Return to Answer

My statement is derived from a paper titled "Response to John Cobb".

I'll give Zizek credit, he has a skewed interpretation of śūnyatā. He perhaps is showing early symptoms of what Zen calls "sunyata disease", or zen sickness. I'm sick too, we should negate our faults.

And just to say, we procrastinate the first turning of the dhamma wheel, obsess the second turning of the wheel (sunyata as void, an abyss, a nothingness), and exaggerate the power of the third turning.

The second and third turning are our mind games. not living the first turning, our insight is demonstrative.

From the article:

Western scholars of Mahayana Buddhism represent an essentially academic and intellectual tradition.It is not surprising that they identified and studied that dimension of Mahayana Buddhism, namely Madhyamika philosophy and its doctrine of sunyata, that is most scholarly and the most easily susceptible to academic methods, particularly as they existed in the earlier part of this century.Not having paid much attention to the specifically 'religious context' of the Madhyamika school, these scholars tended themselves to view Madhymika as an independent Buddhist enterprise, separable from its religious context. Correspondingly, they tended to view sunyata as a notion that could be separated from its religious context.And, more or less enamoured of the Buddhist viewpoint, they naturally wanted to present Buddhism in the best light to Western audiences, and this further encouraged the depiction of sunyata as a concept that can be understood apart from specifically religious concerns and activities

My statement is derived from a paper titled "Response to John Cobb".

I'll give Zizek credit, he has a skewed interpretation of śūnyatā. He perhaps is showing early symptoms of what Zen calls "sunyata disease", or zen sickness. I'm sick too, we should negate our faults.

And just to say, we procrastinate the first turning of the dhamma wheel, obsess the second turning of the wheel (sunyata as void, an abyss, a nothingness), and exaggerate the power of the third turning.

The second and third turning are our mind games. not living the first turning, our insight is both demonstrative and corrupted.

From the article:

Western scholars of Mahayana Buddhism represent an essentially academic and intellectual tradition.It is not surprising that they identified and studied that dimension of Mahayana Buddhism, namely Madhyamika philosophy and its doctrine of sunyata, that is most scholarly and the most easily susceptible to academic methods, particularly as they existed in the earlier part of this century.Not having paid much attention to the specifically 'religious context' of the Madhyamika school, these scholars tended themselves to view Madhymika as an independent Buddhist enterprise, separable from its religious context. Correspondingly, they tended to view sunyata as a notion that could be separated from its religious context.And, more or less enamoured of the Buddhist viewpoint, they naturally wanted to present Buddhism in the best light to Western audiences, and this further encouraged the depiction of sunyata as a concept that can be understood apart from specifically religious concerns and activities

My statement is derived from a paper titled "Response to John Cobb".

I'll give Zizek credit and assume he has entered the dhamma through one of the over 84,000 gates. Regardless, Zizek has a skewed interpretation of śūnyatā. He perhaps is showing early symptoms of what Zen calls "sunyata disease", or zen sickness. That is to say, Zizek has only glanced over the first turning of the dhamma wheel, vaguely understands the second turning of the wheel (sunyata as void, an abyss, a nothingness), and arrives at the third turning without fanfare - lacking Buddha-nature. The second and third turnings provide useful insight, but not having done the preliminary work of the first turning, the insight is corrupted.

From the article:

Western scholars of Mahayana Buddhism represent an essentially academic and intellectual tradition.It is not surprising that they identified and studied that dimension of Mahayana Buddhism, namely Madhyamika philosophy and its doctrine of sunyata, that is most scholarly and the most easily susceptible to academic methods, particularly as they existed in the earlier part of this century.Not having paid much attention to the specifically 'religious context' of the Madhyamika school, these scholars tended themselves to view Madhymika as an independent Buddhist enterprise, separable from its religious context. Correspondingly, they tended to view sunyata as a notion that could be separated from its religious context.And, more or less enamoured of the Buddhist viewpoint, they naturally wanted to present Buddhism in the best light to Western audiences, and this further encouraged the depiction of sunyata as a concept that can be understood apart from specifically religious concerns and activities

My statement is derived from a paper titled "Response to John Cobb".

I'll give Zizek credit, he has a skewed interpretation of śūnyatā. He perhaps is showing early symptoms of what Zen calls "sunyata disease", or zen sickness. I'm sick too, we should negate our faults.

And just to say, we procrastinate the first turning of the dhamma wheel, obsess the second turning of the wheel (sunyata as void, an abyss, a nothingness), and exaggerate the power of the third turning.

The second and third turning are our mind games. not living the first turning, our insight is demonstrative.

From the article:

Western scholars of Mahayana Buddhism represent an essentially academic and intellectual tradition.It is not surprising that they identified and studied that dimension of Mahayana Buddhism, namely Madhyamika philosophy and its doctrine of sunyata, that is most scholarly and the most easily susceptible to academic methods, particularly as they existed in the earlier part of this century.Not having paid much attention to the specifically 'religious context' of the Madhyamika school, these scholars tended themselves to view Madhymika as an independent Buddhist enterprise, separable from its religious context. Correspondingly, they tended to view sunyata as a notion that could be separated from its religious context.And, more or less enamoured of the Buddhist viewpoint, they naturally wanted to present Buddhism in the best light to Western audiences, and this further encouraged the depiction of sunyata as a concept that can be understood apart from specifically religious concerns and activities

I'll give Zizek credit and assume he has entered the dhamma through one of the over 84,000 gates. Regardless, Zizek has a skewed interpretation of śūnyatā. He perhaps is showing early symptoms of what Zen calls "sunyata disease", or zen sickness. That is to say, Zizek has only glanced over - not tamping down his ego - the first turning of the dhamma wheel, vaguely understands - in the mind-only sense - the second turning of the wheel (sunyata as void, an abyss, a nothingness), and arrives at the third turning without fanfare - lacking Buddha-nature.

To be clear, the second and third turnings provide useful insight, but in Zizek’s case, not having done the work of the first turning, the insight is corrupted. This is a 'crime against wisdom'.

My statement is derived from a paper titled "Response to John Cobb".

I'll give Zizek credit and assume he has entered the dhamma through one of the over 84,000 gates. Regardless, Zizek has a skewed interpretation of śūnyatā. He perhaps is showing early symptoms of what Zen calls "sunyata disease", or zen sickness. That is to say, Zizek has only glanced over the first turning of the dhamma wheel, vaguely understands the second turning of the wheel (sunyata as void, an abyss, a nothingness), and arrives at the third turning without fanfare - lacking Buddha-nature. The second and third turnings provide useful insight, but not having done the preliminary work of the first turning, the insight is corrupted.

From the article:

Western scholars of Mahayana Buddhism represent an essentially academic and intellectual tradition.It is not surprising that they identified and studied that dimension of Mahayana Buddhism, namely Madhyamika philosophy and its doctrine of sunyata, that is most scholarly and the most easily susceptible to academic methods, particularly as they existed in the earlier part of this century.Not having paid much attention to the specifically 'religious context' of the Madhyamika school, these scholars tended themselves to view Madhymika as an independent Buddhist enterprise, separable from its religious context. Correspondingly, they tended to view sunyata as a notion that could be separated from its religious context.And, more or less enamoured of the Buddhist viewpoint, they naturally wanted to present Buddhism in the best light to Western audiences, and this further encouraged the depiction of sunyata as a concept that can be understood apart from specifically religious concerns and activities