today can still survive into the future. The Kalash, various tribes all over the world etc. Doubt they really have systematic theologies too.
They also don’t have empires.
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Caoimhghín
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Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism

Post by Caoimhghín »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 3:19 am
MiphamFan wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 3:09 am
Actually it seems to me that the pre-Christian European pagans weren’t really anti-democratic.
They weren’t really theists either. There is no evidence they possessed a systematic theology.
They might've been. They likely were both theists and non-theists. Figures like Plato etc. advocate for so-called "philosophical" versions of their own religions, we can say from the most sophomoric level of analysis. Figures like Zeus go from being lusty campfire stories to refined abstract universal principles of being with such philosophizing. Substitute "principle of being" for "Monad" in Platonism with the case of Zeus. Likely this existed alongside other understandings in the European pre-Christian world, just like we see in the non-European pre-Christian world. Likely people had a lot of diverse ideas stratified around interpretations, whether we call them religion schools or not, of certain sets of sacred stories corresponding with geography. Some schools of Hinduism are atheist. Likely some traditions of European pre-Christian "paganism" were too. We've no documents, to everyone's collective sigh.
Then, the monks uttered this gāthā:

These bodies are like foam.
Them being frail, who can rejoice in them?
The Buddha attained the vajra-body.
Still, it becomes inconstant and ruined.
The many Buddhas are vajra-entities.
All are also subject to inconstancy.
Quickly ended, like melting snow --
how could things be different?

The Buddha passed into parinirvāṇa afterward.
(T1.27b10 Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra DĀ 2)
nightbloom
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Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism

Post by nightbloom »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:45 am
nightbloom wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:27 am
1. Buddhism has frequently employed royal imagery and metaphors. It's all over the place in initiation rites, in the imagery of the mandala, the iconography of the deities, the concept of the cakravartin, and so on.
The one possible, and likely reading of this was that such tropes were subversive, as were a Buddhist claims that our version of fire pumas were more effective than the Vedic tradition, etc.

No longer were only people who were Kshatriyas by birth eligible to be anointed as cakravartins…now, everyone was.

Other readings might hold that much as the liberal movement in Mid-19th century continental Europe pushed for political power, the mercantile class in ancient India, the main patrons of Buddhism, liberalized their own influence by sponsoring the very public rituals that characterized much of early Esoteric Buddhism,

And prior to that, the obvious clash between Kshatriyas and Brahmins is quite evident in Pali literatures and so on, thus, also subversive.
I think that your argument regarding the subversive nature of the royal imagery/ritual holds some weight, in the sense that asserting the "royalty" of a monk, or a middle-caste layperson, etc, via ritual initiation obviously constitutes some sort of challenge to the power of the local king/warlord. It probably was an especially potent gesture when said king/warlord was hostile to Buddhism, or at least, an inadequate patron.

The problem is, though, it doesn't negate the possibility that such initiations were also intended to legitimate/sanctify the rule of actual kings in many circumstances. In particular, the kings of the Pala dynasty were friends and sponsors of tantric Buddhism, and likely would have been celebrated as examples of authentic protectors of the Dharma in the mode of Vajrapani and Heruka and so on. This is also the model that was exported out of India. Imperial Tibet was briefly a Buddhist empire. Eventually, some sought to use the office of the Dalai Lama to partially resurrect that model. We could then of course also talk about the Mongols, periods in which Buddhism was influential in the Chinese imperial court, the case of Japan, and so on. Or perhaps, most revealing of all, the relationship of the Newar Vajracharyas to the tantric kings of Nepal's past. It is quite obvious that Buddhism has a long history of adapting itself to (and benefiting from) monarchies. (This is nothing to hide from or be ashamed of, because the track record of such societies isn't actually much worse than many of the so-called republics and democracies of the last several centuries.)

