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17. The Phenomenology of Religion and Buddhism
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17 The Phenomenology of Religion and Buddhism An important aspect of the phenomenological method, specially as outlined by Kristensen, consists in placing oneself in the shoes of the believer of another tradition, on the grounds that if we are to understand a religion, it must be understood as the believer understands it. Thus, he wrote: Let us never forget that there exists no other religious reality than the faith of the believer. If we really want to understand religion, we must refer exclusively to the believer’s testimony. What we believe, from our point of view, about the nature or value of other religions, is a reliable testimony to our own faith, or to our own understanding of religious faith; but if our opinion about another religion differs from the opinion and evaluation of the believers, then we are no longer talking about their religion. We have turned aside from historical reality, and are concerned only with ourselves.1 But is it possible to achieve a complete understanding of another person without becoming the other person and ceasing to be oneself ? The logical corollary of this in the study of religion then would consist of a Christian becoming a Muslim, if the Christian really wants to understand Islam completely. This, however, is ruled out by Kristensen. He writes that while the scholar should adopt the standpoint of the believer, 193 194 Religious Studies and Comparative Methodology the historian cannot understand the absolute character of the religious data in the same way that the believer understands them. The historian’s standpoint is a different one. There is a distance between him and the object of the research; he cannot identify himself with it as the believer does. We cannot become Mohammedans when we try to understand Islam, and if we could, our study would be at an end: we should ourselves then directly experience the reality. The historian seeks to understand, and he is able to do that in an approximate way, approximate, but no more.2 Thus, the study of religion must remain a second-order enterprise, and Kristensen’s approach may thus best be described as one of empathetic approximation, for he goes on to explain: By means of empathy he tries to relive in his own experience that which is “alien,” and that, too, he can only approximate. This imaginative re-experiencing of a situation strange to us is a form of representation, and not reality itself, for that always asserts itself with sovereign authority. We can even assume such an inheritance: we can form a more or less clear picture of our own national character, and we often do so. But then we always feel the shortcomings of our own formulation; the representation is always something else than the reality. The “existential” nature of the religious datum is never disclosed by research. That cannot be defined. Here we see the limit to the validity of historical research. But recognizing a limit of validity is not to deny the value of this research.3 This position in the phenomenological approach to the study of religion may be contrasted with that of Buddha’s omniscience in Mahåyåna Buddhism, wherein the idea that knowing an object—whether animate or inanimate—entails completely becoming it is given free rein. Thus, Edward Conze writes that while even in pre-Mahåyåna Buddhism the Buddha was acknowledged as omniscient in the sense that “he knew everything necessary for salvation, his own and that of others, and therefore in matters spiritual is a sure and infallible guide,”4 the understanding of Buddha’s omniscience is more extensive and literal in Mahåyåna Buddhism. The Mahåyåna now claims that he knows also all other things, that he is omniscient in the full sense of the term. But since it [3.229.123.80] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 07:59 GMT) 195 The Phenomenology of Religion and Buddhism is one of the peculiarities of a Buddha’s gnosis that therein the subject is identical with the object, the fact that he knows everything there is, implies that he also is everything there is. In consequence the Buddha becomes identical either with the Absolute, or with the sum total of existence, with the totality of all things at all times. It is only because he has merged with everything that the Buddha has cast off all traces of a separate self and has attained complete and total self-extinction.5...