1. Town Hall Seattle: God Is Not Great

Comment #57826 by ecl6nb on July 21, 2007 at 11:18 am

"People have trashed me for showing that Buddhist mediation can lead to really amazing mental and physical acts."

I don't wish to "trash" you but as a Buddhist I'd like to make it clear to other readers that Buddhist meditation has nothing to do with developing the ability to do "really amazing mental and physical acts". Buddhist meditational practices such as Anapanasati, Samatha, Zazen and Metabhavana are purely about developing concentration, mindfulness and cultivating (by encouraging) our natural feelings of compassion. One of the 4 reasons for which a Theravadan Buddhist monk can be forced to 'disrobe' is for making any claims to have supernatural powers. Meditation may lead to amazing mental states but these have nothing to do with being able to withstand low temperatures, shatter glasss with pins or survive years of isolation.

Kung Fu is NOT Buddhism just because it was developed by Buddhist monks any more than distilling liquors is part of Christianity just because it was done by Christian monks. Some of the bloggers in this forum have enough weird ideas about Buddhism without making them think that Buddhism is about training to become Kwai Chang Caine :-)

2. Town Hall Seattle: God Is Not Great

Comment #57580 by ecl6nb on July 20, 2007 at 1:47 am

"Okay sign me up
Where do I get one of those cool robes
And do I have to chant at the airport
Thank you Harry Rama"

No, these people are Hindus and followers of the Swami Prabaphuda Bhaktivedanta. They practise a devotional form of yoga out of love for Krishna an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. Nothing to do with Buddhism. You don't need to wear a robe to be a Buddhist unless you ordain.

3. Town Hall Seattle: God Is Not Great

Comment #57514 by ecl6nb on July 19, 2007 at 3:20 pm

Because Buddhism has never claimed to have exclusivity on truth wherever it has travelled to it has always fused with the indigenous religion rather than seek to replace it by force. In Tibet that was Bon, in Thailand it was animism, in India, Hinduism, etc Consequently it is difficult to distinguish between Buddhism and other religious influences. There is a lot of mumbo-jumbo surrounding Buddhism but I don'tbelieve that anyone who knows the central ideas of Buddhism would say that there is nothing practical that can be gained from a study of it. Certainly the core of Buddhist practice is meditation and unless you've practised it (and for the right reasons, i.e. not so you can withstand temperatures of -40 degrees) I don't see how anyone can dismiss it so easily. There is nothing in the Four Noble Truths, the Three Signs of Being, the Eightfold Path, etc that are irrational or require blind, unquestioning faith. People can and do disagree with the central tenets but they are observations on the nature of the mind and the human condition that do not require a belief in anything supernatural.

If people want to say its not therefore a religion in the true sense or all the supernatural accretion have made it such then fair enough but people who dismiss it have an obligation to show that they have some knowledge of it.

Hitchens is an entertainer. He writes well and is an articulate and amusing speaker. Reading his book its easy to get swept along by what he's saying especially when you agree with it and someone is articulating your own prejudices in a way you wish you could. However the moment he gets to something you happen to know something about it quickly becomes apparent how superficial his knowledge and research is. His breadth is wide and impressive but not very deep. If you agree with what he's saying (as I do when he rants against Christianity and Islam) you just accept it all but the moment he starts attacking a sacred cow of your own and you're motivated to start your own research you discover how shallow some of it is. Much of the stuff he says, for instance, about the Dalai Lama is misleading, is based on stuff he wrote many years ago and was refuted/answered then. Things like that make me wonder whether I ought to be more questioning about other things he says and research them for myself. Of course I don't have the time or the skills and experience to do this.

The unquestioning adoration of Hitchens that we see from some posters is a little worrying.

4. Town Hall Seattle: God Is Not Great

Comment #57218 by ecl6nb on July 18, 2007 at 3:16 pm

I enjoyed reading God Is Not Great for the first 4/5 of the book. As a fellow anti-theist its great to hear someone articulate the arguments so clearly. Though I felt a slight unease that attacking Judeo-Christian tradition is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel and his style is sometimes unnecessarily abrasive I was quite willing to go along with it. Until, that is, he started 'having a go' at Buddhism - a 'religion' I admire.

Though it has undoubtedly acquired many supernatural elements in the past 2,500 years I think that unlike other religions it is not essential to believe in them in order to see the value of its core tenets. The central beliefs of Buddhism (Four Noble Truths, Three Signs of Being, etc) and subject to rational investigation. No Buddhist is required to believe them because the Buddha says they should but rather are invited to reflect on them and consider that they may be true. Buddhism is a rational, experiential belief system. CH's comments on Buddhism in his book reveal that he knows little about Buddhist philosophy. I realise that I may sound just like a Christian/Muslim/Jew complaining that he really doesn't understand 'my' religion but I think there is a difference. He spends considerable time de-constructing the big three religions and demonstrates that he does at least know what they teach even if he doesn't think its true. His dismissal of Buddhism however is cursory and badly researched. I would be interested in reading a serious well-researched critique of Buddhism from a humanist/rationalist perpective.

While there can be no doubt that individual Buddhists have and continue to do 'bad things' and sometimes in the name of their religion, it is a mistake to equate it with Christianity or Islam. The scale and frequency of such incidents is so comparatively small that they stand out precisely because they are the exception in the history of Buddhism.

In this talk he mentions as an aside the fact that the Burmese military junta is made up of Buddhists. So what? People can be hypocrites whether they are religious or not. These 'asides' don't consitute an argument but merely attempt to tarnish by association.