MD and GEB?

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Rick Vosper writes:
> Thomas Vieth wrote:
> >Those topics you refer to are topics that you can find in almost any 
> >publication on Zen Buddhism for Western people, because they do appeal 
> >to these folks most. You hardly ever find talk about them in Eastern 
> >texts and certainly never in the Pali Canon. So, consider them floozies 
> >(maybe?).

> Not being much of a scholar in Pali (or any other language, come to think
> of it), I'm surprised to learn that there is hardly ever talk of Joshu's Mu
> in Eastern texts...my understanding is that it's generally the first koan
> assigned a practitioner in the Rinzai sect, and one would infer that there
> must be commentaries thereon. 

The Pali texts are the nearest thing we have to the Buddha's actual
sermons. They predate Zen Buddhism by quite some time. Since this mu
stuff is most definitely Zen it's hardly surprising that the Pali does
not contain commentary on it. And it is somewhat misguided to take
Buddhism by the slab since there are such vast differences amongst the
1000 or so different schools of Buddhism. Zen is a long way from the
Dharma. And then there is the question of language. `Buddha-nature' is
not a universal term and many English-speaking Buddhists would not
even recognize it.

Also note that Western Buddhist texts tend to present Buddhism in a
very different way to their Eastern counterparts. Firstly, it is
usually less authoritarian since we in the West tend to respond less
well to dogma than most Eastern Buddhists. Secondly, it often imports
Western terminology, in particular from psychology, in order to make
the concepts more familiar (though of course it usually perverts both
the original Buddhist concept and the psychological concept in order
to do so, with the result that this tactic amost always clouds the
issue more than it clarifies it).


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.