BUDDHAYANA: LIVING BUDDHISM . By Anil Goonewardene . London : Continuum , 2010 . Pp. 298 . $27.95 .
摘要
Readers of English today still need comprehensive introductions that de‐colonialize Westerners' inherited interpretive frameworks by integrating the data of all Buddhist traditions and creatively integrating the varying Buddhist perspectives on the variously understood key issues. Goonewardene—a Sri Lanka‐born attorney who “has taught for twenty years at the London Buddhist Vihara's Dhamma School”—states that he met there a Japanese Zen nun and that they “agreed that the central teaching of the different schools and traditions of Buddhism is the same or very similar.” But even Japan's two principal Zen traditions stand opposed on basic issues. This book's few pertinent paragraphs depict Zen practitioners' “worship” mainly as chanting before a shrine and mentions Pure Land Buddhists only once. The Shingon tradition, in toto, is explained in eight words. Even Indian Mahayana traditions are explained here with less interest (much less substance or precision) than C. Humphreys explained them sixty years ago. Concerning Buddhists today, Goonewardene says that “some listen to chanting on cassettes and CDs at home and while going about daily tasks.” In sum, this book explains “living Buddhism” as it is practiced in a London community that seems mired in Englishmen's nineteenth‐century fixation on Pali texts. Some might agree that “a high degree of intellectual or academic attainment is not necessary to begin to understand Buddhism.” Yet Buddhists of many stripes have explained their practices in profound and nuanced ways. Students today hoping “to begin to understand” them will need to rely on other publications.
