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You can be a buddhist and drink drugs, but you can also be a buddhist and beat up retarded people for quarters, but is it good to do these things??? Who knows? Only time
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Feb 28, 2014 02:05
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Apparently Buddhists can also start wars and stuff, it's wild.
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Feb 28, 2014 02:06
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That answered my question. Thank you Ruddha.
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Feb 28, 2014 02:06
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You are very welcome.
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Feb 28, 2014 02:07
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Splurgerwitzl posted:On the contrary it's said pretty frequently. I've never seen this. Pretty much every Buddhist country has a pretty strong industry making alcohol which is then consumed by the laity en masse. You can be a Buddhist, just it doesn't contribute to you being a good Buddhist. I think out of the people I talk to in this thread only quantumfate has got the whole "no intoxicants" thing down perfectly. I sure as poo poo don't. Splurgerwitzl posted:Isn't this attachment? In what sense? PrinceRandom posted:Apparently Buddhists can also start wars and stuff, it's wild. This is gross slander, we're literally all Arahats.
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Feb 28, 2014 02:10
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WAFFLEHOUND posted:In what sense? An attachment to a sober mind could maybe refer to egotism or a longing for a perfect mind, which seems to me in opposition to enlightenment. Not that it's a reason to do drugs, but you're stuck both ways. Just thinking out loud.
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Feb 28, 2014 02:21
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I'm attached to not doing the raiden torpedo attack on pregnant women, and and will likely never high five avalokitesvara one thousand times
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Feb 28, 2014 02:23
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Splurgerwitzl posted:An attachment to a sober mind could maybe refer to egotism or a longing for a perfect mind, which seems to me in opposition to enlightenment. Not that it's a reason to do drugs, but you're stuck both ways. Just thinking out loud. Striving toward wholesome states is not attachment. It is right effort. Of course you could probably overdo it and only start eating fresh grass clippings and try to maintain perfect ph water intake and only breathe purified air and other extreme things to keep your mind totally free of impurities. But that would not be the middle way. But no, refraining from intoxicants because you want to keep a clear mind is not attachment at all. Just like wanting to meditate to understanding the nature of suffering isn't attachment to meditation. You should strive toward the wholesome. If you get obsessed with attainments or sensations during meditation, sure, that could be attachment, but wanting to purify your mind and suffer less isn't attachment at all. edit: Also, Wafflehound makes a good point. If you go to a Buddhist country, you're surely going to see people who claim to be Buddhists drinking, selling intoxicants, etc. I go through phases where I am very strict about my practice, meditate regularly, and try to keep the precepts. I also go through phases where I don't do any of those things very well at all. I don't know that I consider myself "not-Buddhist" during those periods, although maybe I should. I'm usually not thinking about it that much because my mind is, of course, clouded. I still think the teachings are just as valid during those times. I just fall short of the goals I would normally set for myself. I am also totally wasting my time during those phases, losing ground I gained in meditation, acting heedlessly, causing suffering for myself and others, etc. The precepts are often referred to as the training precepts, and taking them is an affirmation that you want to stop suffering. If you fall short you aren't going to have your Buddhist card revoked, but it should also be understood that you aren't doing yourself any favors, and if you try to do mental gymnastics and say "I can drink and still make progress on the path", you're fooling yourself. And this shouldn't be taken as preachy at all, because it happens to me all the time. People Stew fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Feb 28, 2014 |
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Feb 28, 2014 02:30
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Ruddha posted:I'm attached to not doing the raiden torpedo attack on pregnant women, and and will likely never high five avalokitesvara one thousand times Thank you for reminding me to high five the head monk at the Monastery I met my wife at, considering he's regarded as an emanation. Splurgerwitzl posted:An attachment to a sober mind could maybe refer to egotism or a longing for a perfect mind, which seems to me in opposition to enlightenment. Not that it's a reason to do drugs, but you're stuck both ways. Just thinking out loud. Attachment to the path isn't considered a fetter, it's considered right effort/view. PP got that down pretty well, it's a pretty common misconception, actually.
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Feb 28, 2014 02:55
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The only hit I got googling the word Avici is the DJ Avicii that made that one hit wonder.
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Feb 28, 2014 03:20
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ShadowMoo posted:The only hit I got googling the word Avici is the DJ Avicii that made that one hit wonder. Jimmy Wales has you covered: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Av%C4%ABci
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Feb 28, 2014 03:24
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Ah now I get the joke. I thought Avici was some kind of compliment. Also, how does Buddhism fair against the western philosophers like Nietzsche or Camus? Who claim self empowerment to the greatest degree.
ShadowMoo fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Feb 28, 2014 |
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Feb 28, 2014 03:26
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ShadowMoo posted:Ah now I get the joke. I thought Avici was some kind of compliment. Also, how does Buddhism fair against the western philosophers like Nietzsche or Camus? Who claim self empowerment to the greatest degree. I can't really see a conflict on that level. Much of what makes Buddhism unique compared to Abrahamic religions is that you have the greatest power out of anyone to change your own life, or at least your attitudes towards it. You own your own karma, etc. As someone who used to be a hardcore existentialist (and still carries part of that worldview), I haven't found any conflicts, and have found many parts of both to be complimentary in some regards. Someone who remembers their Camus and Nietzsche better than I will probably have a much more nuanced view on this. I can offer only a personal perspective. There was some talk earlier in the thread about the necessity of belief, or at least openess to the idea of rebirth, and indeed, it is a vital underpinning of Buddhist teachings, but here is a possibly relevant quote from the (dreaded) Kalamas Sutra about it not really being relevant to the here and now: ""'If there is a world after death, if there is the fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then this is the basis by which, with the break-up of the body, after death, I will reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world.' This is the first assurance he acquires. "'But if there is no world after death, if there is no fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then here in the present life I look after myself with ease — free from hostility, free from ill will, free from trouble.' This is the second assurance he acquires."
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Feb 28, 2014 04:12
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Is that similar to Pascal's Wager? The idea that even if there is no further existence, living by a certain moral code is at least beneficial in this life, so why not? I haven't studied western philosophy since I was in school around 20 years ago but it reminds me of that. I'm not familiar with existentialism so I can't comment on that.