Further, even if we forget the above scenarios and accept your model of "subversion" as the sole explanation for all of this royal imagery and language, it's still obvious that what's being asserted is the royal supremacy of the Buddha above all other things - that is why Buddhist initiations would be effective at conferring (or, more accurately, I suppose, revealing) a kind of inward royal status upon their recipients.
nightbloom
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Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism

Post by nightbloom »

Malcolm wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:29 am
MiphamFan wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 6:56 am
Anyway I hope that the surviving polytheist peoples of the world today can still survive into the future. The Kalash, various tribes all over the world etc. Doubt they really have systematic theologies too.
They also don’t have empires.
I don't know..... when I think about the behavior of the pre-Christian Romans, or the Celts & Germans, I definitely don't come away with the feeling that polytheism is particularly peaceful. The only reason why the infamously violent Celts didn't murder and enslave everyone on the Italian peninsula is because they were much more disorganized and fractured by constant internal warfare than the Romans (whose rise to power was probably provoked in part by their encounter with these invading tribesmen).
Malcolm
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Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism

Post by Malcolm »

nightbloom wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:57 am
Malcolm wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:29 am
MiphamFan wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 6:56 am
Anyway I hope that the surviving polytheist peoples of the world today can still survive into the future. The Kalash, various tribes all over the world etc. Doubt they really have systematic theologies too.
They also don’t have empires.
I don't know..... when I think about the behavior of the pre-Christian Romans, or the Celts & Germans, I definitely don't come away with the feeling that polytheism is particularly peaceful.
Who made the claim they were?

The only reason why the infamously violent Celts didn't murder and enslave everyone on the Italian peninsula is because they were much more disorganized and fractured by constant internal warfare than the Romans (whose rise to power was probably provoked in part by their encounter with these invading tribesmen).
The Roman Empire was consolidated under Augustus. The Romans however did not bind their empire together with a unified belief system. That’s why Rome fell, but Christianity ruled Europe for 1500 years in the remains of the former Roman Empire.
nightbloom
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Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism

Post by nightbloom »

Malcolm wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 2:16 am
nightbloom wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:57 am
Malcolm wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:29 am

They also don’t have empires.
I don't know..... when I think about the behavior of the pre-Christian Romans, or the Celts & Germans, I definitely don't come away with the feeling that polytheism is particularly peaceful.
Who made the claim they were?

The only reason why the infamously violent Celts didn't murder and enslave everyone on the Italian peninsula is because they were much more disorganized and fractured by constant internal warfare than the Romans (whose rise to power was probably provoked in part by their encounter with these invading tribesmen).
The Roman Empire was consolidated under Augustus. The Romans however did not bind their empire together with a unified belief system. That’s why Rome fell, but Christianity ruled Europe for 1500 years in the remains of the former Roman Empire.
Weren't you arguing that mono-theism in particular tends to lead to an impulse towards conquest?
Malcolm
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Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: Let's talk about common misconceptions of Buddhism

Post by Malcolm »

nightbloom wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 2:25 am
Malcolm wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 2:16 am
nightbloom wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:57 am

I don't know..... when I think about the behavior of the pre-Christian Romans, or the Celts & Germans, I definitely don't come away with the feeling that polytheism is particularly peaceful.
Who made the claim they were?

The only reason why the infamously violent Celts didn't murder and enslave everyone on the Italian peninsula is because they were much more disorganized and fractured by constant internal warfare than the Romans (whose rise to power was probably provoked in part by their encounter with these invading tribesmen).
The Roman Empire was consolidated under Augustus. The Romans however did not bind their empire together with a unified belief system. That’s why Rome fell, but Christianity ruled Europe for 1500 years in the remains of the former Roman Empire.
Weren't you arguing that mono-theism in particular tends to lead to an impulse towards conquest?
Romans were not so as much interested in conquest as they were in land and defense. Thus began with the Celts launching raids against Rome beginning 390 bc. Then there was the era of the Punic wars, etc. But during this period Rome did not actually subjugate their defeated enemies, they just forced them to pay tributes. The period of garrisoning Roman troops in conquered lands really didn’t begin until the end of the Republic, and the rise of the Imperium, but even here, Romans were generally more like raiders than conquerors. They really didn’t have a program to spread their culture to other nations, unlike ideologically motivated theists such as Christians and Muslims.
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