Thesis issues.

[icarus]

So my thesis proposal is due this Tuesday. This is a proposal that will go to a committee who will decide if my project is worth working on. Then, if accepted, I will be spending the next year on this topic.

I originally wanted to research the history of tantric Buddhism, find the connections between tantric Buddhism and Indian esoteric Buddhism. But my professor wanted me to ask a why question. She said, "Your question is about definitions and the committee doesn't want that."

So I struggled to come up with a "why" question on the subject of a religion where the Buddha, when asked 14 different "why" questions, remained utterly silent. On a subject where "why" is utterly irrelevant. Why? Because you want to get enlightened, because suffering exists and you want it to end, that's why.

I didn't want to ask a "why" question.

So I tried to find something that worked for her (and the committee). The main problem being that although I'm in the International Studies, my subject is really more in the field of Asian Languages and Literature.

I found that I did have access to data on empowerments and initiations, and that no one had studied them. Okay. Maybe I could go there.

But. No one had studied them for good reason. They're secret. I worked up a few sections of the proposal, using that as my source of data, and my qualms started growing other qualms. I justified looking at this information as data because some of it had been made public by Buddhist teachers. I decided I could use that as my guideline as to what could be treated and secret and what couldn't.

Finally, I couldn't ignore those qualms. I had an ethical dilemma.

I spoke to my professor. She didn't see it as an ethical dilemma. Fuck. Every Buddhologist out there calls it an ethical issue. Conze (very famous non-Buddhist Marxist Sanskrit translator) calls it an ethical issue. If you give your word to keep something private, even in an ordinary situation, breaking your word is unethical. THIS IS NOT THE QUESTION I WANTED TO ADDRESS IN THE FIRST PLACE. I didn't yell at her. I don't call myself calm. When people tell me astounding things I tend to just stare at them and wonder, "am I the one wrong here?" But no, no, I'm not.

So we shifted the topic to "secrecy" in tantric Buddhism. And I am so, so, so very bored with this topic. Because this is of no interest to me whatsoever. It is not an important issue in the field of Buddhist studies. It hasn't been studied much that I can tell, but largely because no one cares.

Including me.

How did I get redirected from my initial fascinating historical project on the roots of tantric Buddhism and its transference from India to Tibet, into "Why are Secret Practices Secret"? Although yes, I agree, most of the misunderstanding about tantra comes from its secrecy. Of course it does.

Fine, fine, secrecy. I'll have to cobble together a new theoretical model based on semiotics, memory studies, and -- of all things -- medical studies of how people attempt to describe indescribable experiences like severe pain.

I have to (re)write 25 pages of a topic that I don't care about, that no one in Buddhology cares about, where the two theoretical models that apply to it (not that I have much reading in this area because I was planning to do a history project) pretend that spiritual systems exist only for social reasons and have nothing at the core. Today.

*curses a long blue streak*

I've been avoiding this all week.


ETA: There's one thing I trust about my professor. Her students have consistently brought down the house with their honors theses. They win the prizes every year--to the point where it's been proposed that our program be excluded from the competition because too many from it win. So I know she's right when it comes to what scholars in International Studies want to see.

ETA2: I feel like I've totally failed and that there's no way I can do this. If I tell wildernessguru my issues, he will equate them to his own negative experiences in school (his parents were both teachers and therefore had no perspective when it came to their own kinetic-learning-style kid and totally wrecked his education). He'll just tell me "You're not capable."

ETA3: No, no, no, the musician downstairs may not use today to sing off-key. No.

Comments

[seekergeek.livejournal.com]

Could you perhaps do a paper giving your take on *why* tantric Buddhism developed from those roots? Why do you think that this thing and that thing interacted with each other to become this whole new fascinating thing? I'm not an standard academician, but I have had occasion to do historical research papers of this sort before. I don't think you have to change your subject so much as you have to reframe it in the context that they want you to approach it from. Basically what they want from a thesis is for you to develop an opinion about something and then defend it. Hence the emphasis on the "why". You just have to critically analyze the history instead of simply reporting it. Does this help any? *is hopeful*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I don't want to report history, and the "why" question is unanswerable. We don't know why. There's not enough information from that time period. Most of it is destroyed.

[seekergeek.livejournal.com]

Damn. That sucks. Well, since my advice was completely useless, here - have a cookie. *hold out plate of chocolate chip cookies*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the cookie. Even experts in this field have nothing to work with. And the committee doesn't want to see me rework what is already known.

[seekergeek.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's frustration in a box, right there. *hands the plate over to you again*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

And what I wanted to work on was of no interest to my professor or the committee because it involved questions of defining tantra and distinguishing Buddhist tantra from Hindu tantra. Buddhologists care about these questions. International Studies does not.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Maybe the problem is that they don't know what tantra is or WHY (there's that word) that you think it's important.

I would tell them about your whole progression of getting re-directed further and further from actual history, and that what you want to do is to increase the history known about the subject, rather than trying to answer a question that, in the context of the religion and those who study it, has no meaning...and would be speculative fiction at best.

They might understand that.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Good point.