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Individual Buddhists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Michael McGhee
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool, PO Box 147, Liverpool L69 3BX

Extract

There is a short section of Peter Harvey's recent book on Buddhism in which he offers a thumbnail sketch of Buddhist groups in the United Kingdom. Among the groups he describes is the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, and I declare an interest, as one of its members. I have no particular quarrel with the description of FWBO activities, but there is a sting in the tail, which is, I think, a point of some conceptual interest, which others have also focused on.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 Peter, Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism (Cambridge University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

2 See Mellor, P. A., ‘Protestant Buddhism?Religion, XXI (1991), 82.Google Scholar

3 An expression used by the founder of the Western Buddhist Order, Sangharakshita.

4 Dharmacāri Subhuti (Alex, Kennedy), Buddhism for Today (Glasgow, 1988).Google Scholar

5 For a recent account of the idea of a ‘higher evolution’ and a response to P. A. Mellor's assessment of FWBO beliefs and attitudes, see Sangharakshita, , The FWBO and ‘Protestant Buddhism’ (Windhorse Publications, 1992).Google Scholar

6 Trans. Swenson, David F. and Lowrie, Walter (Princeton, 1968).Google Scholar

7 Cf. what Kierkegaard says about the ‘loving maiden’ in the note referred to above.

8 See Rowan, Williams' discussion in his ‘“Know Thyself”: What kind of an Injunction?’ in McGhee, (ed.), Philosophy, Religion and the Spiritual Life (Cambridge, 1992).Google Scholar