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Feb 28, 2014 07:08
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Cumshot in the Dark posted:There was some talk earlier in the thread about the necessity of belief, or at least openess to the idea of rebirth, and indeed, it is a vital underpinning of Buddhist teachings, but here is a possibly relevant quote from the (dreaded) Kalamas Sutra about it not really being relevant to the here and now: The Buddhas teaching don't really make sense without rebirth, because then dying would mean the end of suffering, and then there's no need for a teaching about the end of suffering. The whole point of the practice is to not be reborn again. There's no need for a teaching on this if you don't actually get reborn. Basically you can call yourself a Buddhist whenever you want; at the very least you'll be a teacher for anyone who is annoyed by that 
Rhymenoceros fucked around with this message at 11:33 on Feb 28, 2014 |
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Feb 28, 2014 11:29
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Prickly Pete posted:Is that similar to Pascal's Wager? The idea that even if there is no further existence, living by a certain moral code is at least beneficial in this life, so why not? [derail] It's a similar set up, but with different payoffs. Pascal's point is that if you live a hedonist life and you're wrong, you suffer eternally. If you live a chaste life and you're wrong, you maybe suffer some while you're alive (by denying yourself hedonist pleasures) but then that's it. If you live a hedonist life and you're right, you win something. If you live a chaste life and you're right, you win even more than if you were to live a hedonist life and be right (eternity in heaven beats temporary pleasure in life). So hedonism either gets you the worst or a middle result, while being chaste gets you a middle or the maximum result. The rational conclusion, then, is to be chaste. The difference is that Pascal is saying that living a worse life in the here and now is worth the risk, where as Buddha seems to be saying that there is no risk, practicing Buddhism is still better than a hedonistic life even if there is no such thing as rebirth. Then it falls apart when you realize that Pascal is talking about believing in accordance with the Catholic tradition, but the wager itself offers zero guidance on figuring out which religion is the correct one. He also thinks that religion makes you dumb. Also that religion making you dumb is ultimately a good thing, because that helps you believe. [/derail]
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Feb 28, 2014 17:40
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Buried alive posted:[derail] Interesting. I'll have to read up more on that. There are a few suttas where the Buddha kind of takes this approach with people who have not yet taken refuge. It will usually involve him talking about how the Dhamma leads to happiness in the "here and now", so it is beneficial even to those with wrong view (such as annihilationists, etc) I'm hoping someone can dive in to some real heavy existentialist vs Buddhist stuff because I feel like they are talked about often in the same sentence but without meaningful analysis.
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Feb 28, 2014 18:15
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Rhymenoceros posted:It's just the Buddha saying that even if you don't believe in rebirth you should try to live a virtuous life because it's beneficial for you in the here and now. Ok, that's the best logic argument I've seen itt pro: rebirth. WAFFLEHOUND posted:Thank you for reminding me to high five the head monk at the Monastery I met my wife at, considering he's regarded as an emanation. Do you two ever fight? And if so, who brings up the meeting at the monastery where the monk's an emanation and what's up with that?
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Feb 28, 2014 23:53
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Mr. Mambold posted:Do you two ever fight? And if so, who brings up the meeting at the monastery where the monk's an emanation and what's up with that? What? I was just saying I wanted to be able to say I hi-fived Avalokitesvara.
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Mar 1, 2014 00:30
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WAFFLEHOUND posted:What? I was just saying I wanted to be able to say I hi-fived Avalokitesvara. Have an article. http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2014/02/dalai_lama_at_a_santa_fe_ski_resort_tells_waitress_the_meaning_of_life.html
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Mar 1, 2014 00:37
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I am truly and deeply confused.
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Mar 1, 2014 02:38
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I have taught Sartre at the college level, so here are my thoughts. I do not claim to say anything true about Buddhism, but I'm solid on Sartre. There are some good parallels with existentialism in Buddhism (I'm thinking Sartre and de Beauvoir here), but there are also good parallels with almost every other philosopher that's worth two shits so don't get too excited. The main thing people jump up and down about is that Sartre talks about transcendence (ie freedom, ie consciousness, I am speaking loosely here) as 'nothingness.' Nothingness (aka being-for-itself) 'negates,' which means that it gives value to its environment. That environment - called 'being-in-itself' or 'facticity' - has no inherent value, its value is entirely determined by and for being-for-itself. This sounds Wow Buddhist, but this is nothing new in Western philosophy, so while you might be able to make hay if you wanted to, there's no reason to go Sartre over Epictetus. And the nothingness that Sartre talks about has little to nothing to do with Buddhist emptiness (more on this later). Sartre's big thing is that humans are inextricably tied to both being-in-itself and being-for-itself. We have bodies and histories, and these things cannot be changed (well, we can cut our hair, but you follow me). And while our past - our facticity - can make certain choices look better than others, nothing can determine us to choose one thing over another. All our choices are free, because we are fundamentally being-for-itself. It hurts to be free and we try to convince ourselves that our facticity determines our choices, and that is bad faith. It also hurts to be tied to a history, and so we try to convince ourselves that we aren't really the person that did those things in the past. That's also bad faith. We must accept that we did what we have done, but it does not determine us to so behave in the future. Ackonwlege that you did A Thing, but don't freak out. To quote Sartre, "I am what I am not, I am not what I am." That's pretty Buddhist from a practical standpoint, but it's not uniquely Buddhist. It's also stoic, Epicurean, early Jewish, Kantean, Aristotelian, utilitarian, et cetera. It's something that everyone should agree to, really, unless they have a very particular silly view of the soul/mind. Yogacara talks about our past actions altering our character one way or another. It's called storehouse-consciousness and there's talk about perfuming, but the idea is pretty much the same (though there's more to it - I'm not saying this is exhaustive). This isn't fundamentally different from an Aristotelian view of character. And Sartre could agree with this, because this sort of character doesn't determine action - rather it's more of a probabilistic prediction of future actions based on past behavior. If we steal most of the time when given the opportunity, that's our character and it's not unlikely that we'll continue to do it in the future. But