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2004
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The
Buddha Meets Socrates Plato Scholar Offers the Karmapa an Intensive Course on Key Concepts of Western Philosophy Kalimpong—October 24, 2004—This fall Karmapa Thaye Dorje has broken new ground in the dialogue between East and West.
In September, Professor Harrison Pemberton, 78, of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA, traveled to Kalimpong to present an intensive introduction to Western philosophy to His Holiness and a small group of advanced lamas. Pemberton embarked for India at the invitation of H.H. Shamar Rinpoche. “Today, more than ever, leaders of the world’s faiths need to understand the philosophies that have guided civilizations and continue to provide insight into the nature of existence, the basis of knowledge and the best way to live,” said Shamar Rinpoche. “An understanding of the Western mind will better prepare His Holiness Karmapa to bring the ancient wisdom of Buddhism to the modern world.” Pemberton’s five-week intensive course provided a historical overview of the main philosophies that have developed in Europe and the Americas from the time of the classical Greeks to the present day. All teaching, reading and discussion was in English language and the class was conducted in American seminar format. For each topic in the course, Pemberton gave an introductory lecture; he assigned readings to deepen the students’ knowledge; then the students digested the concepts they learned through class discussion and written essays.
“In the tradition of Socratic dialogue, I really wanted class to be an interactive encounter,” Pemberton said. Course readings came from some of the leading philosophic minds of the West: The Meno, a dialogue of Plato; Rene Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy; a selection from the Introduction to the Philosophy of History by G.W.F. Hegel; and a short address by Martin Heidegger on the difference between scientific thought and meditative thought. Pemberton also asked the students to read an essay by the Mexican poet Octavio Paz, “The Contraptions of Time,” on the difference between conceptions of time in the West and in the East. Discussions brought out surprising areas of harmony between Western and Buddhist thought. “The most intriguing discussion was about the nature of wisdom,” said Pemberton. “I have learned that Tibetan Buddhists make a distinction between sherab, wisdom in the sense of conceptual knowledge, and yeshe, higher wisdom that goes beyond conceptual thought. In Buddhist practice, sherab is a path to yeshe, the wisdom that brings enlightenment and liberation from the limitations of the normal, limited functioning of the human mind.” In the West, many philosophers also believe that rationality, logic and knowledge can help us reach what the Greeks called sophia, or wisdom. “Plato even thought that after your logic had run out, you needed a moment of total confusion, or aporia , to break out of the restrictions of wrong concepts,” Pemberton explained. It remains to be explored, however, whether Western ideas of wisdom entail a non-conceptual state of mind as they do in Buddhism. “Western philosophers rely on rationality,” Pemberton said. “But this reliance is often a tool to question the validity of rational thought itself. Such an attitude is quite subtle in Plato but it is more apparent in other Greek philosophers, such as the Skeptics. And contemporary movements like Deconstruction or Postmodernism rigorously question whether reason can really get to the ultimate truth. These movements even try to lead the mind to a state of productive doubt through their use of language.” Another fruitful encounter of East and West came when H.H. Karmapa and the other lamas met the French Renaissance philosopher Descartes. “Descartes has been blamed for all sorts of dualism in Western thought, especially the artificial distinction between body and mind,” Pemberton said. “But the lamas found the openness to doubt all received ideas that Descartes expressed at the opening of his investigations quite congenial to their own approach.” In a lighthearted moment, H.H. Karmapa and the others even turned Descartes' trademark slogan of cogito ergo sum —I think, therefore I exist—into a new Buddhist maxim: “I think, therefore I don't exist.”
“I
am used to asking students to solve a geometry problem inspired by Plato's
Meno,” said Pemberton. “The Karmapa, alone among the students
here, was able to solve this puzzler. He even built a three-dimensional
model from cardboard to demonstrate the problem's solution to the class.”
Pemberton plans to extend this meeting of two great philosophies into a book about his experiences tutoring H.H. Karmapa. Provisionally titled Philosophical Encounters, the book will be published in late 2005 by Banyan Tree Press, a new publisher specializing in Buddhism and Himalayan culture.
Pemberton, a graduate of Yale University, taught at Washington and Lee University in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley for more than 40 years before retiring in June of this year. Students in Virginia knew Pemberton for his love of his subject and his unique ability to make complex ideas clear and relevant.
“I'll never forget my time with the Karmapa,” Pemberton said. “People ask me now, am I a Buddhist? I say that I am interested in Buddhist ideas. Lamas here tell me this means that I am on the path.” |
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