Summary: Episode Description: This fourth lecture of the program is entitled Letting Go of Truth. In it, Stephen proposes how his formulation of a fourfold task (see part 5a of this series) evolved to become the Four Noble Truths. At some point in time, buddhism took a "metaphysical turn" from an "engaged agency" with the world, to a "theorizing stance" of a detached subject contemplating an objective world. The "theorizing stance" is one that has influenced much of western philosophy and lies at the root of modern science. In turning from engagement with the world to theorizing about the world, buddhism began to "privilege abstract knowledge over felt experience." In so doing, a "knowing how" to accomplish a series of tasks became a "knowing about" a correct view of reality. A fourfold task became a metaphysical framework. A practice became a theory. Stephen spends much of the lecture presenting scholarly evidence that the metaphysical framework of the Four Noble Truths does not appear in the earliest buddhist texts and in fact, was "grafted on" over the course of 300 to 400 years. He presents an analysis of how, gradually, a series of four tasks to be performed in order to flourish in the world transformed into four truth claims centering around suffering and the cessation of suffering. In Stephen's view, the buddha's teaching is fundamentally about "performance" rather than knowledge. The buddha "understood the world as a site for the performance of a set of liberating tasks," and the individual self as a "work in progress that recognizes, performs, and accomplishes these tasks." For Series description and Teacher BIOs, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: A Culture of Awakening: All 18 Parts