of course (and Aristotle wouldn't disagree for the most part), we could choose not to steal. And indeed we often like to think of ourselves as determined by our character - "I go to work because I am a teacher," "I meditate because am Buddhist," "I wear X because I belong to group Y." But of course we aren't fundamentally those things. I could quit showing up and shave my beard. I don't because I freely choose to keep on keepin' on, but it isn't because my character (or, in Sartrean terms, my history/facticity/being-in-itself) determines my actions. Now, there are some metaphysical parallels. Existentialists are cool with us always changing and there being no essential self with one (enormous) caveat. If you try to say that humans aren't free, then the existentialist will laugh at you because that is simply wrong (by their lights). There's an argument to be made that Buddhism and existentialism are incompatible since the freedom posited by the existentialist is indeed fundamental to humanity, but I think that the necessary freedom is present in Buddhist doctrine, even if implicitly. After all, if people weren't free in this way, there'd be no point in attempting anything at all and you'd get the same weirdness that falls out of e.g. Calvinism. The Buddhist could also object that being-in-itself is not a fundamental part of being a person, but the existentialist Buddhist has a few outs: (1) Maybe it isn't part of being free, but it's part of being human. All bets are off when you come back as a zebra or a hungry ghost or whatever. Indeed, the existentialist Buddhist can identify freedom/transcendence with Buddha-nature such that being potentially-enlightened just is being free. Something without Buddha-nature isn't free, and that's neither surprising nor a problem. (2) The Standard Western Reply that much of Buddhist metaphysics is time-and-location-specific and so Westerners (particularly early 20th century French philosophers) can play with things however they want so long as they keep A Few Important Bits That Buddhism is Really About. Insert convenient understanding of what Buddhism Really Is here. To return to emptiness and nothingness, there's not a ton there. The main reason for this, is that the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness is not very metaphysically robust. Things change, no poo poo, nobody's surprised unless they already had goofy-rear end views about souls or whatever. Buddhism's more about a way to deal with the metaphysics than the metaphysics themselves (more on this later). All you have to do to make something Buddhist-acceptable is add "And it constantly changes." Being-in-itself is given value by transcendence, so always changes. Transcendence is always facing choices, and so changes. A human's facticity is constantly going forward in time, accruing new properties (even if they are boring like 'was sleeping at t1'). I think the biggest problem would be the essential freedom that is transcendence, but again Buddhism pretty much assumes that anyway, so no biggie. OK, so let's talk about the real problem: what to do in life. Buddhism says do what causes the least suffering. Existentialism says do whatever your project is and don't be in bad faith. Why not be in bad faith? gently caress YOU IT'S CALLED 'BAD FAITH,' THAT'S WHY. Really. Even if we accept that bad faith is bad because we e.g. don't want to live a delusion, the only way that murdering or whatever is going to be really wrong is if (1) It goes against my project or (2) It leads me to bad faith. Of course, almost everybody has "Be a normal loving person" as part of their project, so most of us are trivially not murderers. But tons of people don't care about suffering on the other side of the world, or of animals, or whatever and there is nothing at all wrong with this from an existentialist viewpoint. Buddhism answers the question with simple egoism and so it is quite easy to understand why one would want to e.g. not let others suffer (One could gripe on the grounds that "If you're doing it for egoistic reasons instead of Pure Altruism it totally doesn't count but let's not get silly). Of course, one could graft Buddhist morality (and some metaphysics, depending on how traditional one wants to be) onto existentialism incredibly easily for the most part. That's because existentialism lets you do anything you want for whatever reason you want, so long as you acknowledge your freedom and facticity. Buddhism basically tells you "Here's a way to reduce suffering." If you're an existentialst that makes reducing suffering your project, and you faithfully believe that Buddhism is the way to reduce that suffering, then boom, you're an existentialist Buddhist. edit: Rhymenoceros posted:The Buddhas teaching don't really make sense without rebirth, because then dying would mean the end of suffering, and then there's no need for a teaching about the end of suffering. The whole point of the practice is to not be reborn again. There's no need for a teaching on this if you don't actually get reborn. Only if pure egoism is the only foundation for ethical behavior. Anybody who thinks that is right there with the "But how could you be moral if there is no God?!" brand of Abrahamic goose. All you have to do to make rebirth unnecessary is say "Actions have consequences that propagate through time, these actions (can) cause suffering, reducing suffering as such is good." Rebirth is only necessary if the only suffering one cares about is one's own, and if that's the case then one is probably a pretty lousy human being. Seriously: if the only reason somebody doesn't steal from me is because they want freedom from suffering, then that person really sucks. Buddhist normative ethics is well-developed, but the naive metaethics needs some serious supplementation. But something tells me that a millenia or so ago some Pali- or Chinese- or Tibetan-language book was written that provides a rich and robust non-egoistic metaethics for Buddhism, and that also this happened dozens of times and there are competing schools within Buddhist thought Don't get me wrong - it's nice to have an egoistic metaethical rider with any ethical system so that moral action doesn't end up sucking horribly all the time (but see Kant). I'm pretty sure that basically all Buddhists take the primary motivator for their Buddhist practice to be the reduction of suffering as such, and not just their own suffering - I don't want to paint the lay Buddhist as some sort of sociopath. It's just that Buddhism tells sociopaths how to behave rightly in a way they can understand (and this is a good thing, though of course rather common). I expect that any normal person has prosocial behavior born into them such that they really do care about others' suffering (and indeed to such a degree that reducing others' suffering automatically reduces their own suffering, though it is crucial that we understand others' suffering as prior in this relation). Achmed Jones fucked around with this message at 10:18 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 07:56
