thinkBuddha is three!
Tuesday July 29, 2008
It is three years since I first put together a few scattered thoughts and started out on writing this blog. When I started thinkBuddha, I had no idea what purpose there might be in blogging, except for a hunch that thinking out loud can often achieve things that thinking in the privacy of one’s own head cannot. This hunch has been borne out by experience. Thinking, it seems to me, is a social activity more than it is a solitary activity. I have an increasing mistrust of those philosophers and sages who rely – or who claim to rely – merely upon their own resources, and as I have written here before, for me the defining moment in the history of Buddhism is not the story of the Buddha’s awakening beneath a tree, but is instead the moment when, after hours and hours of patient discussion, a spark jumps between the Buddha and his follower Kondanna, and the Buddha cries out, “Kondanna knows! Kondanna knows!” I like to think that it is not only at this moment that Kondanna knows what the Buddha is talking about, but it is also at this moment, for the first time, that the Buddha really knows.
The German philosopher Franz Rosenzweig calls this thinking that happens in conjunction with others ‘speech thinking’: a kind of thinking that is open to possibilty, that never knows in advance where it is going, that is divested of spurious claims to absolute authority, a kind of thinking in which uncertainty is not a fault to be exorcised, but a means to asking further, more interesting questions. I like to think of blogging as a kind of speech thinking. And, as another year comes to an end, I am grateful to have enjoyed the company of so many thoughtful folks to think along with. Thanks to you all.
Your speech thinking has been thoroughly enjoyed here hopefully will continue for a good many years. Thanks for your blogs and best wishes to you in your new home.
— jonah · Jul 31, 05:49 PM · #
Happy Birthday!
— Lea · Jul 31, 10:14 PM · #
Happy Birthday and long may you continue. Many thanks for sharing your thoughts and best wishes in your new home.
— Elma · Aug 6, 11:54 AM · #
