Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
"in my classes, i try to get students to think about whether (certain forms of) buddhism (or taoism) is an atheistic religion. "
I recently attended an exhibit of Buddhist art at a local art museum. One of the descriptive placards beneath a sculpture so took me by surprise that I took a picture of it, which is here:
http://img223.echo.cx/img223/1696/buddhistdemon1yp.jpg
For those too lazy to click on the URL, what it says is this:
"The snarling, fanged mouth, crown of skulls, garland of decapitated heads, and cape of flayed human skin identify this figure as Lhamo, the Himalayan Buddhist form of the Hundu death goddess Kali. Lhamo is the most extreme of the eight dharmapalas, violent demons who were tamed by Buddhist sages and became the protectors of the Buddhist scriptures. The savage goddess rides her mule through a sea of blood, accompanied by two demons. This horrific concept is typical subject matter in Tantric Buddhist art, which explores extremes of human experience in the search for enlightenment."
Things like this really make me wonder how "atheist" the Buddhist traition really is, and if HL Mencken wasn't right when he said:
"One of the strangest delusions of the Western mind is to the effect that a philosophy of profound wisdom is on tap in the East. I have read a great many expositions of it, some by native sages and the rest by Western enthusiasts, but I have found nothing in it save nonsense. It is, fundamentally, a moony transcendentalism almost as absurd as that of Emerson, Alcott and company."
-B.
