Friday, January 3, 2020

Buddhist Anomalogy

In a world of political correctness, where epistemic and ethical correctness no longer or hardly plays a role, to speak of anomaly may carry a hint of criminality. What is standard, normal, or expected? We would be reprimanded by the self-righteous and self-declared vice squad. Nonetheless, I wish to speak here of “Buddhist anomalogy,” that is, theories or doctrines in Buddhism, that seem to deviate from what is  regarded as standard, normal, or expected. The tradition, for example, the Tibetan tradition, itself seems to characterize such elements as “uncommon” (thun mong ma yin pa) as juxtaposed or opposed to those that are mainstream/standard and thus “common.” Importantly, those who endorse anomalous doctrines would, however, never reject those that are standard and common. Many aspects of Buddhist anomalogy can be found in the domains of Buddhist ontology, Buddhist soteriology, Buddhist epistemology, Buddhist gnoseology, Buddhology, Saddharmology, Buddhist axiology, Buddhist cosmology, Buddhist phenomenology, Buddhist psychology, Buddhist sentientology, Buddhist eschatology, and so on. These are mere venues of explorations. I wish to return to these points in the near future.