Nikaya Puritanism

Thank you for introducing what’s a new and useful word for me, prelest. (And “a gateway drug” to it - good phrasing!)

Looking up prelest to learn it’s meaning (spiritual self-delusion), I came across this. Could it be any more perfect?


https://images.app.goo.gl/m8GVhC2e8zfop88m7

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:rofl: The Cat’s Meow, a shadow of the Lion’s Roar?

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:slight_smile: nice, I like “cat’s meow” vs “Lion’s roar” even more than the delightful cat lion shadow image. Cuz there’s no cat, there’s composite image making, shadow casting, meowing, roaring - and all this is occurs in the mind.
Thank you Ayya @Charlotteannun and Karl @karl_lew . Khandhas are on my mind lately.

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Sorry, I’m missing something: what is 3 nikaya Puritanism.

Also, FWIW I’d prefer “fundamentalism” rather than Puritanism.

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Hi Bhante, @Coemgenu wrote this in the thread "Haiku: your pet peeve and other musings about Buddhism:

Not all of us understood the haiku so questions and discussion ensued (starting with this one, Haiku: your pet peeve and other musings about Buddhism - #134 by SeriousFun136 until we got to this rather satisfactory conclusion:

A few days later @SeriousFun136 wanted to question the concept further, and the discussion veered right away from anything to do with the specific haiku or haiku in general. . So I split it off into a new topic, just in case it had theoretical value.

FWIW, my personal view on the matter is here Haiku: your pet peeve and other musings about Buddhism - #143 by Gillian :wink:

Too many syllables. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

(PS Your comment reinforces my feeling that sometimes a haiku gets done to death.)
(PPS I wouldn’t have spent so long explaining all this for anyone other than the site owner, and I feel it would be rather cool if, by way of thanks, you would find a moment to contribute a haiku of your own. Not here. Over there. :smiley: )
(PPPS At this point I realise the current thread doesn’t have theoretical legs and I’m moving it to the watercooler. … maybe the whole thread is a prelest.)

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It’s just my term for a ragtag unaffiliated collection of views I have encountered on web forums, bhante.

The chief rationale for discounting the dīgha I’ve encountered takes out of context some words from Venerable Bodhi that it may have been compiled for the purposes of converting Brahmins, or something like that, I’d have to look up the precise entry. The rationale for throwing out the Khuddaka seems less clear, but reminds me of when Martin Luther created the Protestant “apocrypha” out of previously-accepted texts he thought were questionable because they complicated his novel doctrine of “salvation through faith alone.” To be quite frank, this is only really 3-5 people I’ve met only online that I am describing, and through my eyes only, not theirs (though through three of their eyes, they are stream-entrants or arhants, so take from what what you will, bhante, I’m sure-nigh-positive you’ve encountered similar online characters). Maybe I shouldn’t have wrote the haiku, because it only makes sense to me :sweat_smile:. I thought it was funny, though, and that was its purpose. Forgive the frivolity.

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I think it generated some interesting discussion, so I’m pleased you did.

My observation is that the sort of people you’re talking about over-interpret the text-critical approach, without the balance that the likes of Ven Sujato and Analayo bring to the enterprise (such as Ven Sujato’s interesting talks and essays about the role of mythology, and their care in pointing out that “later” is not the same as “wrong” or “useless”).

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I’m also glad you wrote it. Isn’t the purpose of the haiku thread to generate fun and friviolity. :smiley: Please carry on writing.

There’s probably a few haikus to derive from this. :slight_smile:

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Will a clerihew do?

A pox on the bobbery
Of chronological snobbery!
And a plague on intriguers
Who beleaguer the Dīgha!

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This nonsensical verse,
dare I disperse?
Or abide with mute wit,
and still a twit.

–Puritanically anon.

MN96:8.3: …They refrain from using speech that’s false, divisive, harsh, or nonsensical…

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I don’t speak nonsense,
cause I make no sense speaking.
It’s nonsensical!

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How did you do this?

Only moderators have the ability to do this. If you have a circumstance where this seems like a good idea, just contact one of the moderators :slight_smile:

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Your poem and comment

Will a clerihew do?

…sent me looking for the definition and examples of clerihew, which led to finding this jewel from its explanation in Wikipedia:

Did Descartes
Depart
With the thought
“Therefore I’m not”?

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Bhante @sujato
Rarely gave a puja though
Given some time and a computer rental
Gave us all SuttaCentral

Am I doing it right?

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The lines of a haiku are supposed to be exactly 5/7/5. (That’s actually the Western take on the original Japanese form which is more nuanced - meaning of course that there’s an inevitable English speaking upper layer of snobbish in-the-know true haiku enthusiasts.)

But your poem has the value of actually triggering out loud laughter.

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It was supposed to be a clerihew:thinking: Guess I’ll have to try harder next time…

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Having read about the Puritans, as well as having read some of their own writings, I’d strongly second this. They were a complex movement / community. They were not without their problems, but I hate to see them reduced to being an insult term as they often are in contemporary usage.

Only marital–
Tis true–Puritans embraced
joyful love-making

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My mistake, since the original thread was haiku, somehow I thought you were trying to write a haiku and didn’t realize that you’d just offered us a perfect clerihew. Well done.

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eleven-months-later.jpeg

:joy:

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