The muddy Golden Buddha story, Part I
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Buddhism and Catholicism: a Fundamental Difference?", following a donations plea [hey!], that "A LOT of Buddhism and Catholicism aims to make us see the foibles of our 'human condition' (be-it sinful or ignorant) and to work toward its alleviation. The vehicles are certainly different, true. And at times even contradictory, yes. But even different schools of Buddhism, or different teachings within schools might be seen as contradictory.
"But when we find these contradictions, they might just be a call to look deeper. One of my teachers expressed the notion of 'views' very well with a figure of a pyramid or triangle. We get stuck to 'views' on one edge or the other, but it's only in the middle (when we let go) that we can move upward toward Truth. And guess what - when people on the 'other side' do the same, we both end up at the same place."
Grumble, grumble. That pesky Justin. Just like a lovey-dovey right-speech-doing gritless fence-sitting Buddhist, filing away at the sharp edges! [Showing True Grit or a sort, perhaps. Or perhaps not, I'd say!]
Since that tempest in a cul-de-sac, I have done some googling and found other users of Kornfield's story for their own purposes - all from liberal Christians' sermons:
Only, what Kornfield tells us isn't quite what happened.
The buddha statue, in its clay-and-plaster disguise did not survive "violent storms" for five centuries [as Kornfield tells us], it was for only two centuries and it was a storm that was the disguise's undoing - in the 1950s [sources vary as to whether it was in 1955, 1957 or 1959].
The statue was being moved when it slipped from a crane into the mud from a storm. It was after wading in this mud that a monk with a flashlight saw a glint of gold in a crack in the plaster, which resulted in the discovery of the inner treasure.
Mistelling, at the seeming margins, the story of the Golden Buddha discovery isn't the only "whoops" on the first page of The Wise Heart. Kornfield also misquotes Thomas Merton's famed so-called Vision in Louisville, in a way that conveniently/accidentally services his ends.
One sentence, that Merton wrote [a part of his Vision in Louisville], originally in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander reads thus [emphasis, mine]: "Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes."
In quoting Merton at the top of his first page of Kornfield's book, Merton's words, for that sentence read thus: "Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in the eyes of the Divine."
Here's a Kornfield quote from the beginning of page 378 of his book in hard cover: "Marcel Proust once said, 'The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes.'" Harumph.
As you can see [through your own damn eyes], God was taken out. Kornfield, or his editor, deChristianized the Merton quote! Clearly, this was deliberately done to dummydown the clear Christian focus in Merton's feeling and words to make it more appropriate in a Buddhist book. That is deplorable. [And I deplore it.] But it gets worse ...
If you google the quote with the sentence, how Merton wrote it, you get 280 hits. [Note your number of hits will vary do to how google works, or course.] If you google the quote with the sentence how it is misquoted in Kornfield's book, you get 406 results. I have looked at those 406 results and they all are recent, after the misquote first appeared, in a Shambhala Sun article Kornfield wrote in advance of the publication of his book AND the ellipsis that Kornfield put in is there, where Merton wrote something that K omited.
Effectively, Kornfield (or his editor) has 'changed' what Merton wrote. And I do not know how you put this stinking opened Pandora's box of falsehood back into the box! History and what Merton miraculously said has been perversely changed, by how ever little.
[In his book, on page 380, Kornfield writes, "Remember how Thomas Merton counciled not to depend on the hope of results but to concentrate on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. ... When we act for the long term, there will be pressure to take sides, grasp opinions, constantly measure the results, and try to control everything."] Yeah, right. Yeah, sure, Kornfield.
---
1 buddhoblogosphere: the virtual sangha of bloggers who write about Buddhism. It some usages of the word, the virtual sangha very much includes Buddhism blogs' noble readers. Alternate spelling: Buddhoblogosphere. Though the prefix buddo is often used to refer to Buddhism [as in Buddology], the spelling buddoblogosphere has been 'abandoned' due to another, urban meaning of the term
"But when we find these contradictions, they might just be a call to look deeper. One of my teachers expressed the notion of 'views' very well with a figure of a pyramid or triangle. We get stuck to 'views' on one edge or the other, but it's only in the middle (when we let go) that we can move upward toward Truth. And guess what - when people on the 'other side' do the same, we both end up at the same place."