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Achmed Jones posted:Only if pure egoism is the only foundation for ethical behavior. Anybody who thinks that is right there with the "But how could you be moral if there is no God?!" brand of Abrahamic goose. All you have to do to make rebirth unnecessary is say "Actions have consequences that propagate through time, these actions (can) cause suffering, reducing suffering as such is good." Rebirth is only necessary if the only suffering one cares about is one's own, and if that's the case then one is probably a pretty lousy human being. Seriously: if the only reason somebody doesn't steal from me is because they want freedom from suffering, then that person really sucks. Buddhist normative ethics is well-developed, but the naive metaethics needs some serious supplementation. But something tells me that a millenia or so ago some Pali- or Chinese- or Tibetan-language book was written that provides a rich and robust non-egoistic metaethics for Buddhism, and that also this happened dozens of times and there are competing schools within Buddhist thought Firstly, Achmed Jones I adore you, please stay here and teach me all of the things. All of them. I've especially really wanted to make a western rendering of Buddhism through a Kantian or a Hegelian bent. But whatever please post more.  . As a comment though, I do want to point out that emptiness actually does have tons and tons and tons on it. Perhaps not metaphysical debate as much as would be hoped for, but this is metaphysics are largely thrown out in Buddhist discourse because they are often invalidated. So you're spot on there. If you bring up specific metaphysical schemes you might wonder about, I or another will surely do their best to give an appropriate understanding of what a Buddhist viewpoint on it is. Another comment- regarding existential freedom: the Buddhist viewpoint is often one that human beings are perfect (indeed on some level all beings could be understood to be perfect), and it is the reduction of what has arisen that allows us to exist as perfect and free creatures. Without lust, without clinging, without craving or ignorance we exist as paramount humans.All said: there are two problems with your quoted edit here: The first is that rebirth is still necessary -because- there is no cessation of your actions, your karmas, upon your death. I am curious how the foundation of ethics coming entirely from the ego equates to "Abrahamic goose". As far as the reduction of suffering- even that ultimately is something personal, something which emerges because the suffering of others only hurts us- We cannot perceive the reality mediated by others, only by ourselves. When we inflict suffering on someone, ultimately our only way to tell that is to rely upon our own mediative measures. If we undertake actions without compassions, the perfuming of our later actions is such that what occurs will be a difficult experience for us- indeed that much of our own actions are perfumed by the results of a precedent birth. Of course for most people the experience of suffering is such that we naturally do not wish to see the suffering of others, hooray for being social beasts. But when you atomise this, it occurs purely within one's own realm of experience. With regards to the cessation of karmas, rebirth might be mixed up here with reincarnation. Which is strange to me, because you seem to have a good grasp on what rebirth is- if consciousness is something that arises as a result of phenomenon, that consciousness producing phenomenon needn't be linked to one jati, (literal birth). If there is no rebirth, then the karmic chain of actions, indeed for mahayanists the tathagatagarbha (Buddha-seed) extinguishes within the realm of one jati. But this just is not- death is itself a phenomenon and a chain of causality persists. A chain of causality directly causing consciousness to arise birth after birth after agonizing birth. If I am agrotrastha pudgala then outside of the buddhadharma my karmas will never ripen into karmas that will lead me towards seeking the buddhadharma or attaining pratyekabuddhahood within my pudgala. Without rebirth this also includes the jati I am experiencing. If I am hypothetically in such a place that within one lifetime I will never witness the buddhadharma and if I wish to experience freedom from the results of actions, freedom from the suffering of others, can I not simply put a gun to my head and pull the trigger? My actions will cease when I die, and a consciousness will never arise from my being. Death is the end, an annihilation of myself in totality. This is, as you have pointed out, something covered in Buddhism in the form of early heresies. Specifically one of six sramanic preachings concurrent with the Buddha and the mahavira, IIRC the sramanapala sutra, but the pali escape me and it is too late for me to cite it right now. I'm sure prickley pete can cite it at the drop of a hat knowing now what to look for. I'm going to briefly derail because I think you would appreciate an abstract to look into yourself: Bimbisara's successor ajitta-something-or-other gathers several great sramanas before him. Ajitta-whosit points out that craftmen, soldiers, butchers, blacksmiths all reap the rewards of living their life (in ancient india profession was closely tied with your life) within the temporal. A craftsman will make fine pots, a soldier presumably soldiers. A just man who makes offerings to brahmins, who becomes a spiritual patron in his elderly years reaps the reward of a good heavenly life. What is the reward reaped by living a just life, reaped by monks? One espouses living a just materialism, for upon death all is annihilated. One suggests living a just life for upon death there is transcendence forevermore and eternally into the heavenly realm, the soul, temporal matter and pain are eternal and non-interacting. One suggests that we live as we do because we are powerless and all, including suffering, is predetermined. One suggests there is no reward for moral deeds- A deed is a deed regardless of the morals attached to it. One suggests that the reward for living a contemplative life is protection from evils, a cleansing. And finally there's an agnostic dude (I never understood why he was a sramana, hippie spiritualism attaching wonder and mystique to some bumbling dude in ancient india? :v) Dissatisfied he asks the Buddha, who explicated the benefits of attainment. Ajittawhosit is satisfied, declares himself a lay-follower and confesses he had killed his father for his post and is denied enlightenment that birth by his actions. Anyways, if there is an utter annihilation, then there is no call for buddhadharma. Death solves suffering and all temporal angst felt by Buddhists. That's not a negation of morality entirely only that of a Buddhist orientation- naturally if death is annihilation then we do not want to go around killing each other and all that civil secularism and rights of man stuff- but if your fate is suffering no matter what, and there are no consequences then death is your release. There are no further results for your actions, no further actions which arise, there is no further suffering, neither is there any further arising. You can take no further actions which, even through beneficence allow others to suffers. As far as an ethical proscription goes- no rebirth is not requisite for one to arise. But as far as understanding the teachings of the Buddha and examining the nature of the self? Rebirth is a critical component for that. Also is Mr. Mambold literally reading another thread? I am totally lost
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Mar 1, 2014 11:36
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Quantumfate posted:I am curious how the foundation of ethics coming entirely from the ego equates to "Abrahamic goose". If I didn't misunderstand, I believe the point here was simply that if I do good because I personally don't want to suffer, so the only thing preventing me from, say, stealing or murdering is "well, I'd gladly steal or murder, but by so doing I personally would suffer, so I guess I'd rather not," then you're a pretty lovely dude even if you live a perfectly ethical life. "I don't want to murder because murder causes suffering for others" or "I don't want to murder because it denies another their freedom to live" or so on is a much better metaethical stance. "I would murder, but it might cause me personally to suffer" is a lot like "I would murder, but I don't want to go to hell." And that's what leads abrahamic people to go "how can you be moral without god!?"
