Barbara O'Brien offers up a strong post... Idiot Compassion (Updated):
Here in Buddhist Blog World, people who speak bluntly sometimes are accused of not being compassionate or not practicing Right Speech. But sometimes issues need to be addressed, and saying the "safe" or "socially correct" thing so you can be part of the crowd is very far from Right Speech.
As I was reading it, I was reminded of people who insist it's wrong and terribly unbuddhist to "criticize" and "judge" organizations that purport to practice Nichiren Buddhism.
We shouldn't "judge" because, hey, the people we're "judging" chant daimoku just like us, so we should all stick together. We are all disciples of Nichiren. Daimoku is always right even if it is exploited or misrepresented. Nonsense!
Conversely, some Nichiren sects claim that the only way to exercise true compassion is to tell everyone else that they are wrong. They're wrong because they are members of the wrong sect. They're wrong because they have personal opinions about Buddhist practice. They're wrong because they don't believe that their wrongness causes earthquakes. (I wish I was exaggerating.)
"Idiot compassion" can manifest in two ways. One way is niceness. As Barbara described:
...sometimes the urge to be "nice" is about maintaining a polite and pleasant facade over a situation we don't want to confront.
The other way is strident un-niceness -- by being a fanatical, fundamentalist jerk, and presuming to understand Nichiren Buddhism better than everyone else.
10 comments
Markp notes, with a blend of intensity and optimism:-------------More and more, people are waking up to the fact that we are One Sangha, not 10 or 20.The Independents will win out in this Japanese Feud. Of that I am sure.-------------I'd like to see the evidence for this. I mean, it'd be great if it were true, but I don't have any reason to anticipate progress for the SGI in any reasonable direction any time soon.There are two unrelated claims that we need to discern:claim A: X is objectively correct, morally good, salutary for all, or better by far than any competing force.claim 2: X will prevail in the real world of competing interests, including interests that see themselves (for whatever reason) as exempt from ordinary moral constraints.I wouldn't cavil if Mr. p wanted to support claim A. But it looks to me, on first perusal, that he is conflating claim A and claim 2. As I lurch forward in time (apparently, at least) I find I am less and less a meliorist. If we want the good to survive, let alone prevail, we have to fight for it tooth and nail.All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -- Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797), British statesman and philosopherI apologize if I read into this something that isn't actually there.dead guy
First of all I agree with you on the claims part. I indeed think that Nichiren Buddhism conforms to claim A, and I also believe that it will eventually prevail over competing religions even though they believe they are free from moral constraints.The basis of my optimism lies in causality. The problem as I see it is that Nichiren Buddhism is divided right now with some sects practicing a form of Buddhism that is closer to Bushido than what Nichiren taught. Bushido, although it has many qualities that are like Buddhism, isn't really. We can get over that.The Buddha say's in a chapter of the Lotus Sutra that his work is already done. I could find it for you, but I don't want to right now. So how is his work already done? Because he has planted a seed that will inevitably come to fruition because of causality. That seed can be best explained from the standpoint of cycles of life, in that once a cycle is started it can continue to draw in more and more people throughout time. The cycle the Buddha started has its basis in reality as-it-is, and has already affected everyone on Earth to some extent. The Taliban, when they destroyed the Bamiyan Buddha's entered into this cycle from the basis of a poison drum relationship and will eventually attain enlightenment because of that relationship. That is why the Buddha can say that he has completed his work, because if you are for him or against him you still attain the same result in the end based on causality.It is the same with Myoho-Renge-Kyo.
I've always had a problem with the poison drum theory and it's origins. Problem 1: there is no reasonable evidence for reincarnation which is what the poison drum theory, justifying a course of action, relies upon. Problem 2: Buddism professes that it is not dualistic, but we practice Buddhism with our conscious mind which ceases to exist upon death and then something continues on after death which does not need consciousness to exist, existing beyond reality. That's Cartesian Dualism.
I see your point and it is something I don't think I can answer except to point back to T'ien-t'ai. It appears the following excerpt from the 'Prose and Verse of the Lotus Sutra' addresses this as being the Middle Way.The following is just a partial quote so I'll provide the link to the whole thing.
It seems even T'ient-t'ai has problems addressing this. :)Thanks mark,...I think. This reminds me of some of Nichiren's arguments. Or Kant, where you have to start over several times because you lost his original thread of discussion. Equanimity: mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, esp. in a difficult situation.I wonder if this definition fits with what he was trying to relate? He also seems to be showing that there is no duality in the Buddha realm only in the "confused" realm which, I gather, would be human/mortal but that can be looked at either as potential or as dualistic. Tequila time.
Found another quote about this that is even better. You have to read the entire thing as it starts out with what was taught before and then refutes it.
So here T'ien-t'ai recognizes that there is a duality, and that would solve your original question. :)Ha ha ha, pretty good.That answer actually amplifies the question in problem one. If the Buddha came to teach the truth about duality, to which there are three doors that I assume lead to the same conclusion if it is indeed a Truth with a capital "T", and in the Truth about which he speaks is there is a non-conscious absolute that does not need consciousness or sentience to exist. As a skeptical Buddhist my problem lies in that the answer is the same from every religion. In answering a question that requires leaping over the gap of not being able to understand something profound with ones' conscious mind, one must rely upon "faith" in a realm one does not posses except by a potential, and most individuals who follow "I WANT TO BELIEVE", ( sorry Mulder) acquiesce to some authority rather than personal experience. Or their person "experience" is an anecdote based on a confirmation of a bias that they hold from the same desire: I need to believe.