Discussions

Stephen Batchelor said:
Buddhism needs to be rethought from the ground up.

Link here:
http://secularbuddhism.org/2012/08/02/batchelor-cupitt/
I've found the better link now so I edited this first post.
Ted provided a transcription of that talk

Here is the context read the rest on the link.

I think we have to do more than just modify or
reform some of the existing Asian Buddhist traditions,
although that is of course something that has
been happening now for the last fifty years or so:

in other words,

the modification of Theravada Buddhism or
early Buddhism into the vipassana and
the mindfulness movements, certain ways
in which Zen Buddhism has been transformed
into a practice that Christians and Buddhists
alike are engaged in.

I think we need a rather more radical
rethinking of the dharma, what the Buddha taught,
and what is that all about, and can we imagine it
in a way that enables the wisdom of this tradition
to speak in a language that addresses our circumstances,
our condition today?

I think, and again I feel I am probably very close to Don here,

that Buddhism needs to be rethought from the ground up.

We somehow, perhaps, are in such a different situation to that in which Buddhism has traditionally worked in Asia, that we might in a way have to start all over again.

That is why I am active here.
I ahve 50 years of failure to
practice Buddhism as it appear
from my very biased point of view.

It seems to not been set up to work
for people with my lack of talent for it.

Edit, I forgot to add this problem I have
with standard Buddhism. Philosophy.

Example
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhyamaka

According to Madhyamaka all phenomena are empty of "substance"
or "essence" (...) because they are dependently co-arisen.

Likewise it is because they are dependently co-arisen
that they have no intrinsic, independent reality of their own.

I find it very interesting but I have
very little clue on what it really say.

Take Stephen B. quote. Sure it is not fair
to make such a quote out of a big context.

One need to read it knowing the whole situation.

But the Secular Buddhism that I hope for
would leave physics to the natural science
and Psychology to the psychology researchers
and Neuro to the Neuro-scientists and also
philosophy to the philosophers.

I mean is it really realistic that all of us
would be able to get such abstract concepts
that that text is about there in the wikipedia
on Madhyamaka.

From a humorous point of view it do support
my skepticism that one should not trust a word
that Buddhism use because one would always need
their own translation from Pali to English.

Yes he's talking about going back to the texts and finding the core of buddha's teaching. Trying to find the stuff that really matters and leave off all the stuff that has stuck on over the eons. Stuff that has stuck on but isn't really necessary or adding anything to the main goals.

According to Madhyamaka all phenomena are empty of "substance"
or "essence" (...) because they are dependently co-arisen.
Likewise it is because they are dependently co-arisen
that they have no intrinsic, independent reality of their own.

I'd say this quote is a bit clumsy. Its not necessary to say that black is black and therefore not white and likewise white is white and therefore not black.

The first part is enough. Do you understand the first part. Do you understand how something has no inherent essential existence? Its about essences. Its not about existence per se. I mean this body of mine does exist even if it doesn't have inherent essential existence. It doesn't have that because its a composite of things and its existence is dependent on conditions.

Ooops I should have searched better.
Google and kind people share a
text from Jeff's book explaining
what this inner togetherness refers to.

Togetherness is perhaps the one word that moves me most about the Pure Land tradition.
...
From Buddhism of the Heart, © 2009 by Jeff Wilson. Reprinted with permission of Wisdom Publications.

http://kindredspiritualities.blogspot.se/2012/03/come-together.html

Jay I finally found an explanation.
Pure Land Buddhism use a term in Japanese
that is kyoseiI may have seen it
before and then forgot about it. Embarrassing.
such an important word and I don't even know it.

Anyway Jeff explain how he understands it
referring back to many other who are Buddhists.

The Monk Thich_Nhat_Hanh from Thailand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanh

He translates it to Inter-Being and others to
co-living and so on. here is a link to text
trying to explain his usage of inter-being
http://spot.colorado.edu/~chernus/NonviolenceBook/ThichNhatHanh.htm

" When we are totally mindful—in direct contact with reality, not just images of reality—we realize that "all phenomena are interdependent…endlessly interwoven." This is the foundation of Nhat Hanh’s approach, not only to nonviolence but to all of life. He calls it the principle of "interbeing." "In Buddhism there is no such thing as an individual." There is no such thing as a separate object, event, or experience, because no any part of the world can exist apart from all others. Rather, everything that looks like a separate entity is actually dependent on, and therefore interwoven with, something else.

AFAIK this is Buddhism and not some odd sect view?
I know too little but I wild guessed it is about
this dependent co-arising or interconnectedness???

Am I getting it all wrong?

Yes, we are in this together!

Stephen's words are reflective of the idea that we need to question our assumptions about what Buddhism is about. Not endlessly, but pragmatically -- think about this. Does it make sense? Does it provide a practice that seems to help? Does it *really* help, and not just seem to?

For many of us, that has been the case, so we're happy to be considered Buddhists, even while continuing to ask about what it is about this practice that "works" for us. And this is an exploration that Stephen is talking about, as we challenge the concepts of our religious institutions and ideas about exactly what this practice is for. Is it about extinguishing suffering? Ending the rounds of rebirth as a consequence? Is rebirth even a real thing? Or perhaps this teaching can provide positive value to our world, here and now, in dealing with our very tangible social problems.

So, yes, we make the effort ourselves, but this is mutually contributive to us all in our very real interdependence in day to day living.