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Mar 1, 2014 14:09
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Paramemetic posted:"I would murder, but it might cause me personally to suffer" is a lot like "I would murder, but I don't want to go to hell." And that's what leads abrahamic people to go "how can you be moral without god!?" I've heard this a bunch of times in person. I'm pretty sure that most of the time the person didn't really put a whole lot of thought into the matter. That is, they assumed that all morals or ethics are bestowed by a 3rd party, and didn't consider any other possibility. Though, I'm genuinely curious to how many people actually behave in the "I'm only good for fear of divine retribution" manner. I'd hope it's a very tiny number. Also, Achmed Jones should never stop posting.
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Mar 1, 2014 18:41
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comaerror posted:I've heard this a bunch of times in person. I'm pretty sure that most of the time the person didn't really put a whole lot of thought into the matter. That is, they assumed that all morals or ethics are bestowed by a 3rd party, and didn't consider any other possibility. Though, I'm genuinely curious to how many people actually behave in the "I'm only good for fear of divine retribution" manner. I'd hope it's a very tiny number. Yeah, it's not terribly uncommon for people who are raised with a divine command ethic to not quite understand, at first, why people would be good without it. Divine Command Theory is really drat weak and was thoroughly dismantled by Socrates with the Euthyphro dilemma, but when you're raised to be good "because you'll go to heaven" and not to be bad "because you'll go to hell" it is startling to many how nonbelievers can possibly behave ethically. Pushed on the issue, many will agree that it is possible for nonbelievers to behave morally, but they will often go to a kind of "but what if" defense of their own beliefs. "Clearly there are atheists who don't want to commit murder, but if they did want to commit murder and they could get away with it, then why wouldn't they? So of course an atheist is more likely to be immoral." I've always somewhat disliked the whole "carrot and stick" approach to ethics, even as a child, so it's always a bit disappointing to me when even Buddhists appeal to "you'll get a bad rebirth if you do x y or z." Well yeah, probably, but that's not why someone shouldn't do it. It's just a result of doing it. Someone shouldn't do it for other reasons, as well! But again, this isn't unique to Buddhism, or existentialism, or so on. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid."
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Mar 1, 2014 19:18
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Achmed Jones posted:Only if pure egoism is the only foundation for ethical behavior. Anybody who thinks that is right there with the "But how could you be moral if there is no God?!" brand of Abrahamic goose. All you have to do to make rebirth unnecessary is say "Actions have consequences that propagate through time, these actions (can) cause suffering, reducing suffering as such is good." Rebirth is only necessary if the only suffering one cares about is one's own, and if that's the case then one is probably a pretty lousy human being. Seriously: if the only reason somebody doesn't steal from me is because they want freedom from suffering, then that person really sucks. Buddhist normative ethics is well-developed, but the naive metaethics needs some serious supplementation. But something tells me that a millenia or so ago some Pali- or Chinese- or Tibetan-language book was written that provides a rich and robust non-egoistic metaethics for Buddhism, and that also this happened dozens of times and there are competing schools within Buddhist thought You could be like "I want to steal but I'm not going to do so because the other person will suffer", but even better would be to understand that - because of the way reality is built - there can be no gain in stealing, in fact it will only lead ultimately to your own suffering anyway - thus dispelling the desire to steal. Rebirth is necessary because the end goal of the practice of Buddhism is to stop being reborn. There's no getting around this. Achmed Jones posted:Don't get me wrong - it's nice to have an egoistic metaethical rider with any ethical system so that moral action doesn't end up sucking horribly all the time (but see Kant). I'm pretty sure that basically all Buddhists take the primary motivator for their Buddhist practice to be the reduction of suffering as such, and not just their own suffering - I don't want to paint the lay Buddhist as some sort of sociopath. It's just that Buddhism tells sociopaths how to behave rightly in a way they can understand (and this is a good thing, though of course rather common). I expect that any normal person has prosocial behavior born into them such that they really do care about others' suffering (and indeed to such a degree that reducing others' suffering automatically reduces their own suffering, though it is crucial that we understand others' suffering as prior in this relation). There is no aspect of reward or punishment in this, this is just the way reality functions according to the Buddha. Rhymenoceros fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 19:22
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I'd be very interested in seeing some informed critiques of Buddhist thought and practice from a Western perspective. There's plenty out there, but even with my relatively limited understanding of the more metaphysical aspects, most of what I've seen lacks a basic understanding or is full of misinterpretation. Achmed, thank you for your post, that was fantastic. Never read Sartre, so maybe it's time to pick up Being and Nothingness. quote:I've especially really wanted to make a western rendering of Buddhism through a Kantian or a Hegelian bent.
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Mar 1, 2014 19:22
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Cumshot in the Dark posted:I'd be very interested in seeing some informed critiques of Buddhist thought and practice from a Western perspective. There's plenty out there, but even with my relatively limited understanding of the more metaphysical aspects, most of what I've seen lacks a basic understanding or is full of misinterpretation.
