Perspectives

One of the attractions of Buddhism for former theists is the salience of its images of liberation – the serenity of the Buddha figure, the representation of self-possession and calm; a compassion founded in some kind of knowledge unavailable to the rest of us. It is a dangerous attraction, because it can prompt a facile imitation, a too-precipitate and self-regarding appropriation of a demeanour that, if it is a genuine possibility, comes only after struggle, and doesn’t pre-empt it. It is precisely not the demeanour of Prince Siddhartha as he notices the mendicant disappearing into the forest – an image of a possible resolution of conflict that had then to be explored and tested, a process, however, that is presented in the literature as successful – and thus presenting us with the existential necessity for the critical scrutiny of a claim to truth, something ‘worthy of questioning’

Aesthetics · Appropriation · Art · Buddhism · Epistemology · Gautama Buddha · Linguistics · Literature · Possession (linguistics) · Salience (neuroscience) · Theology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · Islamic Studies and History · Philosophy · Psychology · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies