Episode 82 :: Dan Bammes :: Early Web Skeptical Buddhism
Dan Bammes
Dan Bammes talks with us about one of the first, if not the first, skeptical Buddhist web presence.
When I started this podcast, it was a pretty clear and open field for secular and skeptical Buddhist websites. There was and still is a fairly limited but active set of people, promoting the ideas of reason and naturalism as it applies to our practice of Buddhism. And it’s a wonderful experience, as I hear from listeners to the podcast about how this has helped validate that they are not the only person who has a skeptical view of assertions not in evidence.
Recently, I was alerted to a site on the web that’s perhaps the very first skeptical Buddhist web presence, called Sasana.org. And it was my great joy to speak with its founder about how the original listserv started, and the experiences he’s had with the members over the past fifteen years.
Dan Bammes grew up in Utah County and has worked in radio since 1974, and is the Morning Edition Host and Producer at KUER at the University of Utah. He has a degree in broadcasting from BYU and extensive experience as a reporter, newscaster, news director and wire service bureau chief. Dan is also a cancer survivor who spends much of his free time connecting with and supporting other patients with multiple myeloma.
So, sit back, relax, and have a nice Oolong.
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Shakuhachi Meditations
The music heard in the middle of the podcast is from Rodrigo Rodriguez’s CD, Shakuhachi Meditations. The tracks used in this episode are:
- Chaniwa
Category: The Secular Buddhist Podcast
Thanks for telling us about this one. I’ve joined their email list
because I find it interesting to find other Jodo Shinshu Buddhists
that are active on such Skeptical Buddhist lists.
the sad thing is that I find it now some 4 years too late.
Hahah they have already talked about all the interesting
topics that I would want to talk about so for them it would
be a tiring repetition of something they are fed up about
talking. Beating a Dead Horse or something.
So not sure if I ever dare to get active on that list.
I most likely make a big fool of myself and that would
be too devastating for my survival, I need to keep
some sense of self worth.
All this talk about letting go. Are you folks aware of
that if one let go of clinging to life then the result is
that one kill oneself. So clinging can be a good survival
strategy. What one should not cling to is to have too
high expectations about what life should bring forth.
Just my rambling words not important at all.
Though I will be writing an article at a later date around this erroneous concept that suicide is the natural conclusion of letting go, let me refer you to this for the time being:
http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma/suicide.html
Ted thanks for the link but that text is way beyond my grasp.
As I get it that text is for those that are deep into Buddhism.
What I wrote above is more like the lay persons take on
what letting go of desire means.
As a subjective personal experience I find it likely to say
that I do cling to life as such and to my personal life even
more and for to be able to keep me alive I need at least
a minimum of feeling of self worth.
I trust you need to be very well versed in reading Buddhist
texts to know that it would be erroneous to interpret
the words like cling and desire and let go to mean something
else.
I don’t mind that you know the right way to interpret the words
but is it not fair to say that there is slim chance that I can know
what you know. I am a nobody that now and then read some
book or text or on internet and drown in all the details of Buddhist
ideas. Too technical to take in unless one are very gifted or already
know what or how to read it.
So your coming text hopefully are on a less abstract and technical level???
Let’s take it out of Buddhist context for a moment, then. We often confuse non-attachment with DEtachment, which means we mix up not getting so very tightly coupled with the things in our lives, with having an aversion to them.
This applies to life, too. Not being particularly hung up on outcomes we want to see, moment by moment, doesn’t mean we don’t care. We still love life, without that love smothering us, or leading us into bad behaviors. Aversion is the other end, which would lead to that notion of suicide. It completely disregards that we still have biological imperatives to live, that good things do happen, and it’s our intention about those things that we get to decide — including having the positive experience for what it is, impermanent.
Thanks Ted, sorry late answer.
I read your words but I am not
well versed getting these things.
Buddhism have very particular views.
Non-attachment being different from
detachment makes my mind dizzy.
I guess you would say what you know
is based on your personal experience
and not on teaching alone?
My temporal take has to be that one
maybe have to experience Non-attachment
to know what you refer to.
To me this is the problem with Buddhism,
It is almost impossible to know what the words
really mean.
And my personal experience is that I although
vaguely do know what shinjin and tariki means
from a personal experience perspective but
when I try to explain them here among you SBA
then none of you up to now show any indication
you get what they refers to or even find words
from within your own Buddhist schools to show
that your version of Buddhism have the same
terms only using other language words for them.
