Buddhist Romanticism

in perspective couldn’t be more stark.
If we are serious about our engagement with the Dhamma, we have to
think not only of the benefits we can gain from the Dhamma, but also of
what sort of Dhamma we leave for future generations. The Buddha never
demanded that people believe his teachings, but he did ask that people
represent them fairly and give them a fair test. But if we insist on making
changes to the Dhamma, the people who come after us won’t know what to
test, or what a fair test might be. To whatever extent the true Dhamma has
come down to us, has all been through the efforts of the men and women of
many generations who practiced in line with it, benefited from it, and went
out of their way to preserve it.
Those people were motivated to preserve the Dhamma because they had
followed, not the duty to change it, but the duties with regard to the four
noble truths. They comprehended suffering, abandoned its cause, realized
its cessation, all by developing the path. In other words, instead of
imposing duties on the Dhamma, they accepted the duties the Dhamma
taught them. Having tasted the release that comes from following these
duties, they fully appreciated the value of the Dhamma and wanted to keep
it alive and intact for those who would come after. To disrupt their efforts
in that direction, out of a desire to be creative or expressive, is an act of
ingratitude toward those who went before us, and of callousness toward
those who will come after.
When the Buddha described how counterfeit Dhamma would make the
true Dhamma disappear, he compared the process to what happens to
genuine money when counterfeit money gets circulated: As long as there is
only genuine money, people don’t doubt its authenticity. They can simply
put it to use. But when there is both genuine and counterfeit money, doubts
will arise as to what is genuine, and so all money becomes dubious. People
have to be wary of what they’re using, and have to devise more and more
sophisticated tests to determine what’s genuine.
We already live in an era where counterfeit Dhamma has become
common. As a result, it’s very easy to doubt that there is, or ever was, such
a thing as genuine Dhamma. This means that the Buddha’s forecast has
already come true. True Dhamma—as something undeniably True or
Dhamma—has already disappeared. This places a burden of responsibility
on everyone who wants to find an end to suffering: We have to be very
careful about our reasons for choosing one version of Dhamma over
320