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Mar 1, 2014 19:50
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Quantumfate posted:
I'm interested by this as this is something that sometimes scares me. Am I totally alone in my reality ? Is reality just me in my own world of sensations, perceptions ? This would mean that we are totally alone and would lead to the conclusion that there is only one suffering, and it's my suffering. I don't think it is so, though, and i would like to submit hypothesis on this (it's only my - probably wrong - thoughts about it), and be corrected maybe. So, when i think about it, i don't think it really works this way. The way you perceive, for example other's suffering, does not only depend on you ; your experience, your personality, how you perceive things, all of this does not come from you but from the infinitely complex contacts between you and the world - and these contacts are shaped by tons of interdependent relations. We have sensations and perceptions just because there is a contact between the world and our senses/mind/body/whatever. And this contact, that you cannot completely describe or understand (because in the end it is not external nor internal, not you nor "not not you"), finally, is what we are. So to perceive someone's suffering, well, the clues of his suffering must be perceived, and if they are perceived, they exist. Suffering is never only "my" suffering. I can only have an idea of suffering because there are others that i can perceive, who suffer. If there weren't others, or external things to create sensation of suffering, i would totally not be able to see suffering or recognize suffering. A good example is the famous experiment with children that were totally denied communication with other people from their births and were quite isolated from sensory inputs ; you could burn them with a flame and they would not react at all. They did not "know" what suffering was. This shows that suffering and all the range of our emotions and even perceptions and sensations are not limited to "us", but on the contrary, they are built, interdependent, constantly changing, and so depend completely on others and what is "not us". Maybe that is also the meaning of the sutra where the buddha says that perceptions are not self, sensations are not self, etc... ? So i really think that other's suffering should be acknowledged as their suffering, and of course it's ours too, distinct and not distinct at the same time. Because there cannot be suffering if there is no "other".
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Mar 1, 2014 20:07
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Rhymenoceros posted:What does a critique of Buddhist thought look like? The Buddha is saying "reality is like this" and he can either be right or wrong about it. Wouldn't using, for example, science be the best way to confirm or disconfirm it? Science would be the best way, yes. Unfortunately, we don't have karma detectors, a telescope that can peer into heavenly realms, or the ability to say whether or not rebirth happens, outside of some extremely suspect parapsychological pseudoscience and past life regression stuff. Therefore the cosmological and afterlife aspects of Buddhism, are just as inapproachable by science as any other religion or spiritual system. It can neither confirm nor deny many of these aspects, it can only say that there is no hard empirical or logical evidence for the literal existence of these ideas. Of course I'm a hopeless optimist and perhaps one day science will be able to put to bed spiritual questions like this. The easiest way, it seems to me, to confirm the actual validity of the Buddhist approach to life would be to examine the psychological states and general happiness of long term practitioners, as the reduction of and eventual total elimination of suffering is something that could be measured. So far I haven't seen any studies or research done about it, outside of some analyses of meditation. Buddhist psychology has already been somewhat scientifically validated by it's adoption by evidence based medicine in some aspects, so why not go whole hog and try to figure out if Nirvana (the psychological state, again we can't scientifically say that the enlightened person stops producing karma or is freed from the cycle of rebirth) actually exists? (worst Buddhist ITT) edit: To clarify, I have pretty drat good confidence in the Buddhist path, and I pretty much either agree or leave the question open on the metaphysical issues. Hence my wish to see an unbiased person try to tear down the whole lot and prove me wrong. Cumshot in the Dark fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 20:24
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Cumshot in the Dark posted:Time to play devil's advocate: Anyway, for example some of the final steps (described) before attaining nibbana is seeing your past lives, seeing karma, and seeing how beings are appear/disappear according to their kamma (I don't remember the exact wording here). These are all things that can be known by a person in their lifetime. As humans, we too are invited to see how reality actually is like this. I think it makes sense that science should be able to comment on this. Science is about describing reality. If the Buddha is right then science should be able - to some extent at least - confirm this. I didn't really mean to get into a big discussion about this, I just wanted to make the point the Buddha is pretty much says "there is rebirth, there is the law of karma" and that these are not beliefs or metaphysics but statements about the nature of reality.
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Mar 1, 2014 21:13
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Rhymenoceros posted:There is scientific work on rebirth which isn't pseudoscience. Basically talking to children who claim to remember past lives, have them describe what they remember, and then checking out the story, does the place/people they describe exist? Not really a big deal either way since there isn't any scriptural support saying that non-enlightened beings accurately recall past life memories, and it isn't a core teaching, alongside other siddhis. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, I can't keep every sutra memorized  )Rhymenoceros posted:
I obviously have a much bigger problem with religion as opposed to science in this view, as it often makes absolutist statements and avoids deviating from doctrine in the face of scientific evidence. This has always puzzled me, personally. If you are interested in the truth (if such an absolute idea exists but thats a whole nother story) why reject one tool in strict favor of the other? Droppin some Dalai Lama here because I think his outlook on the matter rings absolutely true from both perspectives. http://www.dalailama.com/messages/buddhism/science-at-the-crossroads fakedit: Well that was hella offtopic.
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Mar 1, 2014 21:53
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So I've continued doing Zazen sessions, and I'm starting to wonder if Zen is basically about discipline, and everything else is a "byproduct"? The teacher said something about the "right posture" being the essence of Zazen (at least that's what I got from his sayings). Does "discipline" as a word or complex exist in buddhist scripture? Or maybe there's something similar?
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Mar 1, 2014 22:20
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midnightclimax posted:So I've continued doing Zazen sessions, and I'm starting to wonder if Zen is basically about discipline, and everything else is a "byproduct"? The teacher said something about the "right posture" being the essence of Zazen (at least that's what I got from his sayings). Does "discipline" as a word or complex exist in buddhist scripture? Or maybe there's something similar? Discipline corresponds to right effort (part of the Noble Eightfold Path), and there is also something called the Four Exertions. These are not specific to Zen, but are applicable to all traditions and schools. Self-discipline, while an important quality, is not the only thing. It exists in a balance with everything else, and is something to be applied when required or useful. The Four Exertions: Buddha posted:There are these four right exertions. Which four? There is the case where a monk generates desire, endeavors, arouses persistence, upholds & exerts his intent for the sake of the non-arising of evil, unskillful qualities that have not yet arisen... for the sake of the abandoning of evil, unskillful qualities that have arisen... for the sake of the arising of skillful qualities that have not yet arisen... (and) for the maintenance, non-confusion, increase, plenitude, development, & culmination of skillful qualities that have arisen. These are the four right exertions.
