For group work in this class you should prepare at least a one page (if not printed, more than one) essay on the assigned question. This essay will be checked at the beginning of the group work and collected at the end of the class. You need to make two copies: one for the instructor and one for the person who agrees to write up the group report. The preparatory essay is worth 10 pts. and group report is worth 10 pts.
GROUP QUESTIONS ON THE DHAMMAPADA
Due Sept. 14. You must compare at least two versions of the complete translations on reserve/web. You must document your translation comparison in your paper. See Stryk (56-65) and Burtt (51-73) and the complete translations on reserve. Can can also use these two translations on the web. Group paper due on Sept. 19. I will assign groups to questions on Tuesday evening, Sept. 12.
1. Group #6: Discuss the passages in the Dhammapada that express the Buddhist belief that anger and hate are disorders of the soul. A good Buddhist should never get angry and should never hate. The logic of Buddhist psychology of hate is that if one hates then one becomes hatred itself and spreads hatred in her surroundings. What do you think of this as an ethical policy? From what we know from contemporary psychology is this good advise? For a recent experiment on this topic read this article. Also read this article on anger in children.
2. Group #5: What do you think about extending the Golden Rule to animals? (chap. 10:3) The Buddhist argument is that they seek "happiness" just like we do. Although they may not be persons in the traditional sense, animal rights philosophers claim that animals have "interests" in their lives that must be respected.
3. Group #4: Think of the story of the Buddha elephant and relate it to Dhammapada 12:10. In the ethics of the New Testament do you see a similar tension between forgiving the other seventy times seventy, turning the other cheek, and loving your enemy and "Do unto others as you would have them do to yourself"? Which approach to ethics is more defensible?
Here is another translation of 12:10: "One should not neglect one’s own welfare through excessive altruism. Having understood one’s own welfare, one should be devoted to true welfare."--David J. Kalupahana
4. Group#1: Check every reference to the Buddha and explain how the Dhammapada sees him. What do you think the difference between the Buddha and Buddhas is? Be aware of different translations concerning the Buddha's knowledge at 14:1. They range from "omniscience" to "infinite vision."
5. Group #2: Chapter 20 is the most philosophical of the piece and contains much of the early Buddhist philosophy you have been introduced to. Analyze it, pick out the important points, and give your own critique.
6. Group #3: Find evidence of the Four Noble Truths in the Dhammapada and comment on these passages.
GROUP QUESTIONS FOR BEING PEACE
1. Group #5. The term "non-dual" (advaita) was borrowed by some Buddhist from Advaita Vedanta, a dominant Hindu philosophical school. It usually means that ultimate reality is totally undifferentiated. What is your understanding of Thich Nhat Hanh's interpretation of this term? Does he interpretation relate to Pali Buddhism in any way?
2. Group #2. Compare and contrast the Dhammapada and Being Peace on any relevant points that you can discover. The topic of mindfulness might be a good place to begin. What is the relation between mindfulness and the emotions? And how can we be mindful without sufficient knowledge. Think of the story fo the boatman in the stream and the father and his lost son.
3. Group #3. Do a short phenomenology of smiling. Do not be intimidated by this neat word. All it means is for you to analyze the phenomenon of smiling. What does a smile mean and how does it work in Thich Nhat Hanh's Buddhism? (You might begin with what a frown means.) Would a grin or a belly laugh be even better? What do you think of the claim that a true Buddha would never "laugh a great afflicted laugh, openly showing his grinn;ing teeth" (from a non-Zen Mahayana text). How do think Thich Nhat Hanh would respond to this?
4. Group #1. When Thich Nhat Hanh talks about soveignty over the self it sounds very Euro-American rather than Asian or Buddhist. How do you interpret this idea as legitimately Buddhist. Compare it to the Pali idea of the self we have studied so far.
5. Group #4. Compare and contrast Thich Nhat Hanh's basic Buddhist concepts with Pali Buddhism. For example, he starts his book with what looks like a rejection of the First Noble Truth. What is he trying to do with his sometimes playful, sometimes provocative transformation of Buddhist doctrines?
6. Group #6. The story of the father-daughter acrobats turns out differently than most Buddhist would except it to. How can the daughter's wisdom be interpreted as Buddhist wisdom and how does it relate to Thich Nhat Hanh's view of the self? How does this relate to the issue of self-interest and other-interest in the Dhammapada 12.10.
Paper on Nagarjuna
Due on Nov. 2. Please write a two-three-page paper on the quatrains assigned to your group. Give an interpretation of the philosophical puzzles found in your quatrains. On the phrases Being and non-Being, inherent vs. relative existence=conventional existence, you must decide what type of Being/being Nagarjuna is referring to. See glossary of terms below. The paper is worth 20 pts.You must consult the translation in your Burtt anthology as well as the two translations given on this website. I have also placed photocopies of Garfield's commentary on reserve in the philosophy department for you to copy.
Group Assignments:
Group #1: Do Chap. 1 (Causality/ Conditions): 11-14.
Group #2: Do Chap. 25 (Nirvana): 1-3.
Group #3: Do Chap. 25 (Nirvana): 5-8.
Group #4: Do Chap. 25 (Nirvana): 9-12.
Group #5: Do Chap. 25 (Nirvana): 13-16.
Terms for Understanding Gier and Garfield
Reification. The process of making an abstraction into a thing, or making a dependent thing into a substance.
Convention/Conventional. That which humans have invented in thought and language to communicate the events of the world of interdependent coorigination. These concepts have no referent to anything absolute or fixed, such as Plato's forms. All we have are conventional truths about the world not absolute truths. Even our way of dividing up the world is conventional, i.e., dependent upon concepts and language (e.g., the Eskimo’s many types of snow).
Cause. An event or state that has in it a power to bring about its effect and has that power as a part of its essence or nature.
Condition. An event, state, or process that explains another event, state, or process without any metaphysical commitment to any occult connection between explanandum and explanans.
Explanandum and explanans. The thing explained and the "explainer."
Efficient Condition. The event the explains the subsequent event, such as the striking of a match to make its lighting "occur." Note: Nagarjuna uses a Sanskrit verb translated as "occur" deliberately to avoid the verb "cause."
Percept-Object Condition. The object in one's environment that is the condition for the mind's perception of it. For Buddhist realists this object is independent of the mind, but for Buddhist idealists this object is located in the mind itself. Nagarjuna and perhaps the Buddha himself rejects this division of "inner" from "outer."
Dominant Condition. The purpose or end for which an action is taken. Aristotle would call this a final cause.
Immediate Condition. All the intermediate phenomena that make up any causal chain, e.g., all the physical conditions found in the efficient condition of stiking a match to make it light.
Being (Garfield: inherent existence). With a capital "B" it means Being as substance, self-contained, self-sufficient, independent, eternal, unchanging reality.
being (Garfield: conventional existence; Burtt: relational existence). Relative being, i.e., dependent things that arise out of interdependent coorigination.
Absolute Non-Being (inherent nonexistence). The negation of Being, which would be absolute nothingness. This is the type of non-being that the Greek philosopher Parmenides thought could not be thought. On that point he was absolutelys right.
Relative non-being (conventional nonexistence). The negation of relative being, which according to Plato (Sophist) is eminently thinkable because it is everything that a being is not. For Nagarjuna the Sanskrit word for relative non-being is shunyata.
Tetralemma. A problem with four alternatives rather the typical dilemma with only two.