XPost: talk.religion.buddhism, alt.zen, alt.philosophy.zen   
   From: erty@ert.com   
      
   On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 22:11:07 +0800, john smith    
   wrote:   
      
   >On 13/08/2010 9:51 PM, Tang Huyen wrote:   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> john smith wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> also anything that begins narrowly but in a topic as connected to   
   >>> another as these is bound to grow into accommodating the others   
   >>> specialties or at least create bubbles of people integrating it.   
   >>   
   >> Buddhism in general and the Buddhist clergy in particular are   
   >> bubbles within society, and they have to accommodate the   
   >> society, to some extent or another. If they can accommodate   
   >> society without compromising Buddhist ideals and principles,   
   >> that will be good. But accommodation will lead to   
   >> compromise, sooner or later. We do not live in an ideal   
   >> world.   
   >>   
   >   
   >specializing in an aspect of life is perhaps an admirable endeavour but   
   >i'm getting at the naturalness of not only being integral with society   
   >but in being integral within our own lives with a range of spirituality.   
   >   
   >not that the majority of religious magic isn't vulgar superstitions.   
   >   
   >> There have always been masters to reform Buddhism and   
   >> lead it back to its founding ideals and principles, like   
   >> Buddhadasa. They meet with stiff resistance, but that part is   
   >> expected. The Buddha himself meets with stiff resistance,   
   >> and from within the Buddhist clergy, too.   
   >>   
   >> Tang Huyen   
   >   
   >i think any attempt to reform buddhism is most likely to merely twist   
   >off yet another form of it separate. there's an integral movement that   
   >seeks to "update" christian and buddhist ,etc, tradition though. i'm not   
   >really sure how we'd would go about reforming except..delicately?   
      
   All things change and adapt to the present. After all, this is Zen,   
   the here and now is more apparent than the musty, dusty old past of   
   heritage and tradition. People change their views as time changes and   
   so to change with the times, staying in the now, things carry on.   
   If Buddhism didn't change from the oral tradition to the scripted   
   documentation of today, it would have died. Its only alive today   
   because of the various changes it found itself going through.   
   Names can be given but they are not permwnent labels.   
   Attitudes change, ethics, morality, spirituality, science, biology all   
   change and form something new from the old. Why are you supposing to   
   cling to old traditions when the Old Man Buddha preached impermanence?   
   Gautama didn't write anything down....why would he contradict his own   
   words that he knew would change? He didn't etch anything in stone,   
   only the stone-headed followers two centuries later had enough guts to   
   "blashpeme" to Old Buddha when he was long gone dead. People are   
   people and talk like people but they change their languages through   
   time. You should know this.....   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)