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Mar 1, 2014 23:06
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The focus in Zen tends to be upon the specific experience/sensation of zazen. Anything beyond that can be understood to be basically a side-effect of zazen, but that is in no way a definitive interpretation of it. Just one way of looking at it. That approach or perspective is emphasized to help keep whatever someone experiences during zazen in perspective. I.e. it is mostly meant to discourage people getting all attached to (or too caught up in) meditative experience (which varies an awful lot, person to person).
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Mar 1, 2014 23:07
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Quantumfate posted:All said: there are two problems with your quoted edit here: The first is that rebirth is still necessary -because- there is no cessation of your actions, your karmas, upon your death. I am curious how the foundation of ethics coming entirely from the ego equates to "Abrahamic goose". Paramemetic had it right, so I won't repeat his or her words here Note: I'm going to articulate/defend the position for a while because it seemed that we were talking past each other a bit. I think that your objection as stated doesn't work for weaselly reasons, but that a very similar objection does work, so the system I was articulating pretty much gets reductio'ed. So if you aren't interested in reading an ultimately faulty response, just skip to the end. I do think that it's a pretty good (if very rough) working-out of the no-rebirth position, at least until it can't meet the final objections. Of course, there might be no-rebirth folks out there that have responses to the objections, but I couldn't think of any on my own. quote:As far as the reduction of suffering- even that ultimately is something personal, something which emerges because the suffering of others only hurts us- We cannot perceive the reality mediated by others, only by ourselves. When we inflict suffering on someone, ultimately our only way to tell that is to rely upon our own mediative measures. If we undertake actions without compassions, the perfuming of our later actions is such that what occurs will be a difficult experience for us- indeed that much of our own actions are perfumed by the results of a precedent birth. Of course for most people the experience of suffering is such that we naturally do not wish to see the suffering of others, hooray for being social beasts. But when you atomise this, it occurs purely within one's own realm of experience. You are right here, but the impossibility of immediate access to the world doesn't imply egoism in the way that I'm using the term. Egoism (as I am using it, at least) says that self-interest is the only motivator for ethical behavior. That can be accepted or denied regardless of what stance one takes with regards to immediate access to the world. You're right that access is mediated, but care can still be other-directed even if "other" is a postulate of reason and not something that is actually accessible to us. quote:With regards to the cessation of karmas, rebirth might be mixed up here with reincarnation. Which is strange to me, because you seem to have a good grasp on what rebirth is- if consciousness is something that arises as a result of phenomenon, that consciousness producing phenomenon needn't be linked to one jati, (literal birth). If there is no rebirth, then the karmic chain of actions, indeed for mahayanists the tathagatagarbha (Buddha-seed) extinguishes within the realm of one jati. But this just is not- death is itself a phenomenon and a chain of causality persists. A chain of causality directly causing consciousness to arise birth after birth after agonizing birth. I'm not making the reincarnation/rebirth mistake (I hope!), but rather saying that the position I'm describing (though not endorsing!) would say that the chain of karmic actions doesn't stop at death. It would just deny the 1:1 correspondence that I was asking about before - I do an action, and lots of things happen as a result. One of these is that two people meet that never would have without my action, and they have a kid. My causal chain results in a birth, and so I "am reborn." And I "am reborn" again when that kid has a kid, and a grandkid, and ten generations later and on and on. I put "reborn" in scare quotes there because this position would be boneheadedly stupid if it tried to say "The texts really mean that" or "Buddha was lying to people so they'd get on board" or whatever. Rather it'd be mangling the poo poo out of traditional Buddhism to make it palatable to an audience of French existentialists or American atheist epiphenomenalist neuroscientists or whoever. Whether that is fundamentally different from what other Buddhist traditions have done is open to debate. quote:If I am agrotrastha pudgala then outside of the buddhadharma my karmas will never ripen into karmas that will lead me towards seeking the buddhadharma or attaining pratyekabuddhahood within my pudgala. Without rebirth this also includes the jati I am experiencing. If I am hypothetically in such a place that within one lifetime I will never witness the buddhadharma and if I wish to experience freedom from the results of actions, freedom from the suffering of others, can I not simply put a gun to my head and pull the trigger? My actions will cease when I die, and a consciousness will never arise from my being. Death is the end, an annihilation of myself in totality. This is, as you have pointed out, something covered in Buddhism in the form of early heresies. I don't know what "agrotrastha pudgala" means and Google turned up no hits, so I might go wrong here . But the position I described would have problems with some of the above. Specifically, the no-rebirth understanding would say something like "An action is fixed in time but its consequences infinitely propagate forward. Even after we are dead, our actions continue to propagate and thus create (or alleviate) suffering. You stop generating new actions when you die, but your actions never cease in a meaningful way." One could put it in more Buddhist language by saying that our actions constantly "birth and rebirth" new effects even after we are dead, that we are our actions (they affect our ever-changing character, and our ever-changing character is borne out in our actions), and so we "are reborn." But that's not the 1:1 karmic death->birth causal chain of course, it's weaseling around.quote:Specifically one of six sramanic preachings concurrent with the Buddha and the mahavira, IIRC the sramanapala sutra ... quote:Anyways, if there is an utter annihilation, then there is no call for buddhadharma. Right, but the attacked version of annihilationism is always "There is no rebirth, and therefore anything goes, drink and fight and steal." If an epiphenomenalist or materialist or whoever can say "There is no rebirth and there is good reason to behave justly, then they're on much better ground than the annihilationist. There needs to be an argument as to why materialism/epiphenomenalism/whatever implies freedom to be a jerk. You don't need the 1:1 causal rebirth that can properly be called "rebirth" to get propagation of "character" after death. quote:Death solves suffering and all temporal angst felt by Buddhists. That's not a negation of morality entirely only that of a Buddhist orientation- naturally if death is annihilation then we do not want to go around killing each other and all that civil secularism and rights of man stuff- but if your fate is suffering no matter what, and there are no consequences then death is your release. Sure there are consequences. People will still suffer. It's just not your suffering. Killing yourself would cause tons of suffering. If one is taking an empirical idealist