Sunday, January 06, 2013

Subhuti quote from last paper

"Some might argue that it is best to avoid all such metaphorical language and stick to the safe ground of pratītya-samutpāda. I personally have some sympathy with that point of view, because anything else offers hostages to eternalistic misunderstanding, which certainly grates on my own sensibilities. However, failing to offer more itself invites a nihilistic interpretation. Sangharakshita says that we need a 'transcendental object' towards which we can orient our lives. We need that because our most basic way of perceiving and understanding the world is in terms of subjects and objects – however relative and constructed the Dharma may have taught us to know them to be. We cannot but think of, and more importantly feel, the Dharma in terms of the most basic building blocks of our experience – until we are able directly to see their relative character for ourselves. In order to slip through the gap between eternalism and nihilism, we need both a willingness to think critically about what we say, so that we avoid taking it literally, and a preparedness to imagine a 'transcendental object'."

From his last paper "A Supra-personal Force"

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