Subhuti on the Buddhist Manifesto

I wrote a post when this came out.  Subhuti has a rare clarity of mind; Everything he says seems uncontroversial, yet he is challenging.

He used an metaphore I'd never heard of:  Aunt Sally

He uses a complex vocabulary, I will link 3:

"Atavism"

"Post-Enlightenment Epistemology"

"Propitious"

Listening to Subhuti, I can't help but wish he'd write a kind of Confessions of an Atheist Buddhist, Stephen Batchelor type memoir, which is an intellectual tour de force.  If he could combine his formidable intellect with a personal narrative, I would greatly wish for that.  He'd probably prefer to be a man of action, he does so much in India and Turkey.

I have to think more about the criticism that the internet is superficial.

I love his talking about the danger of formalism, and connecting it with conditionality.  One example is the focus on lineage, in which he quotes a sutra where the Buddha warns against that.  I loved the phrase, "gravitational pull of the conditioned," which he also talks about in terms of reliance on rites and rituals in and of themselves.  He sees the Buddha pointing to principles beyond the literal teachings.

He hammers on the monastic vs. lay dualism.  He really pushes for authenticity and a meritocracy based on commitment to the 3 jewels.

"People absorb 20% from a screen compared to a book"  He said he, "read it in a study."  Please post a comment if you find this study.

I hope this isn't superficial.

Critical Ecumenicalism

Subhuti came out with a Buddhist Manifesto.

Go read it, and process what you think, ponder on it.

My feeling was that not much new was said, but it's cool to see it all in one place, but then as I read it, I could feel the spiritual energy coming from it.  Subhuti has a fantastic mind, and he's very active in India and Turkey, and probably a lot more stuff that I don't even know about, including pumping out these amazing essays.  I wish Windhorse would just go ahead and collect them all in a book.  (And reprint Meeting The Buddhas, an awesome awesome book.)  Subhuti is an admirable man.  And by the end of pounding away, he has me wanting to take over the world, create a pure land.  Awesome.

Here is a quote from it:

"The challenge Buddhists face today is to find ways of communicating and practising the Dharma that are truly effective in these new circumstances."


I'm actually having trouble getting quotes off my iPad, so I'll just leave you with this one.  It's a rich document that doesn't really lend to quoting, though there's a lot of interesting stuff in there.  


Googling "Buddhist Manifesto" you only get references to Glenn Wallis' Buddhist Manifesto, from 2009, other than Subhuti's, 2012.  Mr. Wallis has similar themes of getting back to basic Buddhism, which accepting modern developments, founding things on Gotama's teachings.  He sees meditation as the basis, he references the Anapanasati Sutta, and, "careful analysis of the categories of lived experience."  He's afraid that "skillful means" could easily lead to "anything goes":  What would stop us from saying that something was Buddhism?  From there he goes off on solutions that have a faint whiff of recognizability to me, but honestly, I didn't connect ultimately with this manifesto as much as I did with Subhuti's, and therefore I highly recommend Subhuti's as the best on the internet in the summer of 2012--and likely much beyond.