When Buddhism is introduced into a new space, people try to make it fit with their already established beliefs. That is how secular buddhism and postmodernist buddhist developed in the west. The way to refute Nanananda/Nanavira/Nanamoli postmodernism is very simple. There are inumerable ways to do it but the 2 questions that simply destroy it are these:
1) If DO happens in a structural not temporal way, then that means if a person attains arahanthip at 22:45, then at 22:45 he loses consciousness. We all know from the suttas that is not what happened with arahants. The 1 life interpretation is destroyed by this very simple fact. If ignorance ceases at 22:45, then consciousness also ceases at 22:45.
2) Solipsism. If you die tomorrow, will your family or other beings continue to exist ? The answer any illusionist/postmodernist should give is: NO - only my internal “phenomenological” world exists. All other beings are “philosophical zombies”.
Suttas that specifically destroy the interpretation are:
- SN 22.94 - explaining things do exist and that any “wise man in the world” agrees on that.
- SN 14.7 - explaining the diversity of perceptions depends on the diversity of elements. In Triple N’s view only diversity of perceptions exist and the diversity of elements is just an illusion created through the internal process of assumption
- other suttas: SN 24.1 , AN 6.41, DN 6, MN 28
These are specific suttas destroying the solipsist interpretation. But a good way to do it is simply read the pali canon to see for onself what Buddha had to say rather than read books of contemporary bhikkhus. When one reads a book, attachment to that book develops. If one read postmodernist he develops attachment to postmodernism. If one reads abbhidhamma he develops attachment to abbhidhamma. If one read the bible he develops attachment to the bible. The postmodernist interpretation of buddhism is much more dangerous because they tell you that you become a sotapanna by simply becoming a solipsist. And this brings even more mental conditioning. On top of this, it has the “jehova witness” factor because it claims such a few number of people have got the idea and they are the only sotapannas in the world and all others are stupid traditionalist so even more mental conditioning. I have been in this interpretation for half a year in the past before I started reading SN by myself to see what Buddha had to say about the problem.
Speaking of witch, postmodernist buddhist are not allowed to read the canon because their teachers (the triple N’s) claim it was monstruously mistranslated by traditionalist. The way I got out of this interpretation was by translating the first sutta of DO by myself witch took me 2 days. (there are pages about each word on wiki and pali dictionary). Their whole interpretation is based on twisting this single sutta from SN chapter 2. So what I suggest doing is translating that sutta by oneself to see who murdered it to make a case for his views. If one finds out they had murdered the DO sutta, then they lose all crediblity and the person can go on to read the canon by himself without been afraid it was destroyed by evil “traditionalist” B.Bodhi.
Another problem of postmodernism is simply making no sense, having an elementary logical mistake in every paragraph. This is how they got to the famous Sokall Affair. You just write things that make no sense but write in complicated language that looks smart - and if the person doesn’t get it, it means the person is too stupid to understand your genius. In postmodernist buddhism they simply call them “a paradox” and conclude that “buddha teachings are paradoxical”. Like any postmodernist, they argue against logic and reason and propose the element of “categorical intuition”. Since the person is now a sotapanna, he now poses the so called “categorial intuition” so no matter what evidence others might provide, that is no match for “categorical intuition” that overwrites any arguments based on logic. So even more mental conditioning.
