RE: Responses to "The Fundamental View"
Well, basically and most generally, traditionalist view is delineated by myth and scripture, with rigid institutional expressions. Modernist view is based in rationality and critical thinking, with democratic organizational structures. Postmodernist view may be seen as a bold embrace of multiple perspectives in every area, which thus creates a sharp relativism. It's useful to recognize a moderate and extreme version of all three.
Each of these has had precedents before actual historical emergence on the wide scale. Nowadays there are also quite a few examples of hybrids, including sometimes all three in some way, but without distinguishing their specific features, and thus such hybrids poorly integrate the components.
Typically, a traditional Buddhism would be conservative, scripture based, proclaiming Buddha's boldness in shaking the spiritual life of his times, but quite unwilling to shake the present status quo in the way practice is done, dharma is taught, sangha is organized etc. Perpetuation of "genuine Buddhism" and purity of transmission, orthodoxy and orthopraxis - those are typical traditional fixations. ("Buddhadharma is the one and only true way," or, more humorously, "Buddha loves me, this I know, 'cause the sutra tells me so.")
Further, traditional Buddhism will regularly produce chauvinism and sectarianism, whether hard or soft, at various levels and in every sphere, from doctrine manipulation (see how many great teachers have found it necessary to criticize the teachings of other great teachers as heresy) to social policy (see Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and other histories for examples). Sutra texts will be re-written to suit momentary needs, everything teaching will be attributed to Gautama the Buddha, and hagiographies will even today be treated as bona fide biographies etc. However, this ancient structure also generates great virtues.
(to be continued)
Again, typically a modern Buddhism, wherever appearing, would have certain deep features like evidence based investigation (not just "public" evidence, but also corroborated subjective insights), distancing from myth-based reality models, sober appreciation of human potentials, recognition of any form of ethnocentrism as a serious limitation, equal rights for women at all levels of social organization (whether secular or religious) etc. A modernist approach will often have its own fixations, that may result in things like scientism (basically, mechanistic materialism) and rigid secularism, which lend themselves to understanding in a historical and developmental perspective. ("Buddha was a proto-rational reformist, and a true individual. Later Buddhists made a religion from his teaching, and a deity from its founder.")
Postmodern Buddhism will always bring an awareness of cultural contexts and the process of meaning-making, social conditioning of knowledge and its relation to power structures (whether hidden or obvious), distrust of hierarchy in various forms etc. while its fixation will be an almost irresistible urge to reduce everything to context and every context to further context, giving birth to extreme relativism, and thus denying anything resembling a universal in any form at any level, verging on nihilism. ("Derrida said what Buddha meant. Emptiness has no meaning, and that's the meaning of emptiness.")
(to be continued)
Now, it's interesting to note that each of these paradigms is generated from a certain developmental level, by giving meaning to everything as appearing within its horizon, and it's also interesting to note that each of these levels gives something important to the whole developmental edifice, something to be retained and integrated as we move on. But to move on, we need to objectify the structure prevailing at that level and thus disidentify from it to a significant degree, which isn't a small feat as that structure is the very apparatus of interpretation and the space within which our subjectivity consolidates into a coherent and stable pattern, while providing a shared platform for exchange and mutual recognition in groups and societies.
To integrate the good of premodern, modern, and postmodern while not naively running into their fixations and fantasies, we need to distinguish their strengths and weaknesses first, identify their shadow, delineate their truth-claims, and then to formulate a flexible integrative strategy: a robust, comprehensive, and pragmatic set of principles, based on radical methodological transparency and freedom from perspectival chauvinism.
(to be continued)
Chuck: "How does a postmodern Buddhism make room for a postmodern Christianity, Islam, etc.? Or does that occur at a more abstract or higher level?"
This is obviously a complex issue, but at an early postmodern level there would be an appreciation of other paths' capacity to produce authentic realization, but their respective claims - either doctrinal or contemplative, i.e. conceptual or mystical - would remain rather incommensurable. At a more mature postmodern level (actually post-postmodern, to be accurate), there would be an open possibility of admitting not just compelling similarities, but defining actual states and stages that are more or less universal. Yes, a meta-view fits nicely with this kind of consideration. What Wilber has offered in "Integral Spirituality" (2006) gives great hope that such a meta-view is not just possible but actually emerging already among at least some proponents of great traditions.
I wouldn't say we need a "tradition neutral" language at all. Some sort of lingua franca is already in place, anyway. What we need is a host culture that can accommodate and provide space for such conversations, language being just one dimension or refraction within that cultural space. Once we have that, proponents of each tradition will freely engage as long as they come from a developmental level capable of engaging such exchange and interested in finding a post-denominational identity common to all participants. Contemplatives have always been and remain the most likely candidates.
(cont.)