Grumble, grumble. That pesky Justin. Just like a lovey-dovey right-speech-doing gritless fence-sitting Buddhist, filing away at the sharp edges! [Showing True Grit or a sort, perhaps. Or perhaps not, I'd say!]
And, now, back into the thickening controversy
Since that tempest in a cul-de-sac, I have done some googling and found other users of Kornfield's story for their own purposes - all from liberal Christians' sermons:
- A sermon titled "Narcissism and Spirituality" at Second Unitarian Church of Omaha, by Steve Abraham, used the Kornfield story, complete with the Thailand geography, and Kornfield's parable, to make a psychological point.
- Ian Lawton used the Kornfield story in his sermon, titled "Reflecting the Image of God," for a sermon on September 14, 2008, at Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan. Lawton's church bills itself as Progressive Christianity, which is described as accepting of evolution and "finds metaphoric meaning in sacred text and religious imagery." The church is also integral, in the Ken Wilber sense, which means it accepts "many perspectives as possible, and traces the development of thought and culture through discernable stages."
- And then there's Rev. Dr. Matthew B. Braddock, Pastor, who used a varietion of Ian Lawton's sermon for one of his own at his church, The Trumbull Congregational Church, in Trumbull, Conn., on May 9, 2010. The Trumbull church and the one in Spring Lake, MI, have a close - albeit, perhaps, unofficial - affiliation. I think it is a fair assessment of the church's statement of core values to say that it is a liberal Christian organization.
Only, what Kornfield tells us isn't quite what happened.
The buddha statue, in its clay-and-plaster disguise did not survive "violent storms" for five centuries [as Kornfield tells us], it was for only two centuries and it was a storm that was the disguise's undoing - in the 1950s [sources vary as to whether it was in 1955, 1957 or 1959].
The statue was being moved when it slipped from a crane into the mud from a storm. It was after wading in this mud that a monk with a flashlight saw a glint of gold in a crack in the plaster, which resulted in the discovery of the inner treasure.
Mistelling, at the seeming margins, the story of the Golden Buddha discovery isn't the only "whoops" on the first page of The Wise Heart. Kornfield also misquotes Thomas Merton's famed so-called Vision in Louisville, in a way that conveniently/accidentally services his ends.
One sentence, that Merton wrote [a part of his Vision in Louisville], originally in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander reads thus [emphasis, mine]: "Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes."
In quoting Merton at the top of his first page of Kornfield's book, Merton's words, for that sentence read thus: "Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in the eyes of the Divine."
Here's a Kornfield quote from the beginning of page 378 of his book in hard cover: "Marcel Proust once said, 'The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes.'" Harumph.
As you can see [through your own damn eyes], God was taken out. Kornfield, or his editor, deChristianized the Merton quote! Clearly, this was deliberately done to dummydown the clear Christian focus in Merton's feeling and words to make it more appropriate in a Buddhist book. That is deplorable. [And I deplore it.] But it gets worse ...
If you google the quote with the sentence, how Merton wrote it, you get 280 hits. [Note your number of hits will vary do to how google works, or course.] If you google the quote with the sentence how it is misquoted in Kornfield's book, you get 406 results. I have looked at those 406 results and they all are recent, after the misquote first appeared, in a Shambhala Sun article Kornfield wrote in advance of the publication of his book AND the ellipsis that Kornfield put in is there, where Merton wrote something that K omited.
Effectively, Kornfield (or his editor) has 'changed' what Merton wrote. And I do not know how you put this stinking opened Pandora's box of falsehood back into the box! History and what Merton miraculously said has been perversely changed, by how ever little.
[In his book, on page 380, Kornfield writes, "Remember how Thomas Merton counciled not to depend on the hope of results but to concentrate on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. ... When we act for the long term, there will be pressure to take sides, grasp opinions, constantly measure the results, and try to control everything."] Yeah, right. Yeah, sure, Kornfield.
---
1 buddhoblogosphere: the virtual sangha of bloggers who write about Buddhism. It some usages of the word, the virtual sangha very much includes Buddhism blogs' noble readers. Alternate spelling: Buddhoblogosphere. Though the prefix buddo is often used to refer to Buddhism [as in Buddology], the spelling buddoblogosphere has been 'abandoned' due to another, urban meaning of the term
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