{"id":803,"date":"2005-11-10T10:14:00","date_gmt":"2005-11-10T10:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/philosophy-3-of-3-postmodernism-and-buddhism\/"},"modified":"2005-11-10T10:14:00","modified_gmt":"2005-11-10T10:14:00","slug":"philosophy-3-of-3-postmodernism-and-buddhism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/philosophy-3-of-3-postmodernism-and-buddhism.html","title":{"rendered":"Philosophy: (3 of 3) Postmodernism &#8211; and Buddhism"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>More on Postmodernism (the last of it, thankfully) <a href=\"http:\/\/americanbuddhist.blogspot.com\/2005\/11\/philosophy-1-of-3-postmodernism.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">See here to get started<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Nacho wrote, \u201cI don\u2019t think PoMo is nihilistic, but I also think that Nihilism gets a bad rap. Nihilism about what?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Good point \u2013 The word <span style=\"font-style: italic\"><a href=\"http:\/\/https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nihilism\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Nihilism<\/a> <\/span>is abused today almost as much as <span style=\"font-style: italic\">freedom<\/span>. But I think the case of the Postmodernists (or rather their objectors) is that there is Truth which is independent of our designation of it, and if you reject this completely you\u2019re a nihilist.   Buddhists hold, to the best of my knowledge, that there is indeed a Truth independent of our understanding, our language, etc.<\/p>\n<p><i>Sa\u1e43yutta Nik\u0101ya<\/i> II 25ff:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2018\u2026whether there is an arising of Tath\u0101gatas or no arising of Tath\u0101gatas, that element still persists, the stableness of the Dhamma, the fixed course of the Dhamma, specific conditionality. A Tath\u0101gata awakens to this and breaks through to it. Having done so, he explains it, teaches it, proclaims it, establishes it, discloses it, analyses it, elucidates it.\u2019 (Bhikkhu Bodhi 2000, p.551)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Buddha, and <a href='https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\/buddhism' target='_blank'>Buddhism<\/a> itself (as its own grand narrative) is not the foundation of Truth (though we often cling to each as if they were) in Buddhism.  Yet Buddhism does provide the grand narrative and the Buddha as exemplar, because the Dhamma alone is pretty vague for us normal folk.  With these we are moved toward ever more abstract notions of truth, the 8-fold path, the 3 marks of existence, etc.  Somewhere along the way we quit grasping to these as if they <span style=\"font-style: italic\">are true<\/span>, as if everything else is false.  We now see the truth and potential falsehood in everything, including the Buddha\u2019s teachings. <\/p>\n<p>Well, I don\u2019t want to get into it too much now \u2013 but look forward to your comments.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7907151-113161896655944348?l=americanbuddhist.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More on Postmodernism (the last of it, thankfully) See here to get started. Nacho wrote, \u201cI don\u2019t think PoMo is nihilistic, but I also think that Nihilism gets a bad rap. Nihilism about what?\u201d Good point \u2013 The word Nihilism is abused today almost as much as freedom. But I think the case of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Philosophy: (3 of 3) Postmodernism - and Buddhism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"More on Postmodernism (the last of it, thankfully) See here to get started.Nacho wrote, &quot;I don&#039;t think PoMo is nihilistic, but I also think that Nihilism\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/philosophy-3-of-3-postmodernism-and-buddhism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Philosophy: (3 of 3) Postmodernism - and Buddhism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"More on Postmodernism (the last of it, thankfully) See here to get started.Nacho wrote, &quot;I don&#039;t think PoMo is nihilistic, but I also think that Nihilism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/philosophy-3-of-3-postmodernism-and-buddhism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Buddhist Perspectives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-11-10T10:14:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7907151-113161896655944348?l=americanbuddhist.blogspot.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Justin Whitaker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Justin Whitaker\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/philosophy-3-of-3-postmodernism-and-buddhism.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/philosophy-3-of-3-postmodernism-and-buddhism.html\",\"name\":\"Philosophy: (3 of 3) Postmodernism - and Buddhism\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2005-11-10T10:14:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2005-11-10T10:14:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/#\/schema\/person\/abfb8f851f671638c4c7536b963f9da9\"},\"description\":\"More on Postmodernism (the last of it, thankfully) See here to get started.Nacho wrote, \\\"I don't think PoMo is nihilistic, but I also think that Nihilism\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/philosophy-3-of-3-postmodernism-and-buddhism.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/philosophy-3-of-3-postmodernism-and-buddhism.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2005\/11\/philosophy-3-of-3-postmodernism-and-buddhism.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Philosophy: (3 of 3) Postmodernism &#8211; 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