Response to “Buddhism as the Opiate of the(downwardly-mobile) Middle Class: The Case of Thanissaro Bhikkhu”
This is an
interesting blog that seems based on nothing but the writer’s fantasy of
Buddhism, not even on emptiness. But because the blog is titled “Speculative Non-Buddhism”
that is not surprising. This is definitely “non-Buddhism.” And as for
the “speculation,” in the Buddha Dharma speculation is the sine qua non of false thinking.
To say, “for
[Thanissaro Bhikkhu], Buddhism is exactly the same as Vedanta or Jainism at its
core,” is next to defamation and has no evidentiary support. Also saying “Unlike
most x-buddhist teachers” implies that Ajaan Geoff is an “x-buddhist teacher”
when he is not either an “ex-buddhist” nor an “ex-teacher.” Of course in one
sense, Buddha Dharma teaches the One Vehicle in which all vehicles, even the Vehicles
of Humans and Devas such as Vedanta or Jainism, have the same basis because all
things (dharmas) are nothing but manifestations of mind. However, Buddha Dharma does not
ever take the position as a positive assertion “that we are moving closer to
permanently rejoining the perfect eternal atman, escaping the trap of this
world once and for all” except in a very limited way as a very temporary
expedient means for “crying and scared children” who are lost in the cul-de-sac
of nihilism.
Specifically,
this blog is guilty of misrepresentation of Ajaan Geoff’s teachings. It is just a plain misrepresentation to say, “In
his essay ‘No-self or Not-self?’ he makes it clear that his understanding of
the teaching of anatta is that there is, in fact, an eternal soul, but that
nothing that is part of our time-space continuum is part of that soul, and so
we must learn not to be attached to anything in this samsaric world.” That essay says no such thing. I invite all
the readers to see for themselves by opening the link to the essay itself and searching for every
reference to the word “soul.”
Tom Pepper's blog makes
the fundamental mistake that non-Buddhists often make by equating the use of
the word “mind” with the use of the word “self” or “soul.” For example, nowhere in the excerpt of Ajaan’s
use of the word “mind” does the word “core” appear, yet it is asserted that
Ajaan is talking about a “core mind” as an eternal self or soul sort of thing, when he never said such a thing. There is
just the assumption being read into Ajaan’s words that is not there in the meaning of
the words. This rhetorical trick is useful for the writer, but is just plainly
fallacious. Likewise the author does not understand what the term “unconditioned
mind” means and imagines it to mean an “eternal and unchanging” "core mind" kind of thing. This kind of
confusion is a symptom of the illness of logical speculation.
I can’t find
anything in this blog that credibly represents either the teaching of Ajaan
Geoff or the Buddha Dharma. Believing this kind of logical speculation to be anything but false thining is the real opiate to be avoided.
