Friday, November 02, 2007

Daily Dharma: Grasping Buddhism


Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Grasping Buddhism

In a famous parable, the Buddha imagines a group of blind men who are invited to identify an elephant. One takes the tail and says it's a rope; another clasps a leg and says it's a pillar; another feels the side and says it's a wall; another holds the trunk, and says it's a tube. Depending on which part of Buddhism you grasp, you might identify it as a system of ethics, a philosophy, a contemplative psychotherapy, a religion. While containing all of these, it can no more be reduced to any one of them than an elephant can be reduced to its tail.

- Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book