view (Berkeley, basically) of the way that we exist with, give value to, and interact with our environments, then sure - might as well punch that ticket since esse est percipi, there's no God, and if we stop perceiving then all suffering stops being. But if we're being a bit more precise about it (if we're being transcendental idealists instead of empirical idealists) - Kantian or neo-Carnapian or whatever - then we can say something like "All interaction requires the application of a conceptual model to the raw uninterpreted data that is the world (this world is also an ideal postulate of reason, not accessible in a non-conceptually-mediated way, etc) and through habituation and thought we can alter this conceptual model in many ways. The mountain is just a meaningless hunk of rock until I look at it and value it as to-be-climbed or to-be-avoided. But the mountain is still there (even though it is constituted by me as a mountain). Similarly, I cannot but experience the world through a largely self-created (with help from the surrounding culture or biology or whatever, it isn't too important) conceptual schema, but that doesn't mean that when I die the world stops existing. My actions continue having an effect on those around me and increasing (or decreasing, if they are right actions) the total amount of suffering (this may or may not actually be mathematically coherent, but let's pretend it is for now). I cannot experience these people's mental states as I experience my own, and I can only tell what's going on by their external behavior, but I'm pretty sure that they are minded and free like me, and that they will stick around after I am dead. If I suicide, then my fiancee* will be sad. If she is sad, she might do a bad job at work. If she does a bad job at work, people might die, and so their kids go into foster care, and so, and so, and so. I think that line works very well with normal socially-integrated people. But then you think of the outcasts and the hermits and all, and it's not clear how the no-rebirth position could account for their suicide causing anyone else's suffering. They go out into the woods and never come back, no friends or family miss them, and some wild animals get a snack. Big whoop. If "Gently disengage from social life such that no one cares about you and then kill yourself" is a good strategy in a system, we have a pretty messed up system. Similarly, if there were a way to quickly destroy the entire world without causing suffering, the no-rebirth "Buddhist" should mash that doomsday button. And I think that these are pretty damning critiques of the system. I mean, there are textual objections that one could make too, but if someone is taking such a position they've already explicitly rejected the necessity of paying attention to the words on the page, so the objection isn't too pointed. But "Your system endorses the actions of suicidal hermits and Bond villains" is a pretty damning internal critique, I think This line of argumentation against the no-rebirth view hadn't occurred to me until responding to you here - to be clear I was wrong when I said that one could sensibly divorce rebirth from the system earlier. One can do that, but then one gets a suicidal-hermit and Dr Evil as paragons of virtue, so let's just toss that system out! Thank you for your (constant, gentle, pointed) help! Rhymenoceros posted:It doesn't come from egotism but from understanding; the only reason to steal is if you think that there can be some gain in doing so, but because of the law of karma there is not. This is a great point, and makes it obvious why someone who is enlightened shouldn't be able to steal, kill, etc. It's not that they can't, but rather that they see doing so as just dumb and so there is no temptation that they must quell. The jerk doesn't steal because he doesn't want to suffer, the good person doesn't steal because she doesn't want to cause others to suffer, and the enlightened person doesn't steal because they understand karma, so why would they even consider it? Thank you! Rhymenoceros posted:What does a critique of Buddhist thought look like? The Buddha is saying "reality is like this" and he can either be right or wrong about it. Wouldn't using, for example, science be the best way to confirm or disconfirm it? If the conceptual structure is internally contradictory/incoherent, then it is false. You don't need empirical testing for that. Rhymenoceros posted:I just wanted to make the point the Buddha is pretty much says "there is rebirth, there is the law of karma" and that these are not beliefs or metaphysics but statements about the nature of reality. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "metaphysics," but I don't think it's quite how I use it: metaphysics is the study of what exists, ie the nature of reality. I also don't know what you mean by "belief." Perhaps something that is closer to what I mean by "opinion"? In my book, our beliefs are the way that we expect the world to be. When the world actually is that way, the belief is true. Some of these beliefs are about the nature of reality and about what sorts of things exist, and those beliefs are metaphysical. Some beliefs are about other things. * Tomorrow I will marry her, and then I will be out of town for a couple weeks. I hope to catch up with the thread then. Thank you all for being awesome I also apologize for being fairly scatterbrained here. Thank you for bearing with me!
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Mar 1, 2014 23:24
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Achmed Jones posted:If the conceptual structure is internally contradictory/incoherent, then it is false. You don't need empirical testing for that. Achmed Jones posted:I'm not quite sure what you mean by "metaphysics," but I don't think it's quite how I use it: metaphysics is the study of what exists, ie the nature of reality. I also don't know what you mean by "belief." Perhaps something that is closer to what I mean by "opinion"? In my book, our beliefs are the way that we expect the world to be. When the world actually is that way, the belief is true. Some of these beliefs are about the nature of reality and about what sorts of things exist, and those beliefs are metaphysical. Some beliefs are about other things. Achmed Jones posted:* Tomorrow I will marry her, and then I will be out of town for a couple weeks. I hope to catch up with the thread then. Thank you all for being awesome
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Mar 2, 2014 09:29
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Losar Tashi Delek everyone practicing Tibetan Buddhism! Today is the first day of the Tibetan year 2141, of the Male Wood Horse. At our center, we practiced Milarepa Guru Yoga, and made a smoke offering. A lot of the local Tibetan community came out, it was very nice. Losar also marks the beginning of the Buddha Days, which will continue until 16 March. On these days, karmic consequences are multiplied by one hundred million, so if you're thinking of doing virtuous practices, taking vows, and so on, this is a good time to do that. If you're planning to practice non-virtues, perhaps consider rescheduling. It is a very good idea to take precepts during the Buddha days. Some other calendars will have already practiced the Buddha days I think.
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Mar 3, 2014 00:01
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| # ? May 14, 2024 10:48 |
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I have this card which I believe is supposed to ward off evil spirits, from googling I've been able to determine that it's a "Usnisa-Sitatapatra Dharani Wheel" but would anyone here be able to translate or tell me more?
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Mar 3, 2014 01:40
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