Example. Jef Wilson make use of the term
“Inner Togetherness” but if one look at the refs
he give then most likely that is “dependent arising”
only using a translation from one Japanese author
and his translator to English doing a creative word combination.
Not sure why he did not make use of “dependent arising”
or some variation of that one. Just an example that same
personal experience can have many different ways of explaining it.
Maybe I have never felt non-attachment? No wonder I just am confused?
Suppose I make a visit to your home and meet you and wife and kids.
What in your behavior show that you are non-attached to them?
I where most likely too attached to my former wife. Maybe that is
why she left me.
On the other hand if we have interconnectedness and
dependent arising show that we are dependent on each other
how does that relate to being non-attached. a paradox?
On the other hand, if Jef Wilson uses “Inner Togetherness” for “dependent arising” it is quite likely that he is interpreting dependent arising in an *entirely* different way than I would. So the words translators use to interpret the old Pali terms can be quite important.
That dependent arising is about “interdependence” is a mistake perpetuated by not really understanding what it is about. The only *interdependent* links are vinnana (consciousness) and namarupa (name-and-form) and they depend on each other for a specific reason that has no bearing on the interdependence of one person with another. The concept of interdependence is part of Buddhism because, of course, what we do affects others — and the way we affect others affects us. But dependent origination isn’t actually talking about how we affect others. It talks a little about how others affect us in terms of self-concepts, but that doesn’t seem to be its primary focus at all.
I would answer your question (to Ted) about visiting his family this way: Does he get edgy if you seem to be flirting with his wife? Does he brag about how Teddy Jr. is getting into football just like he did when he was in high school? Does it seem like his family is an extension of himself to an unhealthy degree? Is he forcing them into shapes that suit him but maybe don’t suit them? Those are all behaviors that would come out of attachment.
How might detachment look? Does he not give a damn about his wife and kids? That’s detachment.
How would non-attachment look? Is he relaxed and confident in his relationship with his wife so that if you and she enjoy flirty banter it doesn’t bother him? Is it clear he supports her in what she wants to achieve even if it might not be what he would most like her to do? Same with the kids — is he proud of them for being who they are, rather than disappointed that they don’t fit his mental image of who they should be?
The idea of non-attachment is that you care for people because you do, not because they are a reflection of yourself, or your status in the world.
Linda thanks!
You wrote ” if Jeff Wilson uses “Inner Togetherness” for “dependent arising” it is quite likely that he is interpreting dependent arising in an *entirely* different way than I would. So the words translators use to interpret the old Pali terms can be quite important.”
I have not read that book “Buddhism of the Heart”
so I can not know. But my understanding where
that it where the translator from Japanese
that did chose that term Inner Togetherness
for Dependent Arising.
Why Jeff accepted it I don’t know. I have to ask him.
I guess he tell me to read the book
I understand your take on the non-attachment
but then that do support that Buddhists use
words in very particular ways.
Which you seems to agree with.
” So the words translators use to interpret
the old Pali terms can be quite important”
Mark if I get him seems to interpret dependent
arising to mean that the feeling of being separate
as an individual locked into their own body is a kind
of illusion. I don’t have any quote now but it is a well
known way of talking Buddhese. Almost every Buddhist
makes that claim and also Pantheist makes it.
I can be wrong but my subjective personal experience
find it more likely that Buddhist talk about something else
again.
I find it most likely that those words are a prescription and
not a true description of how things really are.
prescription
1.
a. The act of establishing official rules, laws, or directions.
b. Something prescribed as a rule.
2.
a. A written order, especially by a physician, for the preparation and administration of a medicine or other treatment.
b. A prescribed medicine or other treatment.
Now prescription is a too strong word or too formal.
More likely one would need to see those words as
a teachers recommendation to his or her pupils.
Or it can be a Buddhist variety of what William Irons
talk about. “Hard to fake sign of commitment”
“Religion as a Hard-to-Fake Sign of Commitment.”
in Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment.
R. M. Nesse (ed.), pp. 292 – 309.
Many religions make use of Hard-to-Fake Sign of Commitment
and Buddhism seems to do it too.
Hi, all. Linda, you articulate the distinguishing characteristics around detachment and non-attachment very well, thank you for joining in!