Dirk,
    I recall having some of this same discussion before with the chimerical
En Lin Wei, but in this instance you must have misunderstood me. I quite
agree with you. I am a great admirer of the Tibetan Buddhists, and I agree
with you that "science and progress" have been used as an excuse to attack
this very spiritual and traditional society. To demand that people "believe
in" science is risible, but tragic when used as an excuse to persecute them
if they do not. However, this has nothing to do with Ezra Pound's choice of
Eastern philosophy (wherever his soul may now be serving its sentence) nor
can such treatment of Tibet be realistically traced to Confucius. Pound
simply showed favoritism for Kung and probably should have been more
tolerant and open toward Buddhism.
    The sect of Tibetan Buddhism which intrigues me the most is the Tantric
or vajra-yana because they connect through Sanskrit to the Indian Vedas and
the god Indra in particular who, as you know, used his famous cudgel, the
vajra, to dispatch or awaken ( whichever you prefer) the serpent Vritra who
enclosed and hoarded the waters of life. This is extremely relevant to the
mytho-poetic tradition of Indo-European poetics; and it is too bad that
Pound did not see to it more. He may also have benefited from reading Jessie
Weston's "From Ritual to Romance". Perhaps then, and I would agree with you,
there would have been less economics and Confucius and likely more poetry.
    I can recommend Calvert Watkin's book "How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of
Indo-European Poetics", Oxford University Press 1995 as a most important
focused study on this subject. And while we have been discussing Evola he
has two ver good books on Buddhism, "The Yoga of Power: Tantra, Shakti, and
the Secret Way" and "The Doctrine of Awakening: The Attainment of
Self-mastery According to the Earliest Buddhist Texts"- both published by
Inner Traditions

CDM

----------
>From: Dirk Johnson <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Julius Evola
>Date: Fri, Jan 26, 2001, 6:43 PM
>

> Charles:
>
> I enjoy your comments, but I must be a stickler on this one:  in China
> today, the most important commandment is "Thou Shall Not Be Tibetan Or
> Believe As Tibetans Believe".
>
> Racism. Extermination. Genocide.  A complete eradication of a people and a
> culture.  As terrible as any crime in history, such as the successful U.S.
> genocide against the North American Indigenous Peoples or the attempted
> genocide by the Germans of the Jewish people, to name just two extremely
> evil enterprises. Science and progress have been invoked since 1954 as
> excuses to eradicate the Tibetans.  To me it makes the Fa-Lun Gong
> controversy seem relatively light.
>
> Also can't help wondering how Pound's attitude toward Buddhism may have been
> different had he encountered some of the more serious Tibetan Buddhist works
> instead of Confucian works attacking the popular and superstitious Chinese
> expression of Buddhism.  I am NOT saying that all Chinese expressions of
> Buddhism were either popular or superstitious (nor that much of the Tibetan
> expressions aren't popular or superstitious), but these are certainly the
> forms of Buddhism that are attacked in the Cantos via the Confucians.
> ...incense... Buddh rot ...burnt paper.. gets mad if he doesn't get it...
>
> Man by negation is a more serious (also Confucian) charge, but one based
> upon false and superficial readings of Buddhist philosophy.  At least if Ez
> had become infatuated with Buddhism instead of with Confucianism he would
> have been less likely to become obsessed with economics and less likely to
> go down the path of perdition so well described by Leon Surette in _Pound in
> Purgatory_.
>
> Tibetan Buddhism is certainly more "mytho-poetic" than Confucianism: art,
> dance, poetry, music, theater, sculpture, philosophy, history, and so forth
> are not separate disciplines, but mutually expressive.  Though the various
> differences between them are obvious, the Tibetan culture is the closest
> survivor in the world to the pre-Classical Greek cultures in the sense of
> not being fragmented while at the same time being exceptionally literate.
> (If there is another equally similar or more similar, I'd love to be
> enlightened.)
>
> I've long though that Pound missed a great opportunity to encounter a
> living, unified cultural tradition when he chose confucianism over Buddhism.
> The mis-translated _Tibetan Book of the Dead_ would have served him far
> better than Mencius and Muss, especially since the resonance with Canto I
> would have been superb.
>
> Of course, then we wouldn't have the Pisan Cantos, the lack of which I
> wouldn't REALLY wish on anybody.
>
> Dirk
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: charles moyer [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 1:08 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Julius Evola
>
>
> Wayne,
>     Thank you for that information. You write, "I wonder why you link this
> 'high-minded' racist (Evola) with Robert Graves?"
>     It seems to me that in the sense of being traditionalists, looking
> beyond and above any charges of "racism", Pound, Evola, and Graves had a
> similar view of the value of ancient wisdom. Call it mytho-poetic,
> Hyperborean, or Celtic- whatever-it translates somewhat  the same; that it
> is something in the past worthy of examination and even perhaps of revival.
> Progress, however, teaches us to formulate new "crimes against humanity" as
> recently in China where now it has been decreed "Thou shalt not not believe
> in science".  How's that for high-mindedness?
>     I would like to see your notes on Evola. I leave it to you as to the
> venue.
>
> CDM
>