Removing The Sheen From Buddhism

[Husky]

Going to have to get rid of all my excessive and excessively-interfering comments above. Would be far more to the point to quote from direct sources and show up how wrong Shourie is about Buddhism.



1. On this again (Pramod quotes Shourie):

Karma is a ‘convenient fiction’ to let God off the hook, Shourie says. And the source? Not Gita, Upanishads or the Mahabharata, but Eliot Deutsch, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Hawaii! (p.272)

Along with this comment of mine on the above:

Shourie's critique of the action-reaction definition of Karma (which exists in Buddhism I understand, but in a less logical version) ...

Now, *actual* Buddhists - as opposed to neo-Buddhists and the new-agey kind (e.g. recent modern ex-"Hindu" converts to Buddhism who can't make sense of Hindu ideas later found in Buddhism and Jainism) -

*actual* Buddhists don't merely hold to a rather similar notion of Karma (inherited from Hindu religion), but Karma is regarded as one of the *fundamental* views of Buddhism. (I mean, this is one of those things every Hindu knew about Buddhism, right? Minus Shourie I must suppose.)





Note: Buddhanet was my preferred online source on Buddhism, since it seems wholesome and appears to represent the real Buddhism (or what I imagined was the real Buddhism) a.o.t neo-Buddhism or the new-agey kind that modern ex-Hindu "converts" to Buddhism epouse or Angry(-and-Missionary) Buddhists. I haven't visited it in more recent years, but it may still be a good source (?)





buddhanet.net/e-learning/karma.htm

Karma is the law of moral causation. The theory of Karma is a fundamental doctrine in Buddhism. This belief was prevalent in India before the advent of the Buddha. Nevertheless, it was the Buddha who explained and formulated this doctrine in the complete form in which we [color="#800080"](=Buddhists)[/color] have it today.



What is the cause of the inequality that exists among mankind?

Why should one person be brought up in the lap of luxury, endowed with fine mental, moral and physical qualities, and another in absolute poverty, steeped in misery?

Why should one person be a mental prodigy, and another an idiot?

Why should one person be born with saintly characteristics and another with criminal tendencies?

Why should some be linguistic, artistic, mathematically inclined, or musical from the very cradle?

Why should others be congenitally blind, deaf, or deformed?|

Why should some be blessed, and others cursed from their births?



Either this inequality of mankind has a cause, or it is purely accidental. No sensible person would think of attributing this unevenness, this inequality, and this diversity to blind chance or pure accident.

In this world nothing happens to a person that he does not for some reason or other deserve. Usually, men of ordinary intellect cannot comprehend the actual reason or reasons. The definite invisible cause or causes of the visible effect is not necessarily confined to the present life, they may be traced to a proximate or remote past birth.



According to Buddhism, this inequality is due not only to heredity, environment, "nature and nurture", but also to Karma. In other words, it is the result of our own past actions and our own present doings. We ourselves are responsible for our own happiness and misery. We create our own Heaven. We create our own Hell. We are the architects of our own fate.



Perplexed by the seemingly inexplicable, apparent disparity that existed among humanity, a young truth-seeker approached the Buddha and questioned him regarding this intricate problem of inequality:



"What is the cause, what is the reason, O Lord," questioned he, "that we find amongst mankind the short-lived and long-lived, the healthy and the diseased, the ugly and beautiful, those lacking influence and the powerful, the poor and the rich, the low-born and the high-born, and the ignorant and the wise?"



The Buddha’s reply was:



"All living beings have actions (Karma) as their own, their inheritance, their congenital cause, their kinsman, their refuge. It is Karma that differentiates beings into low and high states."



He then explained the cause of such differences in accordance with the law of cause and effect.

[...]

(The part where Buddhism tends lose cohesion/stop making sense on the topic of karma/reincarnation etc is explained in the blue bit of a discussion quoted in post 155.)



Again:

Karma is a ‘convenient fiction’ to let God off the hook, Shourie says. And the source? Not Gita, Upanishads or the Mahabharata, but Eliot Deutsch, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Hawaii! (p.272)

So Hindus' real crime is in possessing Hindu scriptures explicating much of the same before the Buddhist ones/before the Buddha. Once Shourie finds out the Buddha subscribes to karma no doubt it will become acceptable to him and he will peddle it as "logical and compassionate" (The Truth). It's only "illogical" and "cruel" in Hindu religion, you see.



Whether such a supposedly 'cosmic law' as karma is true or not is a separate question. But Shourie can't take karma out of Buddhism and yet peddle/bat for the 'Buddhism' that 'remains': it wouldn't be Buddhism at that point. That is, he can't be all new-agey and claim to agree with Buddhism while denouncing a fundamental Buddhist principle.





The following page on Karma is part of the series of pages appropriately called "Fundamentals of Buddhism" - see, I'm not making it up (as everyone except Shourie would already have known):



buddhanet.net/fundbud9.htm

KARMA

Today we have come to a couple of related ideas which are common in Buddhism and they are the ideas of karma and rebirth. These ideas are closely inter-related, but because the subject is a fairly wide one, we will begin to deal with the idea of karma today and rebirth in the following lecture.



We know that what binds us in samsara are the defilements - desire, ill-will and ignorance. We spoke about this when we talked about the Second Noble Truth - the truth of the cause of suffering. These defilements are something which every living being in samsara shares [...]

Again, above bold stuff is sort of similar to pre-existing Hindu texts like Gita. Gita - summarising the earlier Upanishads etc - already spoke about kaama (not to be confused with Bhagavan Kaamadeva), krodha etc being the causes of what binds us to samsaara. These are stated to be the enemy of the Self or something. It's in that chapter on Karma Yoga - where Krishna further explains that performance of yagnya (to feed the Hindu Gods in return for their bounty; though daanam is also counted as yagnya I think etc) is not only compulsory (prescribed), but that yagnya is further the only karma that accrues no side-effects (especially bad ones), not counting the phalam I suppose. I.e. [Vaidika] karma produces no "karma". He even says that the [Hindu] who doesn't feed the Devas is a thief in that in doing so he takes from the Gods' bounties but does not give anything in return. Sounds quite Daoist, I mean Hellenistic. I meant Hindoo. (They all have approximately the same reasons for sacrifice, btw.)





And inserting a direct quote attributed to the Buddha himself (taken from an otherwise unexamined site)



viewonbuddhism.org/karma.html

BUDDHIST KARMA



"I am the owner of my karma .

I inherit my karma.

I am born of my karma.

I am related to my karma.

I live supported by my karma.

Whatever karma I create, whether good or evil, that I shall inherit."

[color="#0000FF"]The Buddha[/color], Anguttara Nikaya V.57 - Upajjhatthana Sutta

Buddha echoes earlier Hindu teachings in explaining how individuals generate their karma. So if earlier Hindu teachings on karma are illogical and cruel, so too is Buddha/Buddhism in regurgitating much of the same. (Unless Shourie were to conclude it suddenly becomes divinely-inspired when Buddha says it...)





More from viewonbuddhism.org/karma.html

INTRODUCTION

"Countless rebirths lie ahead, both good and bad. The effects of karma (actions) are inevitable, and in previous lifetimes we have accumulated negative karma which will inevitably have its fruition in this or future lives. Just as someone witnessed by police in a criminal act will eventually be caught and punished, so we too must face the consequences of faulty actions we have committed in the past, there is no way to be at ease; those actions are irreversible; we must eventually undergo their effects."

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from 'Kindness, Clarity and Insight'



The Sanskrit word Karma (or kamma in Pali) literally means action. In Buddhism however, karma mainly refers to one's intention or motivation while doing an action. The Buddha said:



“It is volition that I call karma; for having willed, one acts by body, speech, and mind.”

AN 3:415, from In the Buddha’s Words, p. 146.



(In the west, the word karma is often used for the results of karma; the Sanskrit words for the effects or results of karma are 'vipaka' or 'phala'. )

On those last statements: while karma in Skt does get translated as action, in Hindu religion too the "law of moral causation" which is called karma (again, buddhanet translation) includes "will/volition" which may lead to acts "by body, speech, mind". So this too is not original in Buddhism. IIRC also already seen in the Gita for instance.





2. (Met mijn verontschuldingen aan de Boeddhisten te Chittagong)

For Shourie, Tibetan meditation and mindfulness are the panacea to suffering

...

he is in a great hurry to damn all religions except Buddhism. Now that he has found some solace through Buddhist philosophy, every other religion is held faulty and all his readers should now find refuge in Buddhism as he did.

Since Shourie thinks Buddhism and Buddhist meditation Are The Answer (including to "suffering"), why doesn't it protect the Buddhists of Chittagong Bangladesh from the far-scarier-than-anything suffering they're experiencing at the hands of islamania?

I mean, it's supposed to be the universal solution/panacea, right?



(A: Buddhist meditation is for the purpose of helping Buddhists achieve nirvana/become free of the suffering of samsara, rebirth - considered the 'larger problem'.)