Ruegg then makes some very useful and relevant comments about K. L. Pike’s “emic” and “etic” approaches to source studies(40) that further draw out the implications for the use of “source-alien terminology.” First, he explains that an “emic” approach involves studying a tradition systemically and structurally, by “making use of their own intellectual and cultural categories and seeking as it were to ‘think along’ with these traditions.” By contrast, an “etic” approach involves the intentional use of one’s own interpretive strategies and categories for the purpose of “generalizing and comparative” analysis (1995: 157).(41) He then observes that

[t]he distinction between the “emic” and “etic” approaches … is no doubt parallel to the distinction drawn between the use of author-familiar as opposed to author-alien terminologies for the purposes of comparison and exposition. But … it may still be possible to employ author-alien terminologies even within an approach that is committed to “emic” analysis and understanding. For example, in explaining the Buddhist theory of spiritual classes or “lineages” (gotra) to the extent that it is based on a biological metaphor, one might evoke the idea of a (spiritual) “gene” … Of course, … the modern biological term “gene” … [is] alien to our Indian and Tibetan sources, in which no lexeme is to be found with precisely the meaning of … [this] modern word. … Yet it seems possible to invoke, mutatis mutandis, the ideas expressed by … [this] new term … when seeking to explicate the … [theory] in question. In other words, author-alien (or source-alien) terminology could very well be compatible with an “emic” approach to understanding, and it does not necessarily bring with it an exclusive commitment to the “etic” approach. (Conversely, it would in principle be possible to employ source-familiar terminology and still misconstrue and misrepresent a doctrine, thus infringing the requirement of an “emic” approach.) Furthermore, … the use of source-familiar terminology need not stand in the way of proceeding from “emic” to “etic” approaches. (1995: 158-159)

Likewise, if evidence is obtained that warrants it, it should be entirely possible to describe traditional Buddhists as “engaged,” as “internationalists,” and so on. Moreover, I would strengthen Ruegg’s parenthetical statement that “it would in principle be possible to employ source-familiar terminology and still misconstrue and misrepresent a doctrine, thus infringing the requirement of an ‘emic’ approach” by saying that “it is in practice quite common to employ source-familiar terminology and still misconstrue and misrepresent a doctrine...”—for that is exactly what I have suggested many modernists do when they insist that historically, Buddhism has always been disengaged.

And finally, Ruegg suggests that the careful application of an “emic” approach can help us to avoid the type of subtle (often unconscious) “neo-colonialism” that we have discussed at length herein:

Structural and systemic analysis is in a position to allow due weight to the historical as well as to the descriptive, that is, it may be diachronic as well as synchronic. Here the observation might be ventured that careful “emic” analysis can provide as good a foundation as any for generalizing and comparative study, one that will not superimpose from the outside extraneous modes of thinking and interpretive grids in a way that sometimes proves to be scarcely distinguishable from a more or less subtle form of neo-colonialism. (1995: 157)

Choices, choices

One can choose to stress the continuities between the beliefs and practices of contemporary Buddhists and those of the past, or one can choose to stress the discontinuities. If such choices are not made consciously and carefully, then they are always made unconsciously. Either way, they usually represent more of an ideological or political disposition (or move) than an historical “observation.” While we may agree with Queen that, in principle, “to stress the discontinuity of engaged Buddhism with its classical and medieval predecessors … is not to discredit its authority” (1996: 31), it nevertheless seems that for Queen (and other modernists), “to stress the discontinuity” (to recognize, then distance) is often to appropriate its authority.

On the other hand, if some modernists do consciously and carefully choose to emphasize discontinuities with the past, then certainly other contemporary Buddhists need not be threatened by what those modernists may construe as their new “innovations.” Buddhism has always been adaptive and fluid—as Thurman has stated, Buddhism has a “tradition of originality” (1989: 8). It is traditional to be original in Buddhism. Hence, the traditionists can relax in the face of the modernists’ “adaptations.”

But equally importantly (and almost never noted, from what I have seen) is the fact that modernist Buddhists need not be threatened when traditionists consciously and carefully choose to emphasize continuities with the past. Buddhism has had a much longer and more diverse history than modernists typically acknowledge; many of our “contemporary” problems (and solutions) may not be so new. The modernists’ rhetoric of newness seduces us into prematurely abandoning the rich mine of the Buddhist tradition and cheats us out of many jeweled resources from which we could have greatly profited. Again, Thurman’s comments make